Suppose you’re following a push pull legs workout routine and train on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You don’t sleep well on Thursday night and you’re dragging anchor on Friday—leg day. Should you dig in and get it done anyway or push the workout back to Saturday?
Or suppose you wake up on Wednesday—pull day—and your upper body is bushed from your push workout on Monday. Should you do all you can or swap it for the leg workout you normally do on Friday?
Many people sniff at the idea of programming their workouts according to how they feel on any given day, but there’s evidence this approach can be more effective than hewing rigidly to the same routine week in, week out.
A notable example of this is a study conducted by scientists at St. Francis College, which divided 16 beginner weightlifters into two groups:
A rigid programming group, which performed all of their workouts in the same order and on the same days each week.
A flexible programming group, which was allowed to choose what workout they did each day of the week based on how they felt.
Both groups did the same number and type of workouts, and after twelve weeks, the flexible programming group gained significantly more strength than the rigid programming group.
Flexible programming can also help you better stick to your program. In a nine-week study conducted by scientists at South Florida University, powerlifters using flexible programming missed four workouts, whereas those using rigid programming missed eight workouts.
Yet another benefit of flexible programming is it can reduce the risk of injury. While I’m not aware of any research on this point, most experienced weightlifters can tell you of at least a couple of injuries they’ve sustained along the way in workouts they knew they should’ve skipped because of how they felt going into them.
Flexibility is easy to effectively integrate into your routine, too. Here are a few tips:
Instead of rigidly assigning specific workouts to specific days, create a list of workouts you aim to complete each week (two upper-body workouts and one lower-body workout, for instance) as well as a minimum number of weekly workouts to stay on track (one upper-body and lower-body workout).
Pay attention to your levels of fatigue, soreness, and motivation, and when any of these factors are significant enough to noticeably impair your performance in the gym, choose a less challenging workout from your “menu.”
Don’t view flexibility as a free pass to skip training. Remember that compromising always beats surrendering. Great workouts aren’t always the ones you asked for.
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Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you live in the UK, Canada, Puerto Rico, or Guam, your order ships free when it’s over $99.
Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We're also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you’re outside the USA, your order ships free when it’s over $199.
Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We're also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
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