#plateaubusting

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Plateau-Busting Strategies to Start Seeing Results at the Gym

You’ve been in the gym every day, lifting and running. But lately you’re not seeing many changes when it comes to fitness. In fact, you haven’t set a PR in weeks. It’s safe to say you may have hit a plateau.

“Yes, most people that continuously do the same type of workout with the same type of repetitions, resistance, and rate will eventually become accustomed to that workout and not make any more advances,” says Dr. John Gallucchi, owner of JAG Physical Therapy. But there are other reasons, maybe less obvious, that could be keeping you from making gains. And the answer isn’t always lift more or more cardio. “The ‘more is better’ approach leads to injury, de-motivation, or both,” says Dr. John Sullivan, clinical sport psychologist and sport scientist at Clinical and Sports Consulting Services. “Plateaus are a normal part of training, and it is how you learning and react to them that matters.”

To make sure your training produces results, watch out for these sneaky obstacles. (Trying to lose weight? Here are 3 Rules for Busting Through a Weight-Loss Plateau.)

1. You’re Not Assessing What You’re Doing Think for a second: Where did you get your fitness program? “Often, training is not realistic or does not match to the person’s capabilities,” says Dr. Sullivan. If this could be you, Dr. Sullivan suggests considering asking an exercise professional to look over your training program or devise one for you. (See more Well-Meaning Workout Strategies That Backfire.)

2. You’re Not Eating Enough Pushing yourself to your max without fueling correctly can definitely be the cause of a plateau. It could even force you to go backwards, explains Dr. Michele Olsen, exercise physiologist at Auburn University Montgomery. “Your muscles are fighting back on you and quitting on you because they’re not getting proper recovery time or enough energy for them to rebuild to become leaner,” she says. “If you don’t eat enough, your body will hold onto fat, or even regain fat in the effort to protect your heart and body organs with a supply of needed calories.” If you’re not getting enough fuel, pushing yourself may be the worst thing you could do. Instead, reevaluate your nutrition plan and make sure it correlates to your training.

3. You’re Not Doing What Will Help You Reach Your Goals If you’re looking to build up your strength, be sure your training focuses on that. There can be a downside to adding in days of running or biking just because you think you need to. When it comes to resistance training, it can cause a plateau, explains Dr. Brad Schoenfeld, assistant professor in exercise science at Lehman College. “This is called the ‘chronic interference hypothesis,’ where concurrent training of cardio and weights performed frequently on a weekly basis have negative effects on strength and muscle development,” he explains. If your focusing on strength gains, stick to that and have your program cater to that.

4. You’re Not Getting Enough Shut-Eye “One of the most overlooked things that can cause a plateau disaster is not getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep a night, which puts you in a state of stress, which can cause belly fat gain,” says Dr. Olsen. It’s important for your muscles to recover so that they can grow and become stronger over time. “Often, taking a week off from exercise can help you to bust a plateau so that your sleep patterns ‘recover’ and normalize,” Dr. Olsen explains. Once they do, you’ll be sure to feel a difference in the gym. (Can’t sleep? Try one of these Science-Backed Strategies on How to Sleep Better to snooze soundly.)

5. You’re Not Tracking Your Progress The best way to notice an issue or a gain is to keep track of your progress week after week. “Patterns can be found in almost everything we do, and these can be useful for identifying our readiness for training,” says Dr. Sullivan. “You can begin by tracking things like resting heart rate, sleep, and mood, using even your smartphone. If your numbers indicate low, elevated, or inconsistent patterns, it may be time to adjust training intensity or duration.”

Day 316 Record Keeping Day 285 Fixed Meditation  Day 231 Bodyweight Exercise  (bridge wall walkdowns and walkups) Day 158 Writing (69 words, difficult) Day 331 Eating = 71 Day 88 Work = 61 Ok sleep, great wakeup.

First Bridge to Standing Walkup! I've been trying to improve my bridges because I feel like I've hit a wall. So I've been trying to focus on standing to bridge wall walkdowns. These have been going well, I think it's more of a hesitancy and fear to go fully down without a spotter.

So today I tried doing a bridge (ground up) by holding the wall about head level (if I was doing the bridge on the ground). I had the strength to do it, which I was pleased about because attempts of changing it up by doing it on a chair just didn't work. 

Then I thought to myself...hmm...how bout walking up? And I could do it! It was really exciting, and I consider it a big step in my bridge progression.

I can't completely do it from a bridge. But it's close. I tried doing it (I probably shouldn't have done that today) from a floor bridge - but transitioning from that to grabbing the wall was just a little too difficult.

Day 314 Record Keeping Day 283 Fixed Meditation  Day 229 Bodyweight Exercise  (3 walk down bridges, 3 dragon twists) Day 156 Writing (editing) Day 329 Eating = 71 Day 86 Work = 52 Great sleep, great wakeup.

Plateau Busting Fat Loss I've recently got back into the swing of my eating habit. It went from being in shambles to getting into high habit gear in record time.

But, I just had a conversation about how I feel about it - I feel like I've been stuck in a rut in fat loss for a long time. And I think it's easily correctible.

But let me back up. In my first three months I had fantastic progress, losing 5 belt holes in size. That's natural, and it slowed down. Lately my belt has been hovering between hole 6 and 7. I know I've been losing slowly - the pants I bought late in November are now getting loose. 

So I know that I am shrinking, just not so much around my waist. And perhaps it's not a big deal, but I do want to really get a bit strict. I've been letting a few things go here and there.

In Texas, making wise decisions with the Tex Mex I crave so much of the year is difficult. Here in New Mexico they like beer and it's easier to just have one casually with dinner. Also I find myself snacking on cheese a lot.

In my first three months in Brazil, I didn't really eat cheese, and I really only drank red wine. I find that beer tends to make me feel bloated.  So I'm going to try to cut out cheese and beer. I'm going to switch to red wine again, and I'm going to buy some additional snacks - olives and pickles, along with some deli meats to see if it makes a difference.

It's funny because at my parent's house I feel very awkward bringing beer back to the house, but wine is more than fine. Here, for some reason I feel the opposite is the case. It's probably all in my head, but I believe that part of this project is getting to that Zen place where I make choices that are right for me regardless of what I perceive is appropriate or not. 

I don't want anyone to change their plans for my dietary needs, but at the same time I need to figure out ways without feeling guilty about it. I think it's a really important mental state to be in for this project to work as a whole.

I just bought a new pair of jeans that are a little tight in the mid-section, so I should notice changes if this works. 

Lydia mentioned that one lady on Mark's Daily Apple cuts out cheese, nuts, alcohol, and chocolate whenever she hits a plateau, and it works for her, so I think I might be on the right track here.

I've been thinking a lot on what I want my writing habit to look like, and I feel my final picture is one that will have cross over to most other habits.

Habit formation is the focus of this project, but it's not the entire end game. Mastery of skills is. And so scaleability of tasks and pushing for constant improvement to bust out of plateaus is key.

When I think of my writing habit, it starts with fear. I'm afraid to just write due to various reasons. So step 1 is simply overcoming that initial fear response. Train and train until the response is action to the task rather than putting it off.  To do this I implement a small habit. Small sized habits - like doing 2 pushups or writing 50 words - make it ludicrous to NOT start or do the task in a day.

Step 2 is making it so that the task - writing in this case - isn't just something I have to do in a day. It's like breathing. It's like brushing my teeth. It's a part of my daily routine. And an advanced version of this - the superhabit - means that it would take more effort to not do it than to do it.

This is all well and good, but this can, for some tasks, land you squarely in a cycle of churning mud in place. Do 50 words, but they can be crappy words. You need to push past, and this can be done in various ways. For bodyweight exercises its doing more. I went from two burpees to 24. And this is step 3 - extending the habit. I did this with burpees by simply recording them. By recording, I was forced to distance myself and look at what I was doing. Naturally you want to slowly do more.

In writing I'm doing this naturally. And I've started to emphasize this by recording how many words I do. And I will continue to do this, and it's a great thing right now. But very soon I will need more than just quantity. I'll need quality.

So enter step 4. With working out it's following a version of a scaled strength plan. So instead of just adding to the number of pushups I can do I mix it up. I do back bends and abs. I do more and more difficult exercises. And this is exactly what I will need for writing.

I envision a plan where I have one day where I work on transitions. One day where I work on pitches, and one day where I work on specific chinks in my writing armor. Maybe for one month I work on one thing, and then I move on. Maybe I take a class. I don't know.

What I do know is that it has to be targeted.  It can't be just taking a general easy class, because then complacency rises up - it's easy to write 50 crap words, but improvement doesn't come through anything but uncomfort.

I've tried a version of this with eating - I challenged myself to not eat bread for a month. Could I do more? Yes. What about other habits? Could I improve in recording? Absolutely - I can memorize the SRHI and take it in my head. Meditation? Sure.