Hey there Muscles,

I look at programming differently these days. Maybe it's because I've been coaching for nearly twenty years and I've seen every fad come and go.

Or maybe it's because I just don't have the patience or time for anything in the gym that won't actually move the needle.

Either way, I'd rather run the same program for months on end than trick myself into thinking I'm making progress because I keep program hopping. Am I enlightened, or just a grumpy coach?

You Have the Right Tool. You're Using It Wrong.

One of my clients asked me last week if they were doing the same workout they'd been doing for the last couple of weeks.

My answer was yes... and I could see a little flicker of disappointment on their face. Like they were hoping I'd say no, that we'd switched things up, that surely we wouldn't dig our heels in and do the same work again.

I get it. The intrusive thoughts that pop up after weeks of the same hard workout, knowing you have less runway to push yourself in week five than you did in week two. I also get how doing the same thing over and over can feel like the easy way out, like maybe you're not creative enough to come up with something better.

But here's the thing... that feeling is exactly backwards.

The problem isn't that they're doing the same workout. The problem is that we've convinced ourselves that progress lives in novelty.

We think if we're not changing exercises every few weeks, we're not actually training smart. So we swap back squats for front squats, then leg press, then back to back squats. We add pauses, then chains, then tempo work. Cramming as much cool shit into one program as we can, because why not.

Muscles Respond to Tension, Not Just Movement

Here's what that actually looks like over time:

• a month of back squats for eights, then
• a month of front squats for fives, then
• a month of leg press for tens, then
• back to back squats for eights.

You spend three to four weeks in each block wondering why you're not getting stronger.

The issue isn't the exercises. It's that you're creating complexity because you don't want to settle in and do back squats for five reps, week after week, month after month. That would feel too easy. Too boring. Too much like work.

But that's exactly where progress lives.

This is shiny object syndrome dressed up in coaching language. The truth is simpler. It is so simple it's almost scary, because it requires you to walk into the gym, stare down the same exercise you've been doing for weeks, and get after it anyway. Doing the same movements over and over, with intention and progressive overload, is how you actually get stronger. It's not exciting. It doesn't make for a flashy Instagram post. But it works.

Oh, You're BORED?

That feeling of boredom isn't telling you your program is broken. It's telling you one of three things: you're not training hard enough and need to actually push, you're banged up and need to adjust how you're doing the movement... not what movement you're doing, or you're just mentally checked out and need to put your head down and do the work.

None of those problems get solved by switching exercises.

One Fix to Apply This Week

Look at your program. Write down the main lifts you're doing. Now ask yourself, am I actually committing to these, or am I just rotating through them because I'm bored? If you're bouncing between movements every few weeks, you're not training smarter. You're training scared.

Pick your lifts. Do them. Push them. Give them time to work. That's it.

Next week, we're talking about how to actually structure this so it works, the 80/20 split, what changes and what doesn't, and why simplicity is your biggest competitive advantage.

Stay strong, stay durable,

– Mike

​
​Grab your next program here​

​
​

​
​