12/08/2023
Ever hit a plateau?
Basically, this is your body's way of saying you need to change something up.
What you were doing was working, now it's not. This is normal.
Your body is always adapting to the stimulus you throw at it and when it stops adapting (results stop) this just means it's gotten used to the stimulus.
Now the big caveat to this (most people's biggest issue is they are not consistent enough - this post is for people who are very consistent with eating well, training hard, etc but aren't seeing results currently).
Things that might need changing to stimulate progress.
1- Nutrition. If you've been eating the same things over and over again, there is a good chance that changing things up a bit will stimulate some improvements. This is a case of trial and error but done in an educated way based on experience. See below.
1a) Change your proteins. Always eat eggs for breakfast? Change to steak or other meat, or protein smoothie etc. Take Whey powder every day? Change to a vegan protein for a few weeks.
1b) Change your macros. Macros mean protein, fats, and carbs. Currently, going very low carb? Try 2-4 weeks of moderate carbs. Currently, eating a fair amount of carbs? Try reducing that and increasing your proteins and fats.
1c) Elimination. Try eliminating certain foods which often cause sensitivities. Most commonly gluten and dairy. If you are sensitive it will be stressing your body making fat loss/muscle gain very challenging (different from intolerance and almost everyone is sensitive to some degree these days thanks to declining gut health, stress etc).
1d) change your supports. If you've been taking the same stuff for ages, try 2-4 weeks off it or try a few different products.
2 - Training. A few simple changes to your training can get you improving again.
2a) Training type. If you've been doing all HIIT sessions like boxing etc - try doing more of our strength sessions and vice versa for a period of time.
2b) Exercise intensity. Try increasing the intensity that you work at by 10%. Most people think they are working hard but in reality, they are operating somewhat in their comfort zone. Remember the 80/20 rule. 80% of your improvement comes from 20% of your reps. Guess which 20%? The last 20%! haha, so that means pushing that extra couple of reps or increasing the weight on the bar slightly or increasing the depth of the squat slightly etc can be the difference between forcing your body to adapt and leaving it somewhat comfortable and not adapting.
2c) Short-term challenge. Some kind of challenge to spice things up. Eg: For the next 7 days I'm doing 50 chin-ups a day to help me get out of a bit of a funk I feel I'm in. It could be a new goal or something simple like this.
I've run out of time but I'm sure you get the idea.
The other thing that can be changed to see big improvements is sleep. But that's for another day 🙂
10/08/2023
10/08/2023