Break Through Your
Plateau by Training Drastically Different…

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Everyone will inadvertently hit a frustrating plateau in their
training at one time or another. You’re cruising along for a while,
gaining strength, losing fat, looking better, and then all of the
sudden it hits. Suddenly, you find yourself even weaker than before on
your lifts, or you find that you’ve gained back a couple of pounds. It
happens to everyone.

Most of the time, these plateaus occur because people rarely change
their training variables over time. Many people stick to the same types
of exercises for the same basic sets and reps and rest periods with the
same boring cardio routine. Well, I hope to open your mind and bring
some creativity to your workouts with this article!

There are many ways that you can strategically modify your training
variables to assure that you maximize your fat loss and/or muscle
building response to exercise. Most people only think about changing
their sets and reps performed, if they even think about changing their
routine at all.

However, other variables that can dramatically affect your results
are changing the order of exercises (sequence), exercise grouping
(super-setting, circuit training, tri-sets, etc.), exercise type
(multi-joint or single joint, free-weight or machine based), the number
of exercises per workout, the amount of resistance, the base of
stability (standing, seated, on stability ball, one-legged, etc.), the
volume of work (sets x reps x distance moved), rest periods between
sets, repetition speed, range of motion, exercise angle (inclined,
flat, declined, bent over, upright, etc), training duration per
workout, and training frequency per week.

Sounds like a lot of different training aspects to consider in order
to get the best results from your workouts, doesn’t it? Well, that’s
where a knowledgeable personal trainer can make sense of all of this
for you to make sure that your training doesn’t get stale. Below are a
few examples to get your mind working to come up with more creative and
result producing workouts.

Most people stick to workouts where they do something along the
lines of 3 sets of 10-12 reps per exercise, with 2-3 minutes rest
between sets. Booooorrrrring!!!! Here are a few examples of different
methods to spice up your routine.

• Try 10 sets of 3 with a medium weight, resting only 20 seconds between sets.
• Try using a heavier weight and complete 6 sets of 6 reps, doing a 3 minute treadmill sprint between each weight lifting set.
• Try using a near maximum weight and do 10 sets of 1 rep, with 30 seconds rest between sets.
• Try using a lighter than normal weight and do 1 set of 50 reps for each exercise
• Try
  a workout based on only one full body exercise, such as barbell clean
  & presses or dumbbell squat & presses, and do nothing but that
  exercise for an intense 20 minutes.
• Try a circuit of 12 different exercises covering the entire body without any rest between exercises.
• Try that same 12 exercise circuit on your subsequent workout, but do the entire circuit in the reverse order.
• Try your usual exercises at a faster repetition speed on one workout and then at a super-slow speed on your next workout.
• Try completing five 30 minute workouts one week, followed by three 1-hr workouts the next week.
• Try
  doing drop sets of all of your exercises, where you drop the weight
  between each set and keep doing repetitions without any rest until
  complete muscular fatigue (usually about 5-6 sets in a row).

Want more ideas? There are many more ways to continue to change your
training variables. This was just a taste of your possibilities. In
order to see how to incorporate various strategies into effective
routines, give the programs in my internationally best-selling ebook Truth About Six Pack Abs a try.