Avoid plateaus by varying your workout routines
A fitness plateau occurs when your body adapts to the "work" of your workout and as a result the gains you once received begin to slow and level off. While getting stuck can be aggravating, it's a more manageable difficulty if you recognize what you're experiencing and know how best to respond.
All other factors being equal -- meaning you haven't been eating more and/or exercising less -- you'll know you've hit a fitness plateau when the same amount of physical effort no longer produces proportionate degrees of weight loss, or aerobic and strength training benefit.
You can break through a resistance training plateau in a couple of ways.
The first being to add more weight to your strength-training exercises. If you can -- with good form -- do 12 repetitions of any given exercise without feeling challenged, it's time to add more weight. It doesn't have to be much more than 1 or 2 pounds, and should never be more than 10 percent of what you're currently lifting.
That's just enough to safely challenge your muscles and keep the gains coming instead of tapering off. You also can get off your strength-training plateau by adding additional repetitions (moving from 8 to 10 repetitions or from 12 to 15, for example), by adding an additional set to each exercise (going from two sets to three sets or from three to four), or by replacing two or three of your existing exercises with new ones.
Choose one of these three options at a time; otherwise you're risking overuse or injury problems.
If your plateau is not related to strength training, but rather weight loss or aerobic training, there are other options to explore.
If you want your weight loss or aerobic conditioning benefits to continually advance, utilizing progressive overload can be the answer to your plateau problems. Progressive overload gradually imposes a greater workload on your body, by challenging it slightly more than it is accustomed.
Faced with a greater challenge, the body is forced to adapt to a new training level and will then break free from its plateau and resume its course of weight loss and/or greater aerobic ability.
You can create this aerobic challenge by a) increasing your exercise intensity (i.e., how hard you run, walk, or swim), b) increasing how long you exercise (the duration of your run or walk), or c) increasing your workout frequency (how often you complete your aerobic workout).
Just as in the strength conditioning, you'll want to choose only one option or the other at a time. Once you've physically adjusted to increasing your intensity, you might then opt to increase your duration.
Once you've comfortably adjusted to increasing your duration, you can opt to increase the frequency of your aerobic workouts. Each adjustment can move you further along the continuum of aerobic improvement and can enable you to dislodge yourself from any fitness plateau.
And remember that the most important key to getting past a fitness plateau is to not give up. Eat right, exercise, modify your routine as needed, and patiently wait for the inevitable fitness success heading your way.
Certified personal trainer and fitness instructor Eugenie Jones writes for The Sun in Bremerton, Wash. Reach her by e-mail at eugeniek(at)attbi.com or online at www.ejonesfitness.com.
