Overcome Your Exercise Plateau

Have you become frustrated with your workout program? Let me guess, you started a program, got results, and improvements stopped. There are many ways to eliminate the plateau and ensure you are always progressing.

The human body is incredibly effective at adapting to change. The inability to progress, low motivation, and fatigue are all signs of a plateau, are all usually caused by over training.

Rest

Taking at least one day off a week is vital for full recovery and allows the body to make gains or changes. After three to four months of steady exercise, evidence suggests taking a week off is beneficial for re-setting the body. Getting the appropriate amount of sleep is equally important. The body regenerates and repairs muscle tissue the fastest during sleep. The average adult should strive for seven to eight hours to ensure the body is properly rested.

Don't Over Do It. Train with intension. Technique is more effective than lifting heavy weight. Too much strain on the muscle will only cause injury and inability to rebuild.

Nutrition

As you increase your workout time, intensity and weight, you must meet your body's caloric requirement for recovery and daily needs. As your intensity in training increases, so does your metabolism.

Challenge Your Muscle

Don't try a different workout program each month. Stimulate the muscles by keeping the body guessing and preventing muscle adaptation, by focusing on changing frequency, intensity and time under tension of a muscle. The purpose of physical training is to stress the body so it improves its capacity to exercise and is beneficial only as long as it forces the body to adapt. If the stress is not sufficient to overload the body, then no adaptation occurs. If stress cannot be tolerated, injury or over-training results. Muscles must be overloaded to hypertrophy and improve strength.

Muscle can do two things: 1. Grow and/or stronger and 2. Shrink and/or weaken. To build muscle, change the frequency, intensity and time of your training to break down the muscle fibers and re-build the muscle tissue. When lifting weight, changing the rate at which you perform the different parts of the lift. Training with varying tempo and rest can help you overcome the dreaded plateau.

Tempo

Weight lifting tempo refers to the number of seconds it takes for you to complete a full range of motion of one repetition, usually called a lift. The importance of "time under tension" determines the amount of stimulus a muscle is exposed to. Let's take an olympic style lift in which we use explosive ballistic contractions. The lift here may be around 1 second up and 1 second down. If use the 10 rep range, our muscle will be under tension for a total of 20 seconds. Now, try a slow 2 second up and 4 second down lift, and we have 60 seconds time under tension. That is a big difference.

There are four numbers represented when using tempo:

The first number is the eccentric or down motion of the lift, also known as the "negative"phase. During this phase, the muscle is being stretched. When trying to build muscle, this number is usually slow and controlled to fatigue the muscle and stimulating growth.

The second number is the pause or hold before the concentric phase or upward motion (the third number). The concentric phase, or "positive" phase, contracts the muscle while carrying the weight or load. Here, use a faster momentum to return the weight to the start position.

The fourth number represents the starting point of the movement. Here you can either pause or immediately begin the next repetition.

Once the muscle has adapted to a certain tempo, change the tempo to stimulate the muscle, increase fatigue and get better results.

It is important to note that using proper form is most important element when weight lifting. When momentum is introduced, there will be less tension on the muscle, which will lessen your gains. Use slow and controlled movement with the proper form, while focusing on the muscle being worked. If these techniques are not in place, you will not sufficiently work the muscles.

Flavia Del Monte is a Registered Nurse, Certified Physical Trainer, Certified Nutritionist and the creator of Full-Body-Licious. You can read more about her training programs, nutrition advice and general fitness on her women fitness blog.