Results can come quick once you to stick to an exercise and nutrition routine. But you can’t do the same thing forever. Once your body starts to adapt you can hit a plateau if you do not change your training plan accordingly. Here are three ways to change up your workouts to help avoid hitting that plateau.

1. Light heavy weight – It is common for many people to get stuck in the habit of lifting the same weight every time. The purpose of weight training is to overload the muscles to recruit more muscle fibers which will help you build strength. The more weight you lift the more you will also breakdown the muscle which in turn will help repair and rebuild muscle tissue. Don’t be afraid to lift heavy, but always make sure form is proper before increasing load.
2. Train in three planes of motion – Another common pattern that many fall into is training only in one plane of motion. The sagittal plan or front and back. Exercises such as squats, lunges, biceps curls. All these exercise are great but we live in a multidirectional world and need to train in three planes of motion. Thing laterally or sideways and rotation or twisting. Exercises such as lateral lunges, oblique twists and axe chops. Aim to get lateral movement and rotation in every workout.
3. Plan for recovery – It is easy to keep trying to progress week after week and increasing intensity and resistance each week. At which point does your progress dip? At some point your body needs time to recover from all the stress (working out) in order to repair and recover to allow you to continue to progress. I recommend a recovery week every three to four weeks. A chance to do easy workouts to allow recovery so that you can continue to progress each week.

If your training plan is getting stale or has been the same for several months, then try incorporating one of the above to spice things up. If you have been lifting the same weight all along try to increase the resistance for the second and third set and do less reps. This is one easy way to shock the body and continue to see progress. Then reassess every four weeks and alter one or two things to continue to progress.

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