You’re doing it — you’re staying consistent in your workout routine week after week. The workouts are getting easier, but your progress has stalled, and discouragement and boredom creep in. Chances are you’ve hit a workout plateau, a normal part of fitness. Luckily, a few simple strategies can get you back on the grind.
What Is a Workout Plateau?
According to Barbell Medicine, “A strength training plateau is a period where measurable progress in strength no longer occurs despite continued training. This may present as an inability to increase weight, complete additional repetitions or improve performance over multiple training sessions.”
Signs You May Have Stopped Progressing
Plateaus can apply to endurance and develop as an adaptation response to repeated stress. Plateaus mean your body has become more efficient and the same workout no longer produces enough stimulus to keep it developing. You may notice that your strength has stalled, endurance isn’t improving, workouts seem too easy and results aren’t happening.
Not all bad workouts mean that a plateau has occurred. Many factors can weigh into some reduced performance workouts. Everything from sleep to nutrition to stress or illness can cause a temporary setback. However, if you notice a repeated pattern, it may be time to change things up so you can continue progressing.
Five Simple Ways to Break Through
Overcoming a plateau will not only help your physical strength but will also make it more interesting and mentally challenging. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) defines progressive overload as “the gradual increase of stress placed on the body during exercise in order to continue adaptation and improvement.” The use of progressive overload can help break through stagnation.
- Increase the challenge gradually. If you’ve been doing the same workout for some time, try adding more weight, additional repetitions or an extra set, or increase the intensity at which you perform the movements.
- Change one training variable. Change up something about your routine. Switch up the order of movements, add some new movements, complete tempo reps, alternate rest periods or train with different frequency.
- Prioritize recovery. If you’re not recovering properly, you will not experience the same level of gains. Prioritize protein and water intake alongside healthy nutrition loaded with fruits and vegetables. Sleep is also critical for proper recovery. Stress management is another key factor in being able to train hard and recover harder. Schedule rest days to allow your body time to repair muscles.
- Track workouts. Tracking your workouts helps quantify gains. You can see where you are getting stronger, faster or able to complete more reps. It also helps quantify when you have dips in training, which you can then often tie back to another factor that may be off that day, such as stress or sleep.
- Set a new goal. To continually progress in your training, setting goals can give you an endpoint and a feeling of success. Make the goal reasonable and regularly assess progress towards it.
A workout plateau isn’t a failure; it’s a good sign that your body has risen to the challenge and adapted appropriately. When this happens, it’s a good time to reassess your goals and use progressive overload to continue to adapt to harder stressors. Small changes in training, recovery and goal setting can help you start seeing changes again.
