How To Blast Through A Plateau

We have all been through what we call a Plateau. This word may not seem that drastic but can be enough to make a grown man cry. I am constantly asked by parents or other members at the gym why none of my athletes ever seem to hit these plateaus, yet they have been stuck on a certain weight for months! Through my experience with weight training there is one of two major reasons for this; Overtraining or lack of variation in the program.  A major misconception in the world of strength and conditioning is that weight training itself makes you bigger and stronger, this is not the case. Weight Training by itself will actually break down you muscles and in turn you will become weaker! The Weight Training is what will spur the results but the REST period is what will lead to you becoming bigger and stronger then before. I have seen hundreds of examples where someone can’t seem to add any weight to there bench press so instead of benching 2 days a week they decide to up it to 3, this is a disaster waiting to happen.  Some common signs of overtraining will be irregular sleep patterns, feeling sluggish/ weak, or feeling like your exerting a great deal more energy then you should be during certain activities(warm ups, cardio, etc.). What is the easiest way to fix this? Take some time off from the weights or hit a deload week or two. This may mean nothing but bodyweight movements for a week or two until you feel your body is catching up to your training. Once your feeling better and all those major signs of overtraining have left you gradually work your way back up to the heavy weights and chances are you will see gains.The second major reason for plateaus is lack of variation in the program. If you continue to hit the same exercises and the same rep scheme over and over again your body will get used to it and you will not recruit as many muscle fibers to do the work.  This may mean instead of training for strength year round mix in a mini cycle where you train for hypertrophy, utilizing less weights/rest time and higher reps, this will shock the body and allow for greater recruitment of the muscle fibers. Another way to vary your program is to mix up the movements. Instead of performing bench press, squats, and deadlifts week after week mix in some dumbbell Presses or front squats. Try taking some weight off the bar for the deads and superset it with some kettlebell swings. Struggle to add weight to your overhead presses? Mix in some odd object training pressing heavy sandbags or stones overhead, believe me it will work. This will allow for you to not only strengthen many stabilizer muscles but your core as well. Some people do not like a change and want to stick with the three power lifting movements. If this is the case do yourself a favor and buy yourself a set of FAT GRIPZ, you won’t regret it! These things should be in any serious gym goers bag of tricks. They will not only improve your grip strength and size of arms but will pack on pounds to any lift you use them with!       I am a firm believer of the saying “If it aint broke don’t fix it,” since Westside Barbell is clearly the top power lifting gym in the world I follow similar techniques they do for improving my athletes strength. All my athletes follow a 4 week mini cycle. Week 1 is an introductory week followed by week 2 and 3 where we will break records in each strength movement being performed. Depending on how the athletes are feeling week 4 will be a deload week or skipped completely. If skipped the following mini cycle intro week will be used as the deload week.