Changing Your Gym Routine

Welcome to my first gym post! What are we going to talk about today? Well, I am going to get into my personal gym journey a little bit, the changing of routines, and what my current routine is.

First things first. I started going to the gym about 6 years ago, but I was pretty inconsistent. It wasn't until the summer of 2021 when I started going almost every single day. I started initially going and doing my routine of push, pull, legs. I was very skinny, so I had to eat about 6k calories a day to start seeing progress. I did, but I felt like I could blow up more.

As I continued training, I went to college. In mid-fall 2021, I changed my routine to the Arnold split, which was when I started seeing the best gains I had seen since starting the gym. I had stopped eating so many calories; however, I was still gaining some size, so I continued eating a lot, especially with an unlimited meal plan as a freshman in college.

I was a consistent lifter until about July of 2022; that is when it started going downhill. I got consistent in September of 2022, and I met one of my best friends who was also a gym rat. We would go every day and almost never take breaks. We were always changing our splits. I was all over the place, but I was eating chicken, rice, and broccoli every single day. 2 pounds of chicken, 2 cups of rice, 4 cups of broccoli. January of 2023 hit, and I officially was the most inconsistent I had ever been. I would go to the gym maybe 4 times a month, sometimes not at all for at least a few months. In 2025, I started going early in the year more consistently but not as often, and once I graduated and moved home, I was right back into doing as much as I could for fitness purposes, but not lifting as much. January 2026, I started going every day. I had a period where I didn't go for about 2 months due to injury, but I have been going every single day with 1-2 rest days for about 2 months now.

What's my new routine? Why did I change so much? Why was I so inconsistent?

First off, why did I change so much? Well, I wanted to find what fit me best, and never knew until now what did. Why was I so inconsistent? Simple: relationships, and then I would stop focusing on the stuff that, in general, made me happy and made me feel good. So what's my routine now? I reverted back to the Arnold split when I started lifting again this year, but I felt like I was getting the growth I used to. So, I changed it and made it so I hit all muscle groups twice in 5 days. Monday, I start with push, Tuesday is pull, Wednesday is legs, Thursday is an upper body day, and Friday is a lower body day.

This not only fits my schedule best, but it also fits my lifestyle best. I am much more structured in my day-to-day as I try to always go around more realistic times. Early morning doesn't work well for me because I don't have as much energy as I do in the middle of the day or in the evening after food, water, and caffeine.

My rest days are Saturday and Sunday. I have 1 active rest day and 1 total rest day; these flip-flop depending on my lifestyle choices for either Friday night or Saturday night. Whichever day I decide to go out with friends and, to put it bluntly, get drunk. If I get drunk Friday, Sunday is my active rest. Flip-flop if Saturday is my drunk day. I have priorities and know how to prioritize properly. I am not efficient in my workout or recovery process if I drink, and the next day I am hungover. With that being said, my schedule is around it.

This keeps me grounded. It's my cheat day: alcohol, shit food, maybe shit sleep. Who knows. It's my go-with-the-flow day/night. This helps me not get fat, keep my muscles recovering properly, and gain size efficiently, while still allowing for a night of drinking with people.

So how do you change your routine? Well, it's simple. What routine works best for you? Can you get enough volume out of your workouts for 3, 4, 5 days? This is fully dependent on your standards, your schedule, and what works best for you. Timing is different for everyone, but you have to be honest with yourself. If you're not, you won't make the right decision on what's best for you.

Simple, really, but that's all there is to it. Hopefully I find some more inspiration to do more of these posts.

Congratulations, you achieved failure. Failure has been achieved, thank God. Now, the only place to go from failure, is to win. You have to achieve failure. You have to take it that far. Nobody wants to go that far, it's too scary. But you know something? I got news for you, that's where winning is. -Tom Platz