Keys to Breaking Weight-Lifting Plateaus

Weight training is an effective means of increasing strength and endurance, and this training method can fit into almost any fitness regimen. As with any exercise though, your body adjusts to a weight-lifting routine after only a handful of weeks. Early explosive gains will eventually diminish until you hit a plateau. To break through a weight-lifting plateau, incorporate variability and flexibility into your workout. The essential factor is to prevent your regimen from becoming too much of a routine.

  1. Swap Exercises

    • The first step to busting through a workout plateau is to switch up your exercises. With weight training, you need to target the same muscle groups but with different forms. For example, if the lateral bench press is your primary chest exercise, swap it out with dumbbell chest flyes. Both exercises target the middle and outer portions of your chest, but each uses a fundamentally different form so your body can't adjusted right away. In weight lifting, you have multiple exercises to chose from that target each major muscle group. Swap out your exercises every four to six weeks to prevent performance plateaus.

    Alter Schedule

    • Another way to break through a plateau, especially if don’t want to swap your exercises, is to change your workout schedule. If you’re on a three-day routine, switch to a four-day routine, or simply change the order of your workouts. For example, if you do chest, triceps and shoulders on days 1 and 3 of a 4-day routine, switch to doing them on days 2 and 4 instead. Take the exercises you had been doing on days 2 and 4 and schedule them for your original chest, triceps and shoulders workouts. Swapping every few weeks in this way can help prevent a plateau before it begins, or help you quickly reduce one if it occurs.

    Switch Set Types

    • Another way to bust through a plateau is to alter the structure of your sets. Keep your favorite exercises, just change how you perform them. For example, if you do standard sets of 10 reps, switch to a pyramid structure for heavy exercises. The pyramid set offers a progressive structure where you increase weight and reduce the number of reps in quick succession. This design keeps targeted muscles from acclimating to the stress of the exercise, letting you constantly build on your progress.

    Take a Break

    • Sometimes, the best way to break through a plateau is to simply take a break. Often, a performance plateau is the result of overtraining. Even if you’re not injured, extreme fatigue can set in, and no matter how many other elements you change, your performance still diminishes. Taking a short break from weight training allows your body to recover to peak capacity and gives you a mental break as well. In some instances, you can skip a couple of workouts. In others, skipping an entire week will help you regain your progress. Powerlifters especially need to take between one and two weeks off completely every three months.