5 ways to break through a training plateau.
Elliot Matthews, 14/11/2022The training plateau. Diminishing returns, loss of motivation, and boredom.
A training plateau occurs when your body adjusts to the demands of your workouts. This results in a lack of progress, whether it is muscle gain, strength increase, or cardiovascular performance. And because our bodies are adaptation machines, hitting a training plateau is actually quite common.
Signs you have hit a plateau can include a loss in strength, lack of motivation, increased irritability during your workout, or a reduction in progress over a period of 2-3 weeks.
Here are some ways that may help you break through and keep building!
1. Rest
Being in a constantly fatigued state means your body is under stress and needs a break. This could mean taking a small hiatus from training or increasing your amount of sleep. Either way, you allow your body to recover and adapt, reduce the onset of overreaching or overtraining, and start feeling refreshed.
2. Superset
A superset is a combination of two exercises performed one after the other with no rest in between. The superset can consist of exercises targeting the same muscle group or different muscle groups. The benefit of the former is that you will induce more fatigue and stress leading to greater adaptation, while both examples will save you some time and shorten the session by cutting out that extra rest period.
Same muscle group
Different muscle group
Normal sets
8 x bench press
60s rest
8 x bench press
60s rest
8 x bench press
60s rest
10 x DB chest fly
60s rest
10 x DB chest fly
60s rest
10 x DB chest fly
60s rest
Superset
8 x bench press
10 x DB chest fly
60s rest
8 x bench press
10 x DB chest fly
60s rest
8 x bench press
10 x DB chest fly
60s rest
Normal sets
10 x overhead press
45s rest
10 x overhead press
45s rest
10 x overhead press
45s rest
6 x leg press
45s rest
6 x leg press
45s rest
6 x leg press
45s rest
Superset
10 x overhead press
6 x leg press
45s rest
10 x overhead press
6 x leg press
45s rest
10 x overhead press
6 x leg press
45s rest
3. Progressive overload
Progressive overload refers to applying controlled progressive stimuli on the body and can be applied by varying the intensity (weight or speed) or volume (exercises x sets x reps). It can be difficult and dangerous to consistently increase the weight being lifted and performing at the upper limit of your strength, particularly when you’re maintaining your standard set/rep scheme, so altering one of these variables (examples below) will help you overload and progress.
Standard progressive overload:
Current program
Progressive overload
3 x 10 @ 90kg
1 x 10 @ 90kg
1 x 8 @ 92.5kg
1 x 6 @ 95kg
1 x 10 @ 90kg
1 x 12 @ 85kg
1 x 14 @ 80kg
More advanced progressive overload:
A. Cluster sets
Small sets with rest increments of 10-30 seconds built into a larger set in order to lift the same weight for more reps.
Current set
Cluster set
6 @ 50kg
2 @ 50kg
10s rest
2 @ 50kg
10s rest
2 @ 50kg
3 @ 50kg
15s rest
2 @ 50kg
15s rest
1 @50kg
B. Drop sets
Add additional volume and drop the intensity after reaching failure within a set
Eg. Set 1 – 80kg for 8 reps
Dropset 1 – 75kg for 6 reps
Dropset 2 – 65kg for 5 reps
Dropset 3 – 50kg for 4 reps
4. Make some swaps
Varying the order of exercises or changing the exercises themselves is a great way to change the way your body fatigues during a workout and adds some novelty to the session.
Completing isolation exercises before compound movements or switching the order of muscle groups will change the way your body fatigues and may make your session more difficult.
Changing exercises themselves (but maintaining the movement pattern) will breath new life to a session as well as slightly alter the stimulus of the exercises themselves – e.g. Swapping an incline press to a DB incline press maintains the fundamental aspect of the movement but incorporates the shoulder stabilizers to a greater extent.
Standard session
Order change
Exercise change
Bench press
Incline press
Lat pulldown
Bent over row
Dead-bug
DB bicep curl
Overhead tricep extension
DB bicep curl
Bent over row
Lat pulldown
Dead-bug
Overhead tricep extension
Bench press
Incline press
Floor press
DB incline press
Chin up
Pendlay row
Leg lowers
BB bicep curl
Tricep cable pushdown
5. Adjust your nutrition
Proper nutrition will fuel you for what you want to do, and help you recover and achieve the adaptations you’re pursuing. If you aren’t consuming the macronutrients you need, you may be damaging your training efforts and restricting your progress. If you need specific guidance, seek a qualified dietician or your GP.