Take it to the Next Level by Mike Mejia M.S., CSCS

Tips for breaking through stubborn training plateaus.

To a mountain climber, a plateau offers a much needed respite. It's a chance to recover and regroup for a short while before continuing on with his or her goal of reaching the summit. For the rest of us however, hitting a plateau is a much less pleasurable experience. It means that we've stopped progressing and must now figure out a different course of action if we want to keep moving forward. Unfortunately, plateaus are something we all have to deal with from time to time, be they in our careers, interpersonal relationships, or even the gym.

Anyone who exercises on a regular basis can attest to the frustration of hitting a plateau in their training. Whether it's a bench press that hasn't increased in weeks, or not being able to break a certain time in the mile, plateaus can range from annoying to downright maddening at times. Rather than look at it as being completely negative though, consider a training plateau as more of a physical wake-up call. Sort of like nature's way of telling you that it's time for a change. When viewed in that vein, a plateau can often serve as the springboard from which you can achieve a whole new level of fitness!

The reason that plateaus occur in the first place is that our bodies have become too accustomed to what we're doing. Keep in mind; a little adaptation is good. Adapting to a given training stimulus is how we get bigger, stronger, leaner andmoreresistant to fatigue. Too much exposure to the same stimulus however and our bodies no longer have any need to change. They're already capable of handling the amount of physical stress we're imposing on them. So, the idea then is to keep things interesting by employing a wide variety of training techniques aimed at helping to avoid stagnation and burnout.

The following strategies can go a long way towards enabling you to break through even the most stubborn training plateaus. Give some of them a try and see if you're not benching more, running faster, or reaching just about any other goal, in no time.

• Regularly vary your set and repetition schemes: Believe it or not; there's no rule that says you always have to do 3 sets of 10 repetitions. This hackneyed approach has been around for decades and is one of the primary reasons why people's results in the weight room often stall. Instead, try mixing up your set and repetition schemes by periodically choosing a protocol that's more geared towards developing strength (like 5 sets of 5 reps), or one that's more aimed at improving muscular endurance (like 2 sets of 15-20 reps). Even if hypertrophy is your primary goal, switching to something a little more radical (like 8 sets of 3 reps) can often be just what your body needs to stimulate the muscle building process again.

By switching things up every couple of weeks- or even from one workout to the next, you'll keep your muscles guessing and develop more strength, size and stamina than your previously thought possible.

• Switch to Dumbbells on certain exercises:One of the best ways to increase the amount of weight you're using on barbell exercises like the bench press, or shoulder press, is to switch to dumbbells for a while. Dumbbells are great because they allow for a larger range of motion and work all of the smaller stabilizer muscles that surround the joints involved to a much greater degree than a barbell does. Because you're moving the weight through a larger range of motion and requiring more effort from your stabilizing musculature, you'll often find that your poundage's on barbell exercises increase after using dumbbells for a few weeks.
• Discover the magic of Micro-loading:Why is that some peoplecan barely handle a given weight, yet insist on increasing it by some ridiculous amount on the very next set? It's as if there's some rule that says you can only increase the weight on barbell exercises by using large plates. Look, if you barely got up 185 for a given number of reps, there's no reason to go straight up to 225! There's no shame in using 5, 2 .5, or even 1.25 pound plates. Doing so on a consistent basis is the way to bring about consistent gains in size and strength.

The same holds true when using dumbbells. Sometimes the 5 pound increments that most dumbbells increase by are too much to handle. For example, what if you can press the 60 pound dumbbells for a given number of reps, but the 65's are just a little too heavy. Enter Platemates. These small, magnetized discs allow you to increase the weight by anywhere from .5 to 2 .5 pounds per dumbbell (they can also be used on barbells in the absence of smaller plates). Even though it may not sound like much, increasing the weight in small increments like this that add up over time is a lot less frustrating than continually trying, and failing to lift a weight that's a bit out of your range.

• Mix up your cardio modes: One of the most frustrating things about improving your fitness level is that it's often a highly specific process. Meaning that if all you ever do is run, in time you'll probably improve your cardiovascular efficiency when you're running, but it won't necessarily make you appreciably better at rowing, or swimming. Oh sure, there'll be some degree of crossover, but not nearly as much as you might think. That's why it's a good idea to vary your modes of cardio training, either from one workout to the next, or even during thesameworkout. The different metabolic demands and varied movement patterns between exercises like running, cycling, rowing and climbing will improve your body's ability to deliver blood and oxygen to your muscles, as well as accelerate the fat-burning process. Give it a try! Instead of 30 minutes on the treadmill, next time try 10 minutes on the stationary bike, 10 on the Stepmill and 10 on the rowing machine.
• Do some interval work: Besides just switching up your cardio modalities, you should also regularly vary the intensity of your workouts. Slow, steady paced aerobic work is nice from time to time, but it pales in comparison as both a cardiovascular and fat-burning stimulus when compared to interval training. With intervals, you work at a pace that you couldn't sustain for the entire workout, in small, manageable segments.

For example, after a brief warm-up period, increase the intensity to a level that's difficult to sustain for 30 seconds. When that interval is over, immediately decrease the workload to an intensity that allows you to actively recover for 60 seconds (like say going from a sprint to a jog). After the recovery period, jack it back up again and so on. When you're finished, you'll find that the overall duration of the intense intervals was far greater than you could have sustained had you tried to do it continuously. Each workout, your goal then becomes to spend more and more time at the higher workload; either by increasing the number, or the duration of the more intense intervals.

• Get more flexible:It may sound a bit odd to hear improving your flexibility recommended as an effective strategy for breaking through a training plateau, but think about it for a moment. If the muscles that act on a particular joint aren't as flexible as they could be, your range of motion around that joint is going to be restricted. When this happens, the force generating capacity of these muscles is also going to be compromised. By first increasing and then subsequently strengthening through the affected muscle's entire range of motion, you'll dramatically improve its potential for both strength and size development.

*Mike Mejia is a certified strength and conditioning specialist based in. The author of several successful fitness books, including The Men's Health Better Body Blueprint and Scrawny to Brawny: TheUltimate Guide to Building Muscle the Natural Way, he is also a columnist and contributing editor for Men's Health magazine.