WHEN SHOULD YOU CHANGE PROGRAMS?

I see this question, and permutations of it, get asked all the time: when should I change my program?   If not “when should I change my program” it’s “how long should I run this program to see if it’s working”, “when should I stop bulking/cutting”, etc etc.  It’s all the same base question: what landmark am I looking for to determine when it’s time to make a change.  The answer: as soon as you ask this very question.  Once the question has been asked, the change needs to be made.  Why?  Because the mere asking of the question demonstrates that the faith in the method has been lost, and THAT means it’s time to move on.  We must worship a new god at a new altar, because the old ones have now abandoned us.

The OG pre-workout

Here I am, undoing the renaissance, because I’m going to put faith above science here, but ya’ll expect that from me by now.  The truth is (note I say “truth” and not “fact”, because, again, this is theology and not science) that no trainee succeeds on a program or protocol that they do not have faith in, no matter HOW much the science backs it up.  If we do not believe that we are doing exactly what we need to do in order to grow, it will not matter IF we are doing just that: our lack of faith will prevent us from achieving our goals.  Like Freddie Kruger (appropriate for this time of year), the only way to strengthen the program is to believe in it and give it power, and once that belief and faith stops, so too, does the progress.

Why?  Because, flat out, we will NOT give a program proper due diligence and effort unless we actually BELIEVE in it being effective.  This is just stupid human reality about the situation: we will invest ourselves totally in something that we believe in, and will not have that capability for something we merely pay lip service to.  You’ve seen this countless times that you MUST acknowledge the truth in it: there tends to be a significant disparity between what people SAY they want and what they actually want.  Many people SAY that they want to be big, strong, jacked and lean, but take them to the grocery store and they buy cakes, ice cream and cardboard carbs and completely bypass the butcher section.  Give them a free weekend and they binge watch Netflix rather than engage in any manner of physical exercise.  IF these individuals DO manage to participate in these activities of self-betterment, it’s of a faithless attempt: they’ll buy and partially consume one pre-made bagged salad and go for a 20 minute jog.  Meanwhile, the true budding physical transformation psychopaths have cleared the meat department of every last ribeye and got up at 0400 on their day off because now they don’t have work to get in the way of their epic 4 hour training session.  Both of these are manifestations of illness, sure, but we see which altar we worship at: who is faithful to which god.

Plus you get meat on the bone, so that's a plus

And, of course, people attempt to employ science in absence of faith, because faith is a terrifying concept: believe without proof.  Instead, we look to make and manufacture truth through “facts”, but science is cold, sterile, and, ultimately, lacking and behind the times.  Science is OBSERVATION, eventually recorded, codified, explained and “understood”, but science does not MAKE reality: it merely documents it.  The phenomenon of physical transformation was already out there, ready to be pursued and believed in: it just asked for your faith.  Instead, trainees take their observational and epidemiological (absolute garbage) studies and attempt to create a new god after they killed off the old ones.  They attempt to say “I KNOW this training method works because it’s been scientifically PROVEN to work”…and yet, the results are lacking.  Why?  Because despite the facts, there is no truth: there is nothing to have faith in when your source is agnostic.  

Instead, the folks who have succeeded in the realm of physical transformation did so BECAUSE of their unshaken faith in their methods, irrespective of the madness behind them.  In fact, many would argue that madness was a key component TO their success.  These individuals looked at what everyone else was doing, saw the results they were getting and said “that’s not for me: I’m going to do something ELSE”.  This was the story of Dante Trudel developing Dogg Crapp in the presence of an era where everything was volume driven: he pursued single set intensity.  The very same single set intensity that drove HIT/Heavy Duty, that drove Super Squats, that drove Stuart McRobert and Dr. Ken Leistner.  Or how about Louie Simmons breaking his back, surveying the scene of Western powerlifting and observing all the injuries and lacking results, and deciding he was going to merge the past of the Culver City Westside Barbell club with the overabounding success that the Soviets were experiencing and just make up his own method on the fly, which he KNEW would work because it HAD to.  How about Dr. Shawn Baker taking on the carnivore diet because nothing else was making sense?  What about every single thing Jamie Lewis has put out?  Jamie cites all his work, but he’s a historian, not a scientist: he knew what he did would work BECAUSE it had worked: not because science said so.

Whatever produced this in the pre-steroid era is probably pretty effective

And I’m just skimming the surface of pioneers, but the point is: these folks succeeded because they believe in the method they were employing.  They had unshaken, zealot-like fanatical faith in their approach and, in turn, pursued it so hard with every fiber of their being that they WILLED it to be successful.  Every program I take on, I ONLY take on when I’m feeling that surge of faith.  I’ve discussed before how I got Super Squats as a gift on Christmas and was already planning my training cycle on it later that afternoon after I had absolutely devoured the book: Randall Strossen’s PhD in psychology was put to good use as he sunk his hooks in and got me bought in. And prior to that, I was drinking the Pavel Tsastouline Koolaid and only training in the 1-5 rep range because I had read “Beyond Bodybuilding” and learned ALL the secrets.  And after that, I saw some of the best gains in my life COMPLETELY botching the Westside Method because, in my mind, I was “doing Westside”, which meant that success was guaranteed!  Jamie Lewis’ “Feast, Famine and Ferocity” book did the same to me too.  And maybe what I’m demonstrating here is how easily influenced I am by charlatans and snakeoil salesmen…but if it means I got big, strong, jacked, lean and physically transformed, does it even matter?  Does it matter that everything I did was scientifically “wrong” if the outcome is the one I desired?

Which, of course, ties it all back to the beginning: once we start asking “when should I switch?”, it means the time is NOW.  Once we display a wavering of faith, the magic is gone and it’s time to move on.  Find A method that you can buy into with 100% of your being.  It cannot be a half measure, it cannot be lip service, we cannot be “Easter-Christmas” worshippers: we MAKE the protocol work THROUGH our faith.  It’s much better to abandon a program early in pursuit of the shiny new one that grabs our interest than it is to endure something we’ve lost all faith in simply because “it’s the best”.  And what’s awesome about all this is that THIS faith is self-perpetuating: we create our success by believing in the method, which in turn further reinforces our believe IN the method, which allows us to continue pursuing it and achieving more success.  Contrast this with the wheelspinners: those that have been doing the same thing for YEARS and have nothing to show for it, yet are so afraid to abandon their facts in pursuit of the TRUTH.  If some protocol out there is offering you it’s siren’s call, go crash your ship into the rocks, because right now the course you’re sailing on is merely a long slow death.