Breaking Plateaus and Getting More Out of Your Training
By Stephen Brandis, CSCS
If you are new to exercising consistently you’ll notice that it is pretty easy to make continued progress. This may be lifting more weight, running faster times, not being so winded after working out, or simply having your clothes fit better. This happens because our bodies are continuously trying to adapt to what we throw at it. Sooner or later though our bodies can get used to training a certain way and become efficient at it. Efficiency is great for cars, energy use, and the time it takes you to get ready in the morning but when it comes to our bodies and making consistent progress, efficiency is not as desirable. As you progress in your training, the leaps and bounds you made early on begin to diminish and are now more like baby steps. It’s fine you tell yourself, your still making progress, until those baby steps turn into a stalemate where you are making no progress at all. You keep putting up the same numbers at the gym, running the same times, your conditioning hasn’t improved, or that last bit of body fat you wanted to lose won’t go away.
You have hit a plateau and we all hit them at some point in our training so don’t get discouraged. You have gotten used to the training you have been doing and are no longer stimulating your body enough to make changes. We are all creatures of habit and includes the way we train as well. Say Monday’s, are upper body days for you and you always start with bench press and do 3 sets of 10. When you first started training you made progress every week so you should continue to improve doing 3 sets of 10 on bench press every Monday right? Wrong. Having that sort of mentality is like reading the same chapter over and over again in a book and getting upset because there is no new information from the last time you read. It doesn’t make sense! So here are a few things you can try to vary up your workout, challenge yourself and get back on track to making progress, all without having to reinvent the wheel.
“Variation Without Change”:
This simply means that we are going to vary the exercise without changing the movement entirely, so you are still working the intended muscle, only differently. This can be done by changing the rep/set scheme, rest periods, tempo, grip, and/or the execution of the lift. It may sound complicated and like it will take more time than you have set aside for training but in reality you will be able to complete your workout in the same amount of time and also break through that plateau and get back on the road to making consistent progress!
Set and Rep Scheme:
This is a fairly simple and effective method where you are changing the number of reps you perform, the number of sets you do, or both. If you still want to do your three sets of bench press vary the number of reps. Instead of doing 10 reps try lowering the number and do 8, 6, 5, 3, or 2 reps instead. In reducing the number of reps you will be able to lift more weight, hence, breaking away from your norm giving the body a different stimulus. If you wanted to increase the volume and keep the reps the same try adding another set to your workout and do 4 instead of 3. If you are feeling brave you can get the best of both worlds and vary the sets and reps. 5 x 6, 6 x 5, 10 x 3, 4 x 7. You are doing the same volume as you were before but are now just varying the intensity of the lift.
Rest Periods:
Keeping track of the rest you take between sets can make a major difference in the productivity of a workout. If you are on your phone, messing around with your friend, or start flirting with the attractive fitness enthusiast working out next to you, you can eat through minutes of your time without even noticing. Stay focused between your sets. Talk, get a drink, or just stand there, but be aware of how much time you are using. If you are trying to make your workout more intense shoot for a smaller rest period. Instead of resting a couple minutes do 60-90 seconds instead, or decrease even further to 30-45 seconds. The opposite goes for those who rest too little. Increase your rest periods to 60-90 seconds instead of going from one set to another with only a few moments rest, so you can recover adequately.
Tempo:
Now we are getting a little more complicated. Tempo is the pace at which you perform the movement you are doing and it is broken up into four phases:
- Lowering phase (eccentric)
- Pause in the stretched/bottom position
- Lifting phase (concentric)
- Pause at the top/contracted position
Each phase is broken down into seconds which can vary. An example of this for bench press would be, 3-1-x-1. The “3” denotes the lowering portion which is 3 seconds. The “1” is the pause at the bottom position which would be 1 second. The “x” simply means explosive or as fast as possible during the lifting phase. If you were not going for explosiveness and wanted something more controlled you could do a “1” or “2” instead meaning a 1 or 2 second lifting phase. Lastly, the fourth number (1), means a 1 second pause at the contracted position at the top of the movement. So instead of banging out reps like there is no tomorrow, this allows you to attack each rep with a plan and can offer a significant challenge to your program.
Grip:
Simply changing the way you hold a weight, rope, or handle can make what once was a simple exercise much more challenging. For example, there are countless ways to perform a pull-up, yet most of us utilize a shoulder width, over hand grip, or an underhand grip and perform a chin up. You can vary these movements (not only with just pull ups) by using a thicker bar, lifting plates instead of barbell/dumbbells, overhand grip, underhand grip, neutral grip (palms facing each other) or thumbless grip. Switching up between these different positions as you progress through your training will not only add new challenges and stimulation for the intended muscle you are working but also develop your grip strength so when you hold onto a weight you feel like you are the one in control, not the other way around.
Execution:
By changing the execution of a lift you are still performing the same movement and working that muscle, but now you are stimulating by means of a similar but different motion. For example, with the standard bench press you lay on a flat bench and press a barbell. However, to vary the execution of this lift you can put the bench at an incline/decline, use dumbbells, kettle bells, alternating the movement between sides, doing one side at a time (unilateral), or both sides at the same time (bilateral). This doesn’t apply to just bench press but any lift can be varied to provide a new challenging stimulus.
Summary:
- If you have been training for a while and are noticing your progress has started to tapper off or have just stopped making any all together try varying the exercises you are doing.
- “Variation without change.”
- Change up the set/rep scheme. (5×6, 6×5, 8×3, 4×7, etc.)
- Alter your rest breaks in between sets to either be shorter if yours are too long, or longer if they are too short. Stay focused!
- Set a tempo for the workout. Have fun and mess around! (3-1-x-1, 2-0-x-1, 5-1-1-1, etc.)
- Change up the way you grip the bar/implement to strengthen your grip and to change how you are stimulating the intended muscle.
- Experiment with the way you execute the lift, whether it be with dumbbells, barbells, unilaterally, bilaterally, synchronized, alternating, etc.