Feeling like your exercise routine isn’t cutting it anymore? Can’t lose or gain those 5lbs you’ve been working on for months? Just a few months ago was everything was going great but, recently has progress slowed to a crawl? This is what we refer to as a platue and they can be very frustrating. Often times though all we need is to sit down and re-asses our goals and how we can reach them.
So, now let’s sit down and think about our goals. What do you want right now? What do you want for the future? How do you want to get there? You have to sit down and think about these things for yourself and really recognize your motivations. Making your goals clearer and refocused will reinforce them in your mind and make them feel much more achievable.
The human body is an adaption machine. We can become accustomed to almost any climate, diet, or workload within weeks. This means that we need to increase that outside stimuli to create more of a response from our bodies. So, if you’ve been on the same workout routine for a while doing the same volume and weights, it’s no wonder you haven’t made much progress recently. You have to increase the intensity of your workouts to create more adaptation. This same concept can be applied to diet. Been on a 2,000-calorie diet for a few weeks now and, your no longer losing weight consistently? It’s time to change it up. Either increase your activity or decrease your calories further.
Understanding of your calorie intake is crucial to gaining or losing weight. Is it high or low enough? Weight is gained when you eat in a caloric surplus and lost in a deficit. Not sure what your maintenance calories are? Try an online calculator. Learn how to count or estimate calories. I recommend a food scale to make it easier. Eat at what you think is a surplus or deficit of ~250 calories and track your weight for a week or so. If it is stagnant you need to add or subtract more. Following crash diets or going on a dirty bulk are lazy, unhealthy, and unsustainable options. Your diet should be a lifelong commitment, something you can stick to easily without torturing yourself cutting out any unhealthy food. You won’t stick to a diet that you don’t enjoy, just like a workout routine.
Another common cause for platues in weightlifting is a breakdown in form. It is easy to get caught up in the weights and want to keep pushing them heavier and heavier. This often leads to us cheating our reps not getting full ROM and rushing the eccentric, all bad habits that are counterproductive. Drop the weights down a little, really feel your muscle working, focus on the pump and the burn. You will feel the difference, both in mind muscle connection and overall difficulty of your sets. As always you should be taking these sets very close to failure if not at failure even if it means working outside of your typical rep ranges. If you have never taken certain movements to failure, this is the time. Now that you’re not hoisting unnecessarily heavy weights your likelihood of injury will be greatly reduced so push that set to failure and you might be surprised to see you can squeeze out a lot more reps than you thought you could. One more cause for platue is improper tracking. If you are not tracking your lifts, start. It will save you so much time and effort it’s unreal along with unmatched gains.
Stick to a program for a while, use a progression system such as linear, double or dynamic double. Keep learning about fitness, here on this site and from others. This combined with consistency, a proper diet and sleep is all you need. Don’t overcomplicate it, and always have fun! We are in this for the long haul so enjoy every moment and take care.