How Often Should You Change Your Workout Routine? (Honestly)

You know you should change your workout routine once in a while, but how often exactly? What’s the ideal frequency if your goal is to build muscle?

Let’s get right down to the point: it’s probably not as often as you think.

😱 If you’re changing your workouts every few weeks (or worse, every single time), you need to read this.

Ways to change your workout routine

Now, let’s look at common ways of changing your workout routine! 

We’re not going to talk about reps and weights because these are supposed to change frequently for progressive overload. You knew that, right?

This chart shows the changes you can make and how disruptive they might be.

Note: these effects can be very subjective based on training experience, so make your own assessment if you’re shaking things up.

In general, the more extreme the change, the less frequently you should do it.

This minimizes the disruption to the progress you have made so far. 

As such, if you want good results, you shouldn’t be changing your workout routine on a whim. 

A smarter approach: start by asking yourself why you want to make changes.

Why do you want to change your workout routine?

Knowing your reasons will give you a better idea of what’s worth changing and when to act on it.

Plus, this helps you avoid casual and non-productive changes that, TBH, we’ve all made at some point on our fitness journey.

Common reasons for changing your workout routine:

• You are not seeing results like before
• You are not recovering well enough
• You are bored of the same exercises
• You are inspired by what you saw on social media

These are all perfectly fine reasons. 

But to make a good decision, you have to be REALLY honest about how important each of them is TO YOU.

Not every reason is worth prioritizing or acting on

We’re all familiar with the need for consistency in any training program.

You want to be consistent with progressive overload so you can get stronger and build more muscle over time. 

But here’s the trouble, every change you make to your workout will be disruptive. (You can’t avoid it. It’s just a matter of how much.)

You’ll have to spend some time re-adapting and finding your momentum before you can go back to making progress.

That’s why you need to assess if a reason is even worth the setbacks.

And yes, this probably goes against what you see on social media where there are always exciting and new workouts popping up. Learn what you can, but don’t be tempted into making casual changes.

Consider how impactful your changes are

Here’s the important part: we want to make changes that are as impactful and beneficial as possible.

After all, it has to be worth all the effort and the setbacks you have to deal with.

But this is something only you can decide for yourself.

For example, “not recovering well” might sound like a no-brainer reason for change. This is straightforward.

🥱 But how about “getting bored”? It might sound very trivial and that you lack discipline, but if you know it’s the one thing holding you back, it might be a very impactful change.

That’s why you need to be honest and practical about your decisions.

When is it time to change your workout routine?

OK, we can't possibly list all the indicators here. But we can narrow it down to a few significant ones!

Good indicators to change your workout routine:

• You're making little to no progress
• You can't recover well enough
• You can't stick to the routine consistently

These indicators are pretty clear-cut. Changes need to be made to maintain progress.

Of course, these indicators could be caused by 1 or more reasons in your training.

So, once again, you need to honestly assess your workout and consider what could be done better.

And relax. This is a long journey of trial and error. You’ll make mistakes over time, and that’s fine. 

You’ll learn more about yourself over time and get better at making improvements to your training.

How often should you change your workout routine?

After all that we’ve talked about, you know how complicated this question can be. 

The honest answer is: there isn't a fixed frequency or time frame to change your workouts.

If there’s a pressing issue (e.g., can’t recover well), you should address that ASAP — this situation is clear.

If you’re fine with your workouts, just make frequent evaluations of how you're performing, how you feel, and what’s not working. 

This improves your awareness and prevents you from simply “going with the flow” and ignoring potential problems.

Use 8 to 12 weeks as a benchmark

OK, we know how unnerving it can be to hear “there’s no fixed frequency”. 

So, if you like, use 8 to 12 weeks as a starting point. That’s how long most hypertrophy training programs run for, so it should be a comfortable and familiar duration.

Here’s what it could look like based on your training experience.

For beginners, re-evaluate your performance every 8 to 12 weeks to identify areas of improvement. This gives enough time for you to adapt to any changes and make good progress. 

For advanced trainees, make evaluations every 12 to 16 weeks. You need a longer runway to notice results since your progress is inevitably slower than when you were a beginner.

3 steps to decide when and what changes to make

Let’s think about the whole process in 3 steps:

1. Identify why you want to change your workout routine
2. Decide on what changes to make and when to do it
3. Implement the changes and re-evaluate frequently

And if you’ve already forgotten most of what you have just read, just remember: change your workout routine only when the changes are impactful.