How often to change gym routines?

Change routines every 3-4 weeks at the very max. Anything beyond that time period is too long imo. I won't make a comment on your program because I'm assuming your goals are much different than mine and that routine seems much too imbalanced, spread out and pointless to me.

Yeah seriously what's with the beach muscle workout? I like how you spend as much time on your back and chest, huge muscle groups, as you do on tiny muscle groups like the arms, which get worked already a bit when you do back and chest. I'm just kidding, the workout's fine. I would not add in any leg day at all, actually. The upper body will look bigger in proportion to your lower body, so your goal should be to get the legs as small as possible while maximizing upper body size. Another thing to try is a new left/right body split. You've probably heard of an upper/lower split or a bodybuilding split, and a left/right body split is a 3x/week workout where you only work out one side of the WHOLE BODY (this is important, to get all muscle groups on that side and maximize growth of the sternocleidomastoid and teres minor, big "beach muscles" sure to attract women). For example, monday, if you are right handed, you should do only bilateral exercises for your right side. Wednesday, you should do exercises for the left side only. Friday, back to the right side. Next week, begin with the left side, and so on. Obviously, you'll have to limit the kind of exercises you perform, you'll be doing lots of dumbell work, single leg presses, single leg squats, single arm snatches, etc, but it's very important. Any ab work should be done on the internal obliques, and not the rectus as it is on the middle sagital plane and will alter your hypertrophy gains for the worse.

golden.

No I'm just kind of a bastard

Yes.

Go buy Starting Strength for $17.

lefty

++ But the second edition is out. I guess it has better pictures and good revisions
2nd Edition

Hey jaustin. Sorry you got flamed instead of being taken seriously. Your question was not ridiculous.

I always try to change up routines about every 8 weeks. I feel that if you go longer than that, you body becomes adjusted to the routine and you get too efficient at the lifts to benefit much. Likewise, when you change up more frequently than that, you cheat yourself out of the opportunity to build up to maximum loads for each lift.

As one example, each day that you go in to the gym to do, say, incline bench presses, you should be able to increase the load over what you did the last time. Once you've gone a couple of workouts without being able to increase the load, switch to flat bench or decline bench, or switch from barbell to dumbells. Most people hit that wall at around 6-8 weeks, but it will depend on a lot of variables, such as how often you're working that part of your body.

If your goal is like most people's -- maximum payoff for minimum hours of gym time -- then I recommend that you get some squats, deadlifts, and lunges into that routine of yours pronto. I know it seems counterintuitive to work muscles that don't get noticed the way pecs and biceps do, but those three exercises in particular will pump you up all over and they'll strengthen your core in the process. Better yet, they'll give you a set of ass cheeks you can crack walnuts with. Let's not forget that the ladies appreciate our butts as much as we appreciate theirs.

I answered his question in my first response. Of course the period I posted is what I view as the appropriate amount of time, no studies to back it up that I can recall, but it allows you to develop the lift a little then change to another that targets the muscle group a different way.

And the fact that we post advice every day on proper routines and he posts that dreadful split means we can poke and prod any ways we like. Looking at previous threads isn't that much to ask.