As always, when it comes to training your body to get stronger, there are no hard and fast rules.
Deciding when to change an exercise can be difficult. You may have a well-rounded training plan to stick with, but even the best ones will go to a halt at some point because of diminishing returns.
At that point, it’s time to change something. But what exactly and how?
Well, fully answering that is definitely beyond the scope of this post, so instead, let me just raise some more questions, or rather just start an “it depends” kind of contemplation.
Let’s suppose your hobby is playing tennis, and you heard that Bulgarian squats can help strengthen your lower body. So you tried, and completed 10 weeks of a workout protocol, after which you felt that you needed to change something because it was impossible to increase the parameters.
The following thoughts might help to spark some ideas about the possible ways for progressing. At least these are the questions I would ask myself:
Can I not increase volume and intensity?
If you want to stick with an exercise, there are numerous loading methods to further increase stimulation.
For example, you can add more volume/sets by dropping the weight.
You can rest more between sets, or broaden the time-frame of the workout, which allows increasing intensity.
Or the opposite, you can try density training, where you set a time-frame under which you complete as many repetitions as possible sparsed with mini-rests.
Can I not increase time under tension?
You can elongate the negative phase of the lift (eccentric), make it 3-6 count long.
You can also pause the movement on certain phases of the lift. On the way down/up, bottom/middle/quarter/top for a certain amount of time.
These are advanced methods, though you probably need to decrease the weights used for that exercise.
Can I not change the style of repetition?
In general, if your goal is to increase your athleticism, you want to avoid slow concentric repetitions (on the way up) and rather accelerate up as you finish the movement.
Or you can even accelerate the movement downward as well, bounce as you reach the bottom and come back up as fast and explosive as possible.
For this latter example think about a max vertical jump. If you want to jump as high as you can, the last thing you need is to slow down the negative portion of the movement.
This explosive type of training is oftentimes referred to as plyometric training, popularized by Russian scientist Yuri Verkhoshansky.
Can I not use accommodating resistance?
That basically means you add extra resistance to the phase of the lift where it feels the lightest. Usually, that is the top part. As you get to the end of the concentric phase of the lift where you are the strongest, the resistance gradually becomes higher, counterbalancing your increasing power advantage over the weight.
Finally, if I have to change the exercise what should I change it for?
That’s always a tough decision to make. You might feel that your hard-earned strength increase for your certain exercise will be thrown out the window. However the time has come, there’s no choice, you have to make a change.
Basically, you have to find a stimulus that is not too closely resembling the exercise you did before because then you wouldn’t really make a change. But it should not be too unspecific either to your previous movement pattern, because that way you would really risk losing your strength improvement.
So it all comes down to how specific the new exercise is to your old one, in this case to the Bulgarian split squat.
Let’s see three examples:
- You decide to play safe, thus don’t deviate too much from Bulgarian split squats. So you simply choose walking lunges holding dumbbells by your side. You can keep strengthening the movement pattern and let’s say after 4 weeks, switch to split squats with a barbell on your back, without elevating the rear leg.
First progression was a more challenging exercise that don’t let you use that much weight, instead forces you to stabilize, while the second progression was a heavier weight with a more comfortable, stationary movement. But you can switch up the orders if you like. - Let’s suppose now that by the time you got to week 10 you are bored with Bulgarian split squats and the accompanying pain (provided you’re of human) so much you just want to forget it exists. Then the more rational way is to take a step back, let that specific stimulus vanish a bit, and choose a bilateral exercise further away from the specificity line, so you can allow your original movement pattern a little rest.
If your front thigh muscles (quadriceps group) are underdeveloped you can switch to barbell or kettlebell front squats. That is still specific to this same muscle group the split squat triggered, but unspecific enough to let you stimulate your legs for another 8-12 week or even longer period, without losing much of your split squat-gained abilities. - If your quad muscles are in killing pain however, you can give them a rest and go even further away from split squats, let’s say switch to deadlift. This could be a rational choice if:
A. You just want to forget split squats.
B. You plateaued your split squat progressions, but you have to make a change that allows you to get back as fast to doing split squats as possible. The deadlift works as kind of a rest, although still stimulates your lower body enough, not to lose your split squat progressions. After a few weeks of deadlifting, you can get back to split squats and try to increase your numbers.
Finally, the most unspecific exercise you can choose is, of course, not exercising at all. You can just give a full 1-2 weeks of rest to your lower body. As a general rule of thumb, completely losing your strength takes roughly the same amount of time it took to build it, so don’t worry.
To Wrap It Up
Provided you want to become the king of Bulgarian split squats, the more unspecific the movement pattern you choose as a substitute for them, the less time you can spend with that exercise, not Bulgarian split squatting. Spending more time with a highly unspecific exercise to Bulgarian split squats leads to diminishing returns to exerting force in a split stance.
However, it is possible to counterbalance this strength loss to an extent with intensity (more weight).
Getting back to the previous example, let’s say you substitute dumbbell Bulgarian split squats with the barbell front squat.
It’s unspecific in that it is more of a bilateral exercise and front-loaded, which demands more anti-flexion (keep your upper body extended not collapsing to a slouch).
However specific in that there is plenty of knee flexion and full extension which means the front thigh muscles are loaded greatly. So if you hit them heavy, (the nature of the exercise let you use heavy loading) that is going to convert well enough to any split squat exercise.
As deadlifts make you bend your knees and push away from the floor, they can be fruitful as well as a Bulgarian split squat substitute. Even though they fall further off in specificity, they still strengthen the lower body and the heavy weights can take care of your force exertion abilities, making up for the less specificity.
Be warned though that this strategy is a double-edged weapon. The more you load your less specific exercise, the more you become a master of it, and thus the further away you get from being strong in your original exercise – in this case, the Bulgarian split squat.
Who told programming was easy…
Let’s take a very bad example as well, suppose you take pull-ups as a substitute for split squats. As this exercise itself is not specific at all being an upper body movement, loading it with extra weight just makes it even more unspecific.
It all comes down to the basic principle, that if you want to become good at something you have got to practice it a lot, and the less you do, the more general rather than specific your abilities become.
I hope this post makes sense and sparks some ideas the next time you are about to change your exercise.
