A strength plateau is defined as a period of time when your strength gains level off or stop, even though you’re continuing your workouts. Strength plateaus can be discouraging. When you find yourself in one, it’s typically because your body is trying to tell you something—whether it’s that you’re doing the wrong workout, need more novelty in your routine, aren’t hitting your macros, are stressed out, etc. This article covers why you might be hitting a strength plateau and what you need to do to break through it.
What Causes A Workout Plateau?
Doing the Same Routine
A workout plateau can manifest as a limit to strength gains, muscle building, and fat loss. The biggest reason for a workout plateau is doing the same routine indefinitely. Our bodies are extremely intelligent and require new stimuli to “keep the body guessing”. This stimuli creates new circumstances that your body has to adapt to, which means new strength and muscle gains.
However, there is a goldilocks formula for giving your body the right amount of stimulus. If you keep the same routine for too long, your body will adjust to routine and stop progressing because it’s “used to” what you’re giving it. On the other hand, switching your workouts too much (like in crossfit, HITT, and other group classes) will cause you to plateau too. To avoid plateaus, you still have to stick with the same routine long enough to progress within a certain mesocycle, which is usually around 3-6 weeks.
Overtraining
Overtraining means that what you’re pushing your body to do exceeds your body’s ability to recover. Pushing yourself too hard without adequate rest can lead to fatigue and hinder muscle recovery, ultimately stalling your strength progress.
Undertraining
On the other hand, not enough intensity can cause a plateau. Understanding your unique volume needs is key when developing your program.
Poor Nutrition
When you aren’t hitting your macros or you aren’t supporting your body’s ability to build muscle and gain strength. Protein is key to building muscle.
Lack of Sleep
Sleeping is the body’s preferred and most substantial tool for recovery. If you’re not sleeping well or long enough, don’t expect to make much progress in whatever goal you currently have. Lack of sleep also means lack of energy for workout intensity, and more general fatigue.
Irregular Cortisol Levels
If your cortisol levels are high or irregular, it means that your body is under quite a bit of stress for a plethora of reasons. When cortisol levels are irregular, the body is in a survival state: the body conserves energy and does not apply any energy towards growth of any kind and fat storage increases and the body inhibits muscle growth.
How To Break Through A Workout Plateau With Strength Training
Add Tempo Changes
Remember to keep your routine the same for 3-6 weeks. Once you’re done with your mesocycle you can vary your routine in different ways. Keep your foundational movements and simply change the speed and tempo of your reps. An example of this is having the same exact routine, but make the eccentric portion (or harder part) of each rep 3-4 seconds in the next mesocycle.
Incorporate Different Movements
You can also incorporate different variations of movements. For example, instead of back squats, start learning front squats. If you always do a flat bench press, try an incline bench press, or use dumbbells instead of a bar. Planes of movement are always important to add novelty to your workouts. Working in only the frontal and sagittal plane is boring for the body. Try movements that work along the transverse plane (horizontal).
Switch Up Your Training Volume
Another easy way to add novelty to the same routine is to change your rep ranges. If you’re doing 8-12 reps for everything, drop your reps down to 3-5 reps and increase the intensity for your main lifts. This could be by adding more weight so your RPE increases.
It’s important to remember, all changes are STRATEGIC and and should fit within the window of progression needed for adaptation (ie. a mesocycle of 3-6 weeks). For example, if you decide to change your reps, keep with the same changes for 3-6 weeks before adding a different novelty to your routine. And, if this seems like a lot to keep track of, you can always work with a trainer to create a solid routine.
Deloads
A deload period is when you lower the intensity of your training for a short amount of time, either through a reduction in volume, intensity, or ideally both. You typically want to deload after a mesocycle of training, keeping the same routine with less volume. Deloads are extremely important to incorporate in your routine (everyone needs them!), and can help with overtraining, stress, etc. Here’s how you can incorporate deloads into your routine.
- Reduce Volume: decrease the number of sets and reps. For example, if you typically perform 5 sets of an exercise, reduce it to 2-3 sets.
- Reduce Intensity: lower the weights you lift. Aim for 50-70% of your typical working weight.
- Maintain Frequency: keep the same workout frequency to maintain your routine, but with reduced intensity and volume.
- Focus on Form: use this period to perfect your technique and form without the pressure of lifting heavy weights.
- Incorporate Active Recovery: include activities such as light cardio, yoga, or stretching to promote blood flow and recovery without adding significant stress to your body
Deloading will not only facilitate recovery, but help your body adapt to the stimuli you’ve been giving it to break through a plateau. Deloading can even help balance your hormones and prevent burnout. If you’ve been pushing your intensity for too long, deloading brings cortisol levels down to normal range and that will spark growth and progress. Deloading also reduces the risk of injury, as training has a lot of wear and tear on the joints and recovery is essential for keeping them healthy.
Take A Rest Day
Make sure you’re incorporating rest days in your routine in general. Your body needs them to recover and adapt.
Refine and Perfect Your Technique
The best way to do this is to hire a trainer to help. It’s a great way to break through a plateau along with the numerous benefits of having a trainer.
Track Your Progress
You won’t know if you’re progressing if you don’t track!
Optimize Your Protein Intake
When you eat your optimal protein intake, your gains will skyrocket. We have seen this again and again with our clients.
Final Thoughts on How To Break Through a Strength Plateau
There are numerous reasons you could be experiencing a plateau in your gains and numerous ways to break through them. You know your body and what it needs best. If you feel like you’re overtraining, try incorporating deloads and optimizing your sleep etc. If you think your plateau is caused by programming, try our suggestions. Hiring a strength trainer is the best way to get through any plateau because they can assess your needs and create programming around your needs.
Want to learn more about breaking through a strength plateau? Listen to episode 195 of the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast: How to Break Through Strength Plateaus
Our free primers guide is a great way to incorporate active recovery to your routine to help break through plateaus.
