How does your body adapt to exercise routines (requiring you to change your workout routine to prevent plateaus)?
In: Biology
TL;DR: It doesn’t
If you’re progressively lifting heavier weight, adding more sets, etc., then you can keep the routine exactly the same without any plateaus. Plateaus are the result of your body not being challenged enough to force it to adapt. If you start off only being able to do 10 pushups, but keep trying to do more, you’ll be able to do 20 at some point. You’ll “plateau” if you stop trying to do more pushups because your body has no reason to change, but you can work your way up to 30, 40, 50 pushups just by doing more pushups. You don’t need to throw different exercises into the mix. The same basic routine will be effective as long as you increase the intensity over time.
I used to bodybuild, and I did the same one or two exercises for each muscle group for years. I’d increase the volume and the weight as needed, but there was no reason to deviate from a routine that worked.
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