Plateaus are great for building new towns upon or for those suffering from extreme vertigo. But when it comes to making fitness progress, you need plateaus like you need a hole in the head. Escape the plateau and head for higher strength ground in the gym. The good news is that when it comes to lifting yourself out of that strength training rut, you have a number of weapons at your disposal.
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Most people find that when they first begin weight training, the initial strength gains are both rapid and substantial. This, in turn, is very rewarding and motivating. But once your muscles have adapted to the initial training stimulus, it's almost inevitable that you'll reach a strength plateau. At this point, using just more reps, more sets or more weight won't produce significantly more strength. What you really need to do is produce more overload sufficiently regularly, will still allowing for full recovery between workouts.
Shock Tactics
Just as with aerobic training, you need to generate higher levels of workout intensity in order to shock those muscles into a bit of growth. However, before you turn to these more exotic intensity-generating techniques, you need to check that the fundamentals are in place. It could be the reason that you're not making progress is simply that you're not generating proper intensity with the basic techniques. In my experience, many of those I would class as 'intermediate' lifters - lifting weights on their own for a few years, fall into this category.
Back to Basics Strength Training to pass your Plateau
Train to failure
To stimulate muscle growth, you need to generate fatigue by asking your muscles to do more than they're accustomed to. To do this, you need to perform at least one set of somewhere from 8-15 reps. At the end of the set, you reach failure - i.e. you simply can't squeeze out another rep. No matter how hard you try.
Unfortunately, this requires a lot of effort and a certain degree of discomfort. If you're not prepared to toil and sweat a little, you'd better get used to life on the plateau. Whether you like it or not, there ain't any other way to make progress!
Train Strict
Ignore the gym 'show-offs' and maintain proper form at all times. Perform full range, smooth movements and avoid rushed or jerky efforts. Especially when you become fatigued. Now there is a case to be made for performing 'cheat' or 'partial' reps under certain circumstances. In my experience though, these shouldn't be the go-to method of busting through a plateau for the vast majority of people. An experienced trainer will know when this the right way to go. Good form requires much more effort, and sometimes the use of lower weights. Why? Precisely because it's so much more effective at isolating and stimulating the target muscles. Remember your goal is to build strength rather than demonstrate it.
Allow Full Recovery
You may have reached a plateau and stop developing strength if you fail to give your body adequate rest and recovery. No amount of quantity can substitute for quality. Train hard, train intensely and don't spend too long on any one workout. Then allow plenty of time in between strength sessions to recover. It's during recovery that adaptation (a.k.a. 'gains') takes place after all. Learn more about recovery and rest days here
The Next Step towards Busting Through your Plateau
OK, so you've upped the weights and added in some extra sets to your resistance programme. But how do you progress and generate more intensity from there? Here are a few popular techniques worth thinking about. Don't go too mad though - some of these are quite intense! Unless you're an experienced trainer (i.e. with several years of consistent lifting under your belt) it's a good idea to have a session with a qualified and experienced trainer who can advise you on which elements you might wish to incorporate. They should also let you know how to build them into your existing programme.
Alternative Exercises - Build Strength in a Different Movement
When you substitute a different exercise for a particular body part, you always create a training stimulus. While the movement may be similar, the subtle changes in the range and angle of movement can be enough to trigger growth. Likewise, the use of different assisting muscles during the movement means that the muscle fibres will receive a new stimulus. This new prompt is usually enough to produce a new training response. For example. if you're used to machine chest press, performing a bench press with a barbell and weight plates creates plenty of new training stimuli. The alternative exercise route is favoured by many seeking to boost the training effect, but this method is only the start.
Change of Order - Beyond the Plateau
After a few workouts, your brain and muscles 'learn' what to expect next in the routine. Adaptation takes place to make that particular order as efficient and easy as possible. While this is great for getting through a routine with the minimum of effort, it's not so good for creating training intensity. Simply swapping the order of your exercises can generate a surprising shock for muscles expecting something different.
High Rep Sets
The rule of thumb is that adding weight to a set of reps will generate extra muscular intensity. To a point, it does. The problem is that muscles rapidly adjust to this strategy. Plus there's only so much weight you can add without courting the risk of injury. Instead, drop one or two plates and increase your reps so that you reach failure at say 13 reps instead of 8. You'll deal those smug muscles of yours a severe shock. Particularly since you'll be stimulating some of the slightly slower twitch fibres.
Some athletes find that the occasional fortnight of higher rep sets not only creates a training stimulus in itself but also allows a fuller recovery for when the heavier duty low rep sets are subsequently resumed. This will lead to even greater gains in strength. Plateau? What plateau?! Sometimes you have to step back before you can move forward. Forward past the plateau you were stuck at, with newfound strength.
Supersets
Most of your muscle groups work in 'agonist-antagonist' pairs. For example, biceps and triceps, or hamstrings and quadriceps. Supersets take advantage of this principle by working pairs of muscles back to back without pausing in between. This effectively eliminates the 'dead time' between sets. A dead time that occurs when you work the same muscle group consecutively with multiple sets. You have to hang around in between each set while your muscles recover, ready to lift again. Needless to say, supersets dramatically increase workout intensity. To put together a superset, all you need to do is choose an agonist/antagonist pair of muscle groups. Alternate the sets performed on each group, ensuring you switch straight from agonist to antagonist and vice-versa, without pausing.
Giant Sets
These take the concept of the superset one stage further. A giant set generally consists of around 4-6 different exercises performed in quick succession, without rest in between exercises. Exercises should be chosen to target either a single muscle group or an agonist/antagonist muscle pair. For example, you could combine the bench press, the pec deck, dumbbell flyes and dips to create a giant set for the chest muscles. Needless to say, multiple hits on a single body part in quick succession is intense stuff! Only a couple of giant sets per body part are ample for most people.
Pre-Exhaustion
Sometimes we stop building strength or size in one particular area. Are you finding you've hit a strength plateau just with a particular body part? Pre-exhaust sets are a great way to target areas that seem to be lagging behind. The procedure here is to isolate a target muscle group with a single isolation movement. You work it to exhaustion, then immediately follow this movement with a compound exercise for the same body part.
During the compound exercise, the fresh 'synergist' or assistor muscles help to drive the already tired target muscles into an even deeper state of exhaustion. For example, you can target the chest first by isolating using the pec deck. Then, just when the muscle fibres think they can't handle any more, you move to the bench press. The assistor muscles (in this case, the triceps) force the chest muscles to continue working. Pushing them into an even deeper state of fatigue. Be warned though; the pre-exhaustion is very effective. It can rapidly reduce unaccustomed muscles to jelly. Definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Drop Sets
You'll require the help of a training partner for this one. After performing your normal set of reps to exhaustion, your partner immediately reduces the weight selection. You then immediately perform another set, aiming for around 6-8 reps at this lighter weight until you reach failure. By reducing the weight and then continuing, you're effectively creating a 'double failure' in the same set. Some people find that two failures in one set are quite enough. However, I recommend repeating this process once more by removing more weight and going again. So in effect, you'll do one 'normal' set with two drops added on. The first couple of reps at the lighter weight will feel quite easy. But you'll very rapidly experience crushing fatigue! And it's this fatigue that will stimulate growth in size and strength beyond your current plateau.
Drop sets work well on pin-loaded weight machines where the weight stack can be adjusted quickly and easily. Dumbbell exercises are another option, provided you have easy access to all the required weights when you need them. To perform these with a barbell, you'll have to load it up tactically. Determine which weight each of the 'drops' will be, then figure out the best way to load the plates on so you can drop down to these weights as quickly as possible. Not all exercises suit the drop set method.
Trainer Tip for Building Strength past your Plateau
I've found decreasing the weight by 20% normally gives the best results for two drops. For example, my first set might be 12 reps at 80kg. I'd then aim for 6-8 reps immediately at 64kg (65 if using a pin-loaded machine). Then I'd immediately attempt another 6 reps at 51.2kg (or 50 or 52.5 on a pin-loaded weight stack).
Use 20% as a rough guide but as you will see in the above example, it doesn't always work. You have to use the dumbbells, weight plates or weight stack increments that are available. Sometimes you might have to go a little above or below 20%. Drop sets are great for building strength and increasing muscle size. So if your plateau is blocking your progress in either, be sure to give them a go!
Strip Sets
These are similar to drop sets, but take the principle to the extreme. In a similar way, you'll do a normal set then immediately keep going for a few more reps with a lighter weight. The difference with strip sets though is that the weight is reduced by the smallest available increment. This is normally 2.5kg for dumbbells and pin-loaded weight machines.
What happens when you've done a few more reps at the lighter weight? You immediately reduce the weight to the next increment and go again. Reach failure, repeat. You literally keep going, performing as many reps at each weight increment as you can. For this reason, strip sets are sometimes called 'down the rack' or 'up the stack' sets.
You definitely need a training partner for effective strip sets. The key is moving quickly from weight to weight with minimal (ideally zero) rest. Barbells don't really work well for strip sets since you can't really change the weight by small increments on both sides of the bar quickly enough. If you're training a barbell exercise, use the drop set method instead.
Plateau Busting Trainer Tip for Top Strength
For strip sets, it's a good idea to have a pre-determined rep target before you start. For example "I'll stop when I achieve XX reps." That means after you're normal set, you keep working your way down the rack until you complete XX reps with a particular weight. 15 or 20 reps normally is a good target but it depends how small the increments are you'll be using. Each stage of the set, you're attempting to get as many reps as you can with the weight in your hands. Sometimes you might get just 2 or 3, some you might not achieve any! That's ok, just keep going. You might get to a weight where you give everything you have to get the 13th rep but can't manage 14. If you set a target for 15 reps, guess what - you drop to the next weight and aim for 15 again!
You wouldn't normally do more than one strip set for a particular muscle group in a session. Once you've done one properly, it'll be pretty obvious why! Less is definitely more when it comes to strip sets. Getting past your plateau might be a case of a few strip sets over the course of a couple of weeks. That's all you might need to see your strength improve.
Negative Sets
This advanced technique takes advantage of the fact your muscles can sustain more load when lowering a weight than lifting it. To put it another way, your muscles are stronger in the eccentric phase than in the concentric phase. During normal training, you always reach failure point during the lifting (concentric) phase of the rep. Never on the negative (eccentric) phase. But it doesn't have to be this way.
You again need a training partner for this one. In negative sets, you set a weight that is 20-50% higher than your normal training weight. Your partner assists you by supplying some help during the lifting phase only. At the top of the lift, your partner should stand back while you lower that extra weight slowly and smoothly. Once you've lowered the weight, your partner again helps you to lift through the positive phase and then leave you to lower on your own. This procedure is repeated for 8-10 reps until a set is completed.
Warning
This is an advanced technique. It is not suitable for a lot of training situations and shouldn't be performed with certain exercises, for safety. Think about it. It's likely you'll reach failure while lowering the weight - your muscles just can't hold on any more. You're using a weight that is heavier than you can physically lift on your own to start with. If you were crazy enough to be doing this on the bench press, that loaded bar is going to come crashing down onto your chest. If you really want to use them on the bench press - there's a great article here.
Be sensible. It's probably best to figure out your way with negatives using dumbbell or machine loaded exercises. The preacher curl with an EZ bar is a good one to start with to learn (and feel) the principle in action.
Expect to feel totally jellied, especially for the first couple of sessions. Don't be surprised if you experience more soreness and stiffness than usual. Research shows that negative contractions cause more of the microtears thought to be responsible for DOMS than positive or concentric muscle work. For this reason, it's wise to limit your negative sessions to no more than one or two sets per body part. Alternatively, just add one negative set after your normal sets.
Your Strength Plateau is now a thing of the past
There you have it, plenty of tips and actionable strategies to take with you into your next training session. Which one are you most intrigued by? Which one will you have a shot at first? Let me know in the comments below.
If you're really determined to overcome your plateau and start making strength gains again, consistency will pay off. Avoid diluting your efforts by trying out too many different strategies at once. Give one a go for a couple of weeks, then return back to your previous routine. Notice any changes? Yes? Great! Keep up the good work and remember these tips will be here for you if and when you hit another plateau down the line.
What if you didn't get any change? Did you commit fully to implementing the technique you picked? Depending on your current strength level, changes and improvements can be minimal however they do come. Even a small step forward is still a step forward. Stick with your normal training for a few more weeks then have a go at one of the other methods mentioned above.
Happy gaining
Paul
