Ways of Breaking A Training Plateau
Hitting a training plateau can be one of the most frustrating things. You know you’ve hit an overhead ceiling when you can’t seem to make gains no matter what you do in the gym. Hitting a plateau is not something unusual and you might be suffering from it without knowing it.
There is nothing wrong with hitting a plateau but staying on it can be disastrous for your physical and mental health. There are a few things you can do to overcome the gain roadblocks when you hit them.
Change Your Training Program
Following the same training program for a long time can cause you to hit a plateau. You need to constantly add variations to your workouts to avoid hitting a muscle growth roadblock.
You should try changing or making adjustments to your workout program every 8-12 weeks. Starting a new program or following a new training philosophy can re-ignite your muscle growth.
Fix Your Diet
A nutrition deficient diet can be one of the leading causes for hitting a training plateau. Figure out your daily caloric requirement according to your training goals and design your diet keeping your macro and micronutrients in mind.
You could also use the help of supplements to fill the gaps in your nutrition. Make sure you don’t overly rely on supplements and keep real food as the main source of your nutrition. If you don’t know how to design your own diet, getting professional help can save you a lot of time and wasted effort in the gym.
Step Off The Gas
When people realize they have hit the gains roof, they train harder. Training harder than before can be a vicious cycle if you’re on a plateau. Maybe training too hard and a lack of recovery is what got you there in the first place.
Analyze your recovery plan and check if there are any loopholes. You should be getting anywhere between 6-8 hours of sleep every night to streamline the recovery from your workouts. Check if you’re sore for too long after your workouts. Being sore for a long time can be a sign of overtraining.
Shock Your Muscles in Every Workout
Your muscles are quick to adapt to your style of training and you need to constantly shock your muscles into growing. Do something new in every workout so your muscles have no idea what hit them.
Use an advanced training technique like supersets, drop sets, etc. or go crazy by doing 30-50 reps on your last set of every exercise. Using equipment like fat grips, arm blaster, new kinds of bars is also an incredibly effective way of adding variation to your training.
Stop Training Completely
If you can’t seem to make any progress after tweaking your training and diet, chances are you are overtraining. You should consider stopping working out and give your CNS (central nervous system) some time to recover.
Although stopping training can seem counter-intuitive but gaining muscle mass or losing weight will be easy once you come back from the break. Consider the break as a gym-detox for your body.
Have you ever hit a training plateau? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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