Have you ever had an experience with the “plateau effect”? It’s a bodybuilder’s worst nightmare and if you’ve been sticking with the same training regimen, good luck getting out of it. You can continue your training for as long as you want, but you won’t get anywhere. You may even lose muscle mass!  Getting past the plateau is easy – change your training regimen!

In order to understand the plateau effect you must learn the symptoms. A plateau is a land mass that goes up to a certain elevation and then flattens out across the top without a peak. Think of a Wiley Coyote cartoon where those mountains in the background are flat on the top; those are plateaus.

A plateau effect is where you’ve built your muscle up to a certain point and then all of a sudden you aren’t making any more gains. No matter how hard you train your muscles will not respond to the same regimen for a certain time period as it has become acclimated to the kind of stress you inflict on it. This is where our techniques come in. Below are ways to get around this terrible and common occurrence:

1: “Trick” Your Muscle

 In order to get past the plateau effect you need to shock your muscles by doing a type of training that they are not used to. This will get your muscle to make microscopic tears during training which your body will then repair and thus force the muscle to grow. The way that I do this is by switching from general fitness training (8-12 rep range) to power training (3-4 rep range) or endurance training (12-30 reps).  Maximum muscle hypertrophy takes place in the 8-12 rep range, but you cannot just do the same rep range throughout your whole life and expect not to hit a plateau. 

When I switch to alternative training, such as power training or endurance training, ever 3-4 weeks I see more response and growth out of my muscle. The body gets confused after lifting moderately heavy and then switching to extremely heavy or light weight with high reps. In its state of confusion your body will need more repair and in turn it will grow. In essence, you are staying a step ahead of your muscle.  Never let them get acclimated to a certain routine! You won’t be happy!

2: Change Up Your Lifts

You will not get maximum growth out of your muscle if you continue to do the same lifts for an extended period of time. Even if you switch from general fitness to endurance or power training, you cannot continue to do the same lifts throughout those periods of time. During each phase of training you must switch up your lifts. When doing general fitness, for example, you might not want to do preacher curls on your second consecutive arm day if you did them on the arm day before. You may want to go with hammer curls to keep your body guessing. I assure you that by doing this you will see more response and be happier with your gains because they will come quicker! The more your body guesses, the better the growth!

3: Keep A Sufficient Diet

If you’re trying to gain muscle you might want to consider eating a high protein /moderate carbohydrate diet. To ensure you’re getting enough protein multiply your body weight x 1.5 – this is your necessary consumption of protein per day. Sometimes bodybuilders will up this amount by 50-100 g of protein to ensure that they are feeding their muscle enough to grow. Carbohydrates are also necessary to the gainer’s diet. Usually a 200 lb. individual would eat around 400-500 g of carbohydrates a day to fuel muscular growth.

Carbohydrates are the best natural source of energy for a bodybuilder. The more you eat, the more energy you will have to power through a hard workout. Keep your fats under 120 g daily.  Eating a moderate carbohydrate diet with too much fat will cause a significant rise in body fat percentage. You don’t want to put on too much fat to where you cannot shed it off in time for a contest or a summer at the beach.

4: Drink Plenty Of Water

It’s a simple concept; dehydrated muscles simply do not grow. If you’re working out intensely and drinking under 2 gallons of water per day, you’re probably feeling a bit dehydrated. This will cause muscle fatigue and make it harder to growth. If you want to go a little more extreme, add some creatine to your diet. Creatine puts water in the muscle itself and also fuels ATP production. This will lead to increased muscular endurance and give you a better shot at triggering growth through a strenuous workout. You can get creatine through supplement form, or even by eating adequate amounts of fish. Regardless, get enough water or you will not make significant gains.

It’s hard to get beyond plateaus for some people because they don’t know how to change their routines or even think of changing their routine. I remember when I was 16 I used to do full body workouts 3-4 times a week for about a year or so until I hired my first athletic trainer. I started getting better response out of my muscles because I switched routines with him and I didn’t even have a good diet! I wonder where I would be now if I had a solid diet ever since I started training. I wish I had learned much sooner.

Think of dieting and training linked together and not separate. You cannot train without a proper diet and expect great success. You also cannot train the same way over an extended period of time.  In doing this you will avoid the plateau effect for good. You may be so lucky as to never experience it again. Consider applying these simple tips to your lifestyle and you may go far in your quest for muscle mass. The same tactics apply to those of you that aren’t bodybuilders. Everyone hits a plateau ever now and then.  Do yourself a favor and trick your body into growing. In this you will achieve your greatest success!

Train smart, train hard, and never give up on your dreams!

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