At some point, you will reach a point where you can no longer get stronger with your workouts.
You can tell if you’ve reached a true strength plateau if either:
You've been getting weaker at a certain exercise over and over again.
You haven't been able to move forward with a certain exercise for at least three weeks now.
A plateau can be caused by many things, but there are also many ways to break through it.
There is a "solution" at the bottom of the page, but only if you are 100% sure that none of the points below apply to you. Then you should read it.
- Are you getting enough sleep? At least 7 hours of good sleep every night is ideal.
- Is your form or technique of the exercise or an injury stopping you from getting better?
- Are you pushing hard enough?
- Are you getting enough calories, protein, and weight gain?
- Are you doing too much cardio and feeling tired?
- Are you feeling a lot of stress in other parts of your life?
- Is your form perfect? Or did you have to change your form in order to progress in the past?
These points should be the first things you look at and address accordingly if you reach a strength plateau.
But if you don’t think that any of the above points can explain why you’ve plateaued, then you would want to try the following step-by-step approach:
Step 1 (Lower the Weight):
If you haven’t done this already, lower the weight by a 5lb or 10lb increment and start climbing back up from there while ensuring that your form is perfect!
Afterwards, you can try adding weight in smaller amounts than you were before. In this case, only go up by 5 pounds. It might be a good idea to look into buying "microplates" (1.25lbs) for this. They are good for this.
Step 2 (Aim for More Reps):
If you tried step 1 yet still can’t progress, try to shoot for more reps as opposed to more weight.
Suppose you have to do the bench press. You can do 3 sets of 8 reps with 135 lbs, but when you move up to 140 lbs, you can't do the reps you want (e.g. 6 reps).
When you do your next workout, don't jump to 140 pounds. Instead, stay at 135 pounds but do even more reps (above the top end of the rep range). You should do 3 sets of 10 reps before moving on to 140 lbs.
There's another way to get more reps here, and it's called "rest pause" reps.
For example, on your last working set of the exercise you’re struggling with, perform however many reps you can do without reaching failure.
Rack the weight and wait about 10-20 seconds, then start another set and try to do another 1-3 reps.
Repeat this a few times more. This might help you get the volume you need to break through your plateau next time.
Step 3 (Deload):
If step 1 and step 2 aren’t helping, then consider an early deload week.
Even though you already have deload weeks built into your program every 10 weeks, an extra or early deload week may help you break through a plateau – but only if you've noticed that you're more tired than usual.
Use the protocol for deload week that is in the deload chapter.
Step 4 (Switch the Exercise):
If all three of the previous steps fail, then you might want to consider switching the exercise to similar alternative.
Switch back to your old workout after a little while and do it again (e.g. after 2 months or so).
Even if you don't reach a plateau with the new exercise option, you could keep using it for as long as you want.
However, there are four exercises I don’t want you to switch out.
These are:
Bench press
Overhead press
Back Squat
Deadlift
For these four exercises, I have a special approach that we’ll use instead which is outlined in the next step.
Step 5 (Weekly Undulating Periodization):
If all else fails to help you break through your plateau for the four main movements previously mentioned, then you’re probably ready to implement a form of periodization.
You see, as you get older, your ability to move forward gets less and less as you get better at things.
It's not enough to just do what you used to do and add more weight to the bar every week.
This is when you need to change how you do things and this is where periodization comes in.
Periodization is just a fancy word for how you change the volume and intensity of your workouts over time, which is called "periodization."
Many ways can be used to make strength gains faster than normal.
One of them is called "undulating periodization," and it's been shown to be about 17% faster than normal.
To help you get over any kind of plateau, we are going to use "weekly undulating periodization" in your training.
This will help you get to the next level.
Now, even though the name makes it sound more complicated than it is, weekly undulating periodization is really easy.
In a nutshell, to put it more simply:
Every week, you'll adjust the weight and rep range of the exercise you've been doing.
And the three main rep ranges we'll employ are four reps, eight reps, and twelve reps.
That is, one week you will do 3 sets of 4 reps, the next week 3 sets of 8 reps, the week after 3 sets of 12 reps, and the week after that you will return to 3 sets of 4 reps but with heavier weight.
So, let's assume you're tired of doing the bench press and want to switch to weekly undulating periodization.
Instead of continuing with your routine's regular four sets of 4-6 reps, you'd execute the following:
(Week 1) Bench Press - 4 sets of 4 repetitions
(Week 2) Bench Press - 4 sets of 8 repetitions
(Week 3) Bench Press – 4 sets of 12 repetitions
Repeat the process:
4th week: Bench press - 4 sets of 4 repetitions (with heavier weight or more reps than in week 1)
5th week: Bench Press - 4 sets of 8 repetitions (with heavier weight or more reps than in week 2)
6th week- Bench Press - 4 sets of 12 repetitions (with heavier weight or more reps than in week 3)
Continue...
As you can see, all you’re doing is changing up the rep range every week with “4 reps, 8 reps, and 12 reps” being the goal - and your goal is to do more reps and/or weight each cycle.
However, you want to advance it by employing the "double progression strategy" that I outlined earlier. So, for example, let's keep the bench press example going.
Assume you did the following for the first three weeks:
Week 1: 205 lbs x 4,4,4,4 reps
Week 2: 185 lbs x 8,7,7,6 reps
Week 3: 165 lbs x 12,11,10,10
You accomplished your goal of four sets of four reps in week one.
Great! When you return to it, you're ready to increase the weight by 5 pounds.
Unfortunately, you were unable to meet the target of 4 sets of 8 reps and 4 sets of 12 reps in weeks 2 and 3. So you'd keep the same weight for those rep ranges and strive to hit your target.
Then, ideally, your following few weeks should look like this:
Week 4: 210 lbsx 3,3,3,3 reps
Week 5: 185 lbs x 8,8,8,8 reps
Week 6: 165 x 12,12,12,12 reps
You should then continue using the methods I described earlier.
Consider this:
"Three-week cycles" in which you desire to improve with greater reps or weight each time you repeat the cycle.
Final Words
Yes, this advancement is slower than double progression, but it is more realistic and prevents plateaus as you improve in your training - a viewpoint supported by both personal experience and scientific evidence.
