Plateau Busting!

In my last post I briefly described training plateaus and the frustrations they can cause. A training plateau can occur when one feels they are not making progress in muscle gain, strength increase, or just overall performance. The worst part about hitting a plateau is that it can be caused by a variety of reasons from over training, under training, eating too much, not eating enough, varying your workouts too much, or not varying your workouts enough!

When you hit a plateau you can do three different things: 1) Quit 2) Stick with your routine and be satisfied with minimal muscle growths 3) Try something different and break through the plateau. If you decide to choose the latter I have a couple of tips that will help you break through that plateau wall in no time!

1) Take a Planned Recovery Week of Rest
Most people don't associate muscle growth with rest, but that is exactly when muscle growth occurs. Growth doesn't occur when you are actually lifting weight, but rather the muscle is broken down during the lift and rebuilt when your body is in a resting state. With that being said, sometimes you might be overtraining and not giving your body enough time to rest for optimal muscle growth to occur. So if you feel like you have hit a plateau, be sure to give yourself a few days or even a full week of rest. This will allow your muscles to recover, and recharge you physically and mentality to get back on that lifting grind!

2) Changing Rep Types 
There are a few different types of ways to do reps and sets that will help you get over your plateau, here are a few:

Post-Failure Heavy Overloading Method

After your last set, rack the weight for 25-30 seconds and then pick up the weight again and do another small set of as many reps as you can. You may only get one or two more reps, but that is one or two more reps that will help you increase your strength and size.

Drop Sets

Pretty simple, start heavy and after every set drop down the weight and increase the reps. You will exhaust your muscle and achieve that famous "pump" feeling.

Force Assisted Rep Training

Another simple concept, as you beginning to struggle toward the end of your final set of a lift, have your spotter grab the weight and "assist" you in pressing out a few more reps. This will focus on working the "stabilizer" muscles around your key muscle groups, and that will in turn help you gain overall strength.

Using these tips you can quickly get over your plateau, but the key is implementing small changes. If you take the week of recover rest, don't go straight into the next week and using all 3 of the different rep types. Employ one of these techniques and vary the technique you use every few weeks. If you follow these strategies you will be busting through your plateau in no time!