5 Ways to push past a workout plateau
It’s happened to just about everyone who exercises regularly — the dreaded plateau. That familiar feeling of stalled progress when yourbody is no longer responds to diet and exercise. You know you’ve arrived at such a place if you’re not gaining muscle, losing weight or improving your endurance. If and when you experience a plateau, use the guide below to help push through it.
1) Evaluate. Evaluate how your body feels and which specific exercises have become the most problematic. Analyze other things that are happening in your life. If you’re dealing with excess stress, poor sleep, an overly busy schedule, you may lack the energy needed to make an effective workout happen.
2) Take time to recover. Unable to hit fitness goals you’ve previously reached? Itcould be due to overtraining. Take time to rest, refuel, and repair your muscles.to take a week of rest every six to eight weeks to avoid plateauing in the future.
3) Change things up. If you already give yourself the proper amount of rest, the key to breaking through the plateau may lie in varying how you work out. Simple changes, like using dumbbells instead of a barbell, modifying positions, or changing the speed of your run can help engage your body in a new and challenging way. Also try experimenting with reps, sets, and weight, as these can help jumpstart your muscles and make working out effective again.
4) Try High Intensity Interval Training. Looking for a more radical change? Try high-intensity interval training — short, intense bursts of exercise followed by a very quick rest. HIIT is a great way to keep the intensity of your workout up while reducing your gym time. S a timer for a short period of time, and try to complete as many reps as possible of a given exercise. Once that time is up, rest for an even shorter amount of time. Continue through a circuit of exercises in this manner, and you’ll find that you’ve worked yourself to exhaustion in a fraction of the time it would normally take. It might be just the thing you need to get past your workout rut.
5) Enlist expert help. If you’ve tried these strategies and nothing seems to be working for you, it could be time to touch base with a personal trainer, nutritionist, or other health expert. They may be able to take a closer look at how you are training to determine an effective path for reaching your fitness goals.
7 Ways To Bust Any Plateau! [Bodybuilding]