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Getting Over Plateau’s

What does it look like when an LP runs out?

You have plateaued when a certain lift is not going up anymore. When you’ve hit a plateau you will probably not gain any more strength or muscle size. A plateau can be caused by a lot of things. I recommend going over this list step by step to see if there is something you can do to get over your plateau.
 

  • The first thing to do when you think you have a plateau is to check if you’ve actually plateaud. Did your your lift go up the last few weeks? Than its not a plateau, its just regulair old slow progress which is normal.

  • Eat enough food. If you’re cutting big change you’re not gonna grow any new muscle. Same holds true to “maintaining”. If you don’t eat enough food you will simply not grow.

  • Sleep and stress! If you don’t sleep about 8 hours a night, or if you feel tired all the time it can explain why you are not breaking though plateau’s. The same holds true with stress. More stressful periods of your life might stall or regress your progress.

  • Are you eating enough protein? A very general guideline is to get 1g/bodyweight (lbs) or bodyweight (kg) x 2.2. If you want to know what optimal is for gaining muscle check out the nutrition section on our website. Utilizing carbohydrates properly can improve your performance a lot as well.

  • Are you training hard enough? Most beginners simply don’t train hard enough. Not enough intensity per set, or skipping sets all together. 

  • This next point is more for the prevention of plateau’s instead of getting out of one. You have to train in the full range of motion of the lift. Don’t ego lift by doing partial repetitions. If for example your bench press doesn’t touch at your chest, or you bounce it up you may be cutting yourself short of more quality volume. You can also end up shortening the ROM more an more which actually reduces the effectiveness of the rep. You might add weight to the bar and plateau without even knowing you are actually plateaued.

  • Is it time for a deload? Usually after lifting moderately heavy for a month or 2-3 might leave you in a fatigued and under recovered state. Especially if all your lifts have stalled its a good indicator you might need a deload.

  • Next up you will have to look at your program. Do you get enough volume on your muscle? Or are you by change under recovered? You can look at the volume charts to check if you might be off by a large degree on the lift that is stalled. {laying with frequency might also help you to get your muscle to grow faster. Also if you never feel sore, or always feel sore it is a good indicator that you are under/overtraining your muscle. (source graph information: Resonance periodsation)

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  • Consider periodizing your training! Periodization will help you manage fatigue and generally fit in more work in the right period of time for your program. Read the periodization guide on the website for more information.

  • You can train the point of the lift you’re weakest at. Say you are weak at the bottom of your squats, bench, OHP, DL you can pause those movements for 1-2 seconds at the bottom of the movement for the back off sets. If you’re weak at the top you can try to add bands to the volume work on your lifts.

  • Use an established training program that has worked for a lot of people, like Candito 6 week, 5/3/1 and others. 

  • If you’re still lost at this point you need to reevaluate the steps above again. Or visit a doctor because something else is wrong.

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