What is a training plateau?
If you have never hit a training plateau, consider yourself lucky! Eventually everyone will run into a point in their training when they have a stop in their progress whether it is muscle gain, strength increases or just overall performance.
Our bodies go from losing weight consistently to getting stuck at a certain number. Or we go from building muscle and getting stronger, to having a week or two where we can’t seem to lift anything heavier.
What to do when you reach the dreaded plateau?
- TAKE A PLANNED RECOVERY WEEK OF REST: Most people often don’t associate resting with muscle growth. After all, you only grow muscle when you are working out right? Wrong!The truth is, your body doesn’t assimilate new muscle while you are working out. It’s actually the exact opposite. It catabolises muscle tissue (breaks down muscle), then when you rest and re-fuel properly, your body will build new tissue in its place.
- TRACK OTHER METRICS OTHER THAN THE SCALE: The scale can lie. The scale will DEFINITELY slow down even if you are making progress in healthier ways, simply due to the fact that you have less weight to lose than you did before!
- Take Measurements. Spend 5 euros on a cloth tape measure (or one of these), and measure the important parts of your body. Maybe the scale isn’t moving, but you took half an inch off of your waist or maybe you added a quarter of an inch to your arms.
- Track your body fat percentage. A simple calipers is enough to show differences in your body
- SHOCK YOUR BODY: If you do the exact same thing over and over and over, your body becomes more efficient at that activity. In fact, your body can learn and adapt after doing the same thing enough times so that it burns fewer calories to carry out the process. So mix it up!
- SHOCK YOUR DIET: Your body can also become quite efficient with calories (not to mention the oft-mentioned but controversial “starvation mode” theory), and can sometimes struggle to progress. Try upping your caloric intake from 1800 to 2200 by eating more healthy fats or protein (avocado, nuts, almond butter, more chicken, etc.). Your body will learn that “food is abundant, time to stop hoarding these few calories as fat stores and instead burning them as fuel or using them to build muscle.
Conclusion:
Always remember that overtraining and lack of rest is normally the #1 cause of a plateau. So before you hammer away and include every plateau buster from this report, be sure to try resting for anywhere from 4-7 days to ensure you are properly recovered.