A Weight training routine is an important part of your strength training and in fact your overall fitness regimen.

When we get started with our weight workouts we have one weight training routine and that is to make sure that we are working every muscle group for 8-12 reps for three sets. Usually the weight training routine does not change for a long time and eventually we may get tired of it and skip a couple and next thing we know we are not doing any weight training at all.

Well I am hoping to change that here. You can have many different types of weight training routine and I have found that one of the important things to do with your muscles is to not overtrain them and to alter your weight training routine as much as possible so I am going to give you lots of choices for changing up your weight training routine and make in sure that it works for you and makes you stick with it by avoiding boredom and overtraining.

Altering Weights in a Weight Training Routine

To alter the weight you just need to alter your reps. If you use 50 pounds for some exercise then change it up by adding weight and going to 60 pounds for less reps or by reducing to 40 pounds and doing more reps. This is really good for confusing your muscles. I have actually taken this to the extreme for complex exercises like bench press or lat pulldowns.

I have gone as hi as 50 or 100 reps for a set. An extreme the other way is to go for max lifts doing just 3 reps for each set and really pushing for that last rep with everything you’ve got.

Changing pace of reps in Your Weight Training Routine

You can change the pace of your reps and make your reps go slower or more quickly. Remember that you want to make sure that you are stressing the right muscles for your sets so do not go too quickly or you will mess up your set by cheating and using leverage of stronger muscles or whipping weights around.

If you do want to try this also try using negatives. Negatives are when you take longer in the unlifting part of the rep, so going down on bench, curls or mitary press, or when letting the weight up on your lat pulldowns or tricep extensions.

Overtraining one workout

Although we avoid overtraining every now and then it feels great to get one muscle group and take it to the max. You can do what they say in Muscle and Fitness for a single muscle group for one workout, although it would be the only workout for the week for that muscle group. For chest you could do four sets of bench, flyes, cable crossovers, and even cross bench pullovers.

How many sets for your weight training routine?

I try to keep my sets around 3-5 for each muscle group on a regular day but why not kick the crap out of them once in a while. You will be really sore later but by the next week your muscles will be healed again. Do not try doing this for more than one muscle group in any given week as the amount of recovery needed may be more than your body can really handle.

You can see here that a weight training routine can vary according to your own schedule to keep them interesting and to avoid muscle confusion. None of these strategies is for everyone at all times but try making some changes every now and then and more so make some kind of change every week just to keep muscle confusion up and to keep your muscles and mind guessing as to what they will get hit with in your next workout

I find that no matter how often that you workout or how long you have been training that it is very important for you to always alter your weight training routine.