ith summer coming to a close it’s time to start looking forward to the fall. Instead of focusing on areas where you fell short in the past few months, I encourage you to look ahead and set new training goals. The reality is the longer an athlete trains, the harder it can be to continually make impressive gains. When you just begin training, progress happens fast! Your body rapidly responds to training and it can seem easier to get stronger, build muscle, and lose body fat. The longer we train though, we have to work harder and smarter to progress at the same rate. So, if you want to move past a plateau, try these training strategies:

Change the Stimulus

Your body is great at adapting to the stress you put on it, therefore the same training routine becomes less effective over time. It’s easy to become stuck in a rut by performing the same routine for weeks or months on end. Maybe you do the same few exercises for every workout or run the exact same distance every morning. Maybe you have been using the same weight for a floor press or a goblet squat for the last 6 months. If that’s the case it’s time to change the stimulus! Pick a few new exercises and focus on getting stronger in them. Try biking or swimming instead of your usual run. Change the load or the rep scheme. Try lowering the reps and picking a heavier weight for a time. Shifting these factors every 3-6 weeks will allow you to continue to progress for a long time to come! This is how we structure our Small Group Personal Training strength program for optimal results.

Change Training Frequency

Another reason you may not see performance improvement is because you aren’t training frequently enough. If you are only coming to workout 1-2x per week it can be very difficult to make progress. Strength and endurance are developed much like any other skill; they take practice to make improvements! Your body needs repeated exposure to a training stimulus to optimize technique and make performance gains. Start adding frequency slowly and see how your body responds. You may be amazed at what you are able to do! Keep in mind the following point and make sure you aren’t doing too much.

Take an Extra Rest Day

Sometimes an athlete’s performance slows or plateaus because they are overtraining! This can happen due to lack of sleep, poor nutrition, or just doing too much for too long. Listening to your body and taking an extra rest day or two can do wonders for your progress! You will come back feeling fresh and ready to crush some personal bests. This isn’t an excuse to wimp out of your workout, but if you are constantly sore, tired, and not making progress, it could be because you overtrained! You can find out more about listening to your body here.

Try these 3 strategies to kick-start your progress and work towards your Fall goals! Pick some new exercises, adjust your training frequency, and monitor rest. Our training programs are designed to ensure that you can improve every day. Remember sometimes you need to Change It Up to take your training to the next level!