Cycling your workouts;

Over a long period of time my training partner, ted and i, have been in a constant stage of heaviness, which means we are going heavy all the time for the past ten months since his show in sempetber of two thousand and five. We are trying to pack on as much mass on to his frame as we can in hopes of adding some of course, mass as well as some muscle maturity. Our rep schemes have been in the six to eight area range and have stayed there for quite a while now, which is not always a good idea unless you know what you are doing. We always mix up our workouts to keep things fresh and to keep the muscles guessing and unsure of what is to come.
The human body is an amazing machine, if you work the same body parts on the same days each and every week over a long period of time, the body will actually know what to expect and refuse to grow after a short time. A good rule is to cycle your workouts every six to eight weeks and then change up the workout entirely. There are numerous ways to change up things; Shorten your rest time in between sets, start the week or workout with a weak bodypart; try new exercises; even doing an entirely new workout away from bodybuilding, i call it active rest, such as mountain biking or running on the beach.
When the time comes that you know your body well enough to be able to train instinctively, or in other words you know what you are capable of and on any given day you can predict how your body will react to the forced placed upon it, you can then change your workouts on a daily basis just as ted and i are currently doing. The only thing that remains a constant are the rep ranges that we decided beforehand for this cycling period.
In the gym i see a lot of people doing the same exercises, so much so, that i can predict what their workouts will consist of even before they begin. Trust me, i don't spend a lot of time watching other people working out! It's just that people get strong at an exercise and they don't want to stray away from what they are good at, but you have to in order to get your body to adapt and grow. Just as you may be strong at the bench press right now, you need to do another exercise until you are strong at that one and keep going until you are strong at every exercise and then you will see some serious growth begin to take place.
I look at things in this way, i am hoping that whatever we are doing that is different, one of ted's competitors may not be doing and that may give us the edge we need in order for ted to do well in his upcoming show in july. Even if you are not training for a show or athletic event, would't it be nice to see some results for all the hard work that you put in day after day in the gym? So, don't be afarid to mix things up every now and then, remember, variety is the spice of life, even in the gym!