How To Break Through A Plateau For Any Exercise
When you start to hit a plateau with any exercise, your first thought may be some cliche gym phrase like “no pain, no gain,” or “if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”
People assume that once they’ve reached a plateau, they need to increase their effort to continue seeing gains. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be further from the case. Most often, people in the gym stagnate because they don’t allow their bodies adequate rest.
You cannot attempt your max bench press twice a week and expect to see gains continuously. Our muscles need time to rest and recuperate.
Cycling or periodization will solve this issue if you are struggling to improve overall, and I will cover it in a future article. Cycling and periodization are how you write your workout for the year. However, this article focuses more on breaking through a plateau for a single exercise.
HOW TO IMPROVE AT ANY EXERCISE
If your goal is to improve at any particular exercise, the first piece of advice is a little obvious. Do that exercise often. Imagine you want to be the pull-up champion of the world. You’d start by doing pull-ups as often as possible while taking adequate rest. Once you are pull-up competent, you may find that doing twenty pull-ups with perfect form no longer challenges you and will need to make it more difficult.
There are only three ways to make an exercise more challenging and thus only three ways to improve at an exercise:
1. Increase the Volume or Repetitions
The number one way people attempt to make things more difficult is by increasing the volume or repetitions. If you can do ten, you can do twelve, and so on. Or, instead of doing twenty pull-ups a day, they now do thirty. And yes, more reps is a great way to build strength, but it will ultimately have diminishing returns.
Once you are getting to sets of 20 repetitions on a weighted exercise, you could be looking at a fast way to get tendonitis. In addition, you will no longer be using the same energy systems in your body, and your weight lifting almost turns into aerobic exercise.
Programming with more than 15 repetitions when weightlifting is worthless. If you are trying to get stronger or bigger muscles, more repetitions are probably not the answer.
However, our next point may be:
2. Increase the Load
If you want to get stronger or improve at an exercise, try doing fewer reps with more weight. I recommend the three to six repetition range for someone trying to increase the weight they lift on an exercise.
Increasing the load is the best way to improve at any exercise. Although not being able to increase the weight anymore is why most people are reading this article.
If you find you can no longer increase the weight on an exercise, the first thing I’d recommend is taking a week off that exercise. Then go back to it at a weight you are comfortable with and start playing around with the tempo. Which just so happens to be our third way to improve at any exercise:
3. Switch Up the Tempo
Changing the tempo is the best way to get out of a rut. And the topic this article will cover most in-depth.
Every exercise includes three distinct phases of movement: the eccentric phase (lengthening of the muscle), isometric phase (pause at the bottom of the movement), and concentric phase (shortening of the muscle).
I’m sure you’ve been at the gym and seen people racing through exercises, pressing weights like they are fist-pumping at a rock concert and then dropping them like hot potatoes. Exercises can be performed at many different tempos, and there is a time and a place for going as fast as possible. Lifting heavy things isn’t that time.
Weightlifting should be done at submaximal speed, and for a good reason: when attempting to move at full speed, it is nearly impossible to maintain perfect form.
Perfect form is our primary concern, and these tempos below will help you blow past any plateau and look good doing it.
(Note: Tempos are written with the numbers/seconds corresponding with the eccentric- isometric-concentric phases.)
The beginner: 4-1-1
This is my favorite tempo, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. Start with this one. Lowering slowly helps you work on your mechanics, pausing allows you to demonstrate control, and who doesn’t want to come up fast? This is the tempo I use when teaching a client a new lift or helping someone lock in a movement.
I’m stuck in a rut: 4-2-1
Are you having trouble increasing weight on a particular lift? Try this tempo. Lowering slowly and pausing for two seconds is hard, so make sure to use less resistance than usual.
The longer pause is fantastic for breaking plateaus because it removes the benefit you get from the elasticity of your muscles.
Have you ever lowered down for a squat and felt like you just bounced back up? That feeling is the natural tendency and stretch reflexes of your muscles. When you have a second, try squatting and pausing at the bottom; you will get no love from the stretch reflex.
Let’s get huge: 2-0-2
Time under tension (TUT) is one of those fitness buzz phrases. Without getting into the science-y stuff, the idea centers around continual work with no rest at the top or bottom of the movement. The key here is fluid movement; you just keep going, never letting your muscles get a second of relief until the set it over. For gains, program each set to last anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds. Start with less time and lighter weights, and work your way up. This is an advanced practice—don’t be a hero.
These tempos can be applied to any exercise!
Changing the tempo is such a powerful tool that is so often overlooked by lifters. Tempo changes will help you get stronger, build muscle, and improve at any exercise.
Remember, if you are trying to improve at any exercise, you only have three choices, more reps, more weight, or a different tempo.
Give it a try and bust through any plateau.
*Note that a lot of weightlifting programs will have four numbers. In these cases, the fourth number will represent the time spent in the lockout or completed position. This was intentionally left out in this article because it is rare in beginner weightlifting programs; the time you should spend in the lockout position is generally as long as necessary to safely prepare to perform your next rep.
