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STRONG Camp
YOUR PBs
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Whether you’re an advanced lifter or just starting out, there’s nothing more frustrating than hitting a strength plateau and the weight you can lift simply stalls. To keep you feeling boss month on month, our experts provide their top tips for lifting heavy.
FITZGERALD Most people should not be hitting a strength plateau within their first few years of training. If you’re consistent with your workouts, using good technique and eating pretty well, you should progress. But if you have stalled, this is probably why:
Plan problems Are you sticking to the plan? Is it the program itself or your adherence to the program that has caused your progress to halt? An adaptation plateau requires you to alter the program to make it harder – either by increasing the volume, changing rep schemes or trying different exercises. An adherence plateau requires you to find a way to stick to the program by identifying barriers; perhaps work’s too busy and you need to cut down from five training sessions to four, or maybe your motivation is running low and you need a week off to reset and refresh.
Look at your technique Better yet, get someone else to look at it for you – preferably someone who coaches that movement every day. It’s common to see people build hefty numbers at the barbell without developing a solid technique. You might be squatting too high or too low, or you might be inconsistent with your depth on each rep. It’s really hard to analyse your own form during an exercise because you have a poor view and are distracted by lifting heavy things. You wouldn’t want your mechanic to inspect your car while they’re holding 100 kilograms, so don’t expect yourself to be your own trainer. You may feel embarrassed seeking out feedback, as you might be nervous that your technique isn’t up to scratch. But if you come out of the coaching session with an idea of how to improve your form, you can bust through the plateau and continue building strength. One step backwards is a good option if it allows you to take three steps forward over the next few months.
Do something different Spend three or four weeks performing a different training program. You can combine your main lifts into two sessions per week: for example, push/pull or upper/lower, as well as metabolic conditioning, circuit or endurance training. You might think that conditioning training will ruin your strength gains, but if you spend four weeks pushing sleds, slamming battle ropes and performing heavy farmer’s carries, I can assure you – you’ll be lifting heavier than you were before. If you want to stick to the resistance program, you can change up the exercises. Perform single-leg extensions, curls and bridges, use kettlebells for Romanian deadlifts and try dumbbells where you were using barbells, and vice-versa. There are plenty of aspects of your program you can change, you just need the awareness to change them if you’re not progressing.
LIZZY RAWDAH CO-DIRECTOR FLEX SUCCESS flexsuccess.com.au // @flex_success Rawdah has been in the health and fitness industry since 2008, first as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor, before moving online in 2014 as Co-Director of coaching business Flex Success. She is accredited through Beck Health & Nutrition, is a qualified Master Trainer through the Australian Institute of Fitness, holds a Bachelor of Social Science degree, and broke an Australian record in Strongman in 2017. She works with both general population clients and performance athletes, using an evidence-based, individualised and practical approach to healthy, sustainable results.
SOFIA TOUMBAS TRAINER & INDUSTRY EDUCATOR @sofiatoumbas Toumbas holds a Diploma of Fitness and a Post Graduate Diploma of Education, and has been a qualified Personal Trainer for over 10 years. An avid bikini competitor, she now spends her days educating the wider industry and coaching an intimate group of sport specific clients online.
TOM FITZGERALD EXERCISE SCIENTIST & NUTRITIONIST integratedfitnessnutrition.com // @tomfitzgerald.ifn Fitzgerald is a Nutritionist and Exercise Scientist based in Kingscliff, NSW. Specialising in general population body recomposition clients, he now runs his own coaching business, Integrated Fitness Nutrition. On top of his Sport Coaching and Exercise Science and Human Nutrition degrees, he’s also a certified Sports Nutritionist through the International Society of Sports Nutrition.
TRAVIS JONES FOUNDER – RESULT BASED TRAINING GYMS rbtgyms.com // @travisjonesentrepreneur Jones is the Founder of 15+ Result Based Training (RBT) Gyms across Australia, and health and fitness tracking app, Keystone Health and Fitness. Jones, who played elite level rugby league as a teenager until his early 20s, has over 15 years of experience in the industry. He has completed his Poliquin Level 3 and FMA Strength Institute Level 3, and is an AOK Health Corrective Exercise Specialist.
JONES When aiming to get stronger, eventually you’ll get stuck on a particular exercise. When you add weight to the bar, the number of reps you can perform with good form naturally drops, and when you try to perform more reps, you fail – session on session. You have plateaued. While a single plateau can happen for a variety of reasons, you shouldn’t get stuck at the same level for more than two subsequent workouts. If that’s the case, you need to change your program. Here are three effective ways to do just that:
Increase your training volume A common reason for progress stalling is that you’ve become too advanced for your workout program. The lifts you’re performing right now may not be enough of a stimulus to force your muscles to adapt. This often happens because the more you advance, the more resistant you are to muscle damage and neuromuscular fatigue, and you recover faster from your workouts. You must aim to counterbalance these adaptations by increasing training volume. In most cases, this increase in training volume is all that’s needed to get the progress going again.
Use your ovulation to progress faster How to increase training volume? Do one more set per exercise during your follicular phase of your menstrual cycle, which is roughly the first 14 days. Have you ever noticed that you tend to be stronger during the first half of the menstrual cycle compared to the second half? You may never have thought about it, but most women perform better in the gym before they ovulate. One study by Wikström-Frisén et al. found high frequency periodised leg resistance training during the first two weeks of the menstrual cycle was more beneficial in gaining power and strength and increasing lean body mass than if the same program was completed in the second two weeks of their cycle. One reason for this is that your progesterone levels are lower before ovulation, which enhances the brain’s ability to recruit muscles. Testosterone levels are also higher, which aids recovery between workouts.
Train in the early evening Did you know that most people are strongest during the early evening? Scientists Greg Atkinson and Thomas Reilly found that most sports records are broken in the early evening because strength, power and flexibility all reach their peak at that time. If you’re currently exercising in the morning or afternoon, consider switching to early evening workouts. It may boost your performance and help you overcome plateaus.
RAWDAH Progress is the name of the game and, for those who train with weights, that game may be adding kilos to the bar to crush your personal bests (PBs). While you’ll need adequate recovery and appropriate nutrition to truly reach your potential, here’s what you can do in-gym to lift heavy:
Test your current strength and set a goal You can’t manage what you don’t measure. A rep max (RM) test may be a good place to start, allowing you to establish a benchmark of your current strength based on how many reps you can complete at a given weight, or how much weight you can lift for a given rep goal (usually one to five reps). You can retest this down the track. Once testing is complete, set a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) goal based on your numbers (Editor’s note: or upgrade your goal setting methods using p. 22).
Have a solid training program Avoid throwing weights around without any intention, intensity, plan or purpose. A program that is realistic yet challenging is best. It should work with progressive overload principles, increasing your workload over time on the exercise in question. This forces ‘strength adaption’ and will create far greater results than changing up the weight every time you lift. Your rate of progress will depend on recovery, technique, intensity, and if you’re a beginner or more advanced. As a guide, you want to be finishing your strength sets with zero to three reps in reserve (RIR). This means you finish a set when you’re physically only able to perform up to three more reps before you ‘fail’. For most people, this should mean increasing the weight every one to three weeks.
Start with the most important exercise Begin your session with the exercises you want to improve on, before you’re fatigued. Pay close attention to your technique to avoid injury, and spend time working on prehab and skill acquisition of your chosen movement. This is where a strength coach may come in handy.
Take recovery seriously Recovery plays a huge role in strength gains. Ensure you’re not overtraining and you are taking recovery or deload weeks. Deload weeks can either be reactive (taken when progress is no longer possible and your rate of perceived exertion or RPE continues to soar week after week) or proactive (taken in advance by planning a training block – say four weeks – followed by a week of reduced workload). Monitoring stress management, activity levels and sleep year-round will also prove beneficial to your recovery and strength improvements.
TOUMBAS To improve performance numbers, you need to ‘earn the right to lift the weight’. Factors such as muscular balance, sound technical execution and grit all need to combine to smash that PB. As an intermediate or advanced lifter, the first two will have been developed over time and experience, so I want to explore the third requirement – ‘grit’. Provoking fear in many, grit is often associated with nose bleeds, pulsating forehead veins and ‘exertional discomfort’. To put everyone at ease, the first two usually only appear on competitive powerlifters that have surpassed the human stage and have become Hulks in their own right. However, the concept of ‘exertional discomfort’ needs to be a comfortable topic for anyone interested in performance improvement to discuss and experience. From my own experience as a coach and an athlete, I have found the two effective methods to overcome fear of
the weight (which will almost always prevent you from lifting it) and toiling through the discomfort are:
A consistent approach This concept is widely used in powerlifting. With over 71 world records, Ed Coan described his approach to every lift: “I treated light weights like I did heavy weights. So, it was always the same way done. I could walk up to a deadlift, set up for a bench – everything was exactly the same, all the time.” Coan says apprehension about attempting the new weight was gone due to this consistent routine. Current three-time CrossFit Games Champion and Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist Tia-Clair Toomey seems to agree. In the most recent Crossfit Games, guest commentator Mark Burgener described Toomey’s approach: “…the beauty of her being able to go through her patterns right before she lifts it…she’s got time, she addresses
the bar the same, she goes up there very confidently and puts a lot of acceleration on the bar.” These two examples show that how you approach the bar in any lift can dictate the way it is moved. Fear is removed and all that is left is the movement itself relying on the strength that has already been built over time.
Exertional discomfort Lifting heavy weight should not feel easy or comfortable. In traditional higher rep protocols, it is expected that the last three to five reps sit at a higher RPE. Take this principle and apply it to a one to three RM and the exertion rate increases exponentially. So you should expect a higher level of discomfort. A different mindset is required to tolerate and understand the discomfort that is going to occur. Accept the lift is intentionally difficult, respect it and mentally prepare, and it will make the movement easier to complete. You should have the physical strength and technical execution – now you need the mental strength behind the lift. If you believe you can, it will happen. S
