How long to evaluate a routine?

As a rule of thumb, how long do you keep up with a particular routine to evaluate if it ‘works’ for you or not? Assume you do not see any gains - do you change after a month? Sooner? Later?

I’d say three months. Many guys get impatient and switch things up too soon and don’t gain. Worst of all though, once they do gain, they get over zealous and switch things and their gains stop.

If you’ve changed nothing and gained nothing in 3 months, change something… if you’ve gained something, change nothing. :)

Really? 3 months? So if you didn’t gain with a new routine for 2 months, you would continue for another month? I’m not talking about the newbie routine by the way - that one’s obvious.

There are a lot of factors that are involved. whether you are starting new, coming off a intense routine, or a lighter one, etc. I feel 3 months gives your body time to calibrate to the new routine and gives it a fair shot to produce results.

This is just my opinion, of course, but I really think PE should be approached as an open ended endeavour, without influence of deadlines. :)

Wouldn’t you be worried to simply make the tissues stronger by using a non-effective routine too long?

I should have mentioned that this opinion is based on the idea of starting at low intensity and building up only if necessary, until it starts to work.

This is opposed to starting at some random higher intensity and risking doing exactly what you explained, toughening tissues, giving little or no gains, yet on the surface, it seems like more intensity is needed, even though more may still yield little or no gains and condition you into being a tough gainer.

In my opinion, starting low and building up is safer and more effective way to find your “sweet spot” for gains.

Ideally, I would say start at a low intensity for three months then add only a little each month until you start to see any growth.

Think of driving a car.

It makes sense to start in first gear, then second, etc. If you always start in third gear, you’ll probably stall it, or you may slowly build up to a decent speed, but its going to take longer, use more gas and you’re going to burn out the clutch. All the while thinking that your car is a useless piece of crap. :)