Training
After defining what training plateaus are in the first part of this article and taking a look at possible causes and solutions, in this second part of this article I will look at other strategies that have proven to be very effective in overcoming training plateaus.
Give your training sessions everything you've got
Following an intense training program doesn't just require physical toughness - it also requires a good dose of mental toughness. Doing squats, deadlifts and bench presses over and over again for well over 100 kilos is not for the lazy or weak-willed.
Sometimes exercisers fall into a rut simply because they don't give their all in their training sessions. Their mind is elsewhere and they just go through the motions. We've all experienced this and it doesn't take much to change this once you recognize the problem.
Sometimes external factors work against us. Things like an overly talkative or lazy training partner, the soporific music in the gym, the time of day (some people are significantly stronger and more energetic later in the afternoon than in the morning) or an impending injury.
The solutions to such problems are, of course, simple. Let the chatterbox know that even if you don't mind a nice chat, she's distracting you too much from your workouts. Get an mp3 player and listen to the music that spurs you on. Train at the times when you feel strongest and most energized. Be patient with injuries and make sure they are fully healed before you train at full strength again.
Often there are also internal obstacles that you need to overcome.
Sometimes we beat ourselves up psychologically when we try to move extremely heavy weights, sometimes we are too self-critical and sometimes we are simply in a bad mood or don't really want to be in the gym.
These problems are also easy to overcome. It's just as easy to psych yourself up for a heavy exercise or a tough training session as it is to beat yourself up psychologically: You can control your emotions willy-nilly.
Spur yourself on. Prepare yourself to give it everything you've got. Visualize yourself performing the exercise perfectly. You don't have to run amok like a wild bull in the gym, but don't worry if it looks like you're taking everything a little too seriously. You're here to get results, not to impress others with your cool and calm demeanor.
In the gym, allow yourself the luxury of temporarily leaving out all the other problems you have to deal with in real life
During the hour you spend moving heavy things, your world won't fall apart. Focus on the muscles you're training, the next repetition and the next set. Think of your time in the gym as your meditation time.
Use your diet to break through plateaus
In many cases, the cause of a plateau in weight, muscle mass or strength is simply because you're not eating enough - and for some people, 'enough' can be a large amount of food.
For example, I know a lot of exercisers weighing in the 80 to 85 kilo range who need more than 4,000 to 5,000 kcal per day to gain about 1 pound per week. In most cases, these people are just starting to train, which makes it even more unusual.
As you get more muscular and stronger, the amount of food you need to eat to continue to get more muscular and stronger will likely increase. And just as you need to slowly reduce your calorie intake if you want to define, you often need to slowly increase your calorie intake if you are trying to maintain maximum muscle growth.
Increasing your calorie intake is therefore an easy way to increase both your weight and your strength. All you need to do is increase your daily calorie intake by 100 kcal (I prefer to increase my carbohydrate intake by 25 grams before or after training) and review your calorie intake after a few weeks.
If this helps you to overcome your plateau, then keep your calorie intake in this range for the next few weeks and see how your body responds. If you are making progress again then continue until this is no longer the case, if not then increase your calorie intake again.
I know a lot of people who started their bulking phase at around 3,000 kcal a day and ended up at over 4,000 kcal a day due to the large increases in calorie intake required to continue making progress.
This is a good thing. It means you have a healthy metabolism and when you start the definition phase to lose the fat you've built up, you'll be able to eat quite a bit as you gradually reduce your calorie intake from this maximum amount.
Reduce your cardio training
Cardio training can both hinder and help your muscle growth. It helps to improve your insulin sensitivity (6) (which refers to how well your cells respond to the signals that insulin gives them), which in turn improves your body's ability to use nutrients to build muscle (7). In addition to this, it supports your muscle recovery by increasing blood flow.
However, cardio training can also hinder your muscle growth in different ways. Firstly, it burns calories that you need to replace when trying to maintain a small calorie surplus and secondly, it puts additional stress on your body, which can contribute to overtraining.
This is the reason why studies have shown that the more cardio training you do and the more intense this cardio training is, the more your strength and muscle growth are negatively affected (8). This applies in particular to so-called "hardgainers", who find it difficult to build muscle from the outset.
For this reason, I recommend doing no more than 2 to 3 cardio workouts per week if your goal is to build muscle, keeping each of these workouts shorter than 30 minutes.
And if you reach a plateau, don't be afraid to cut out cardio completely for a few weeks while you try to overcome it. You can resume cardio training as soon as you start making progress again.
Extend your repetition ranges or increase your weights in smaller increments
Sometimes you will reach the upper limit of a given repetition range, increase the weight by a standard amount (5 kilos, be it 2.5 kilos on dumbbells or 2.5 kilos on each side of the barbell) and fail to reach the lower limit of your repetition range with the new weight.
For example, you might do 6 reps of barbell shoulder presses with 85 kilos, increase the weight to 90 kilos for the next set and then only do 2 or 3 reps with the new weight.
If this happens, you have two options:
- You can continue working with the original weight until you can do a few reps over the top of your rep range (which should give you what you need to successfully increase the weight).
- You can increase the weight in smaller increments using smaller weight plates.
Both will work well and it's a matter of personal preference which option you choose. I would prefer to increase the weight in smaller increments rather than doing more reps, but that's just my preference.
For example, you could go back to 85 kilos and continue training with that weight until you can do 8 reps, or you can use lighter weight plates and increase the weight to 87.5 or less.
If you prefer smaller increases in weight (also known as "microloading", then a product called PlateMates may be helpful. This system includes small magnetic weight plates that start at 250 grams and go up to 2.5 kilos in weight and can be attached to dumbbells, barbell plates or even weight stacks from machines through the magnetic effect.
Increase the weight and see if you can go further with it
If you are stuck one repetition before reaching the top of your repetition range and just can't manage to perform another repetition to be able to increase the weight, then sometimes it's worth trying to increase the weight anyway.
You'll probably do one or two reps less than planned with the new weight on the next set, but you can give your body a week or two with the new, heavier weight to see if it will adapt to it.
For example, if you are training squats in a repetition range of 4 to 6 reps and are stuck at 170 kilos with 5 reps, then you could increase the weight to 172.5 kilos. With this weight, you might be able to do 3 repetitions in the next set - one repetition less than planned. The next week, use 172.5 kilos again and see if you can do 4 reps now and 5 reps the following week, and so on.
If you have tried this new weight for 2 or 3 weeks and are still stuck one or two reps below the lower limit of your repetition range, then you should go back to your previous weight and use the other strategies from this article.
Incorporate rest-pause training into your program
If you're familiar with my training programs, then you'll know that I'm not a fan of fancy set schemes like supersets, descending sets and mega sets, nor am I a fan of non-traditional training protocols like super slow training, super fast training, negative reps or the like.
Many of these training strategies have been scientifically proven to be no more effective than traditional set and repetition schemes and my personal experience is consistent with these studies (I have tried all sorts of variations of these training strategies and have only made unsatisfactory progress with them).
However, there is one advanced training strategy that is supported by both scientific research and anecdotal reports and that is rest-pause sets.
Rest-pause sets are an old-school, powerlifting method for breaking plateaus that has been studied by researchers at the University of Sydney (9). The scientists found that this strategy is an effective way to increase strength through greater recruitment of muscle fibers. When you reach a plateau, you can use this training method and turn each of your sets into rest-pause sets for one or two training sessions before returning to your normal training to see if you have been able to overcome your plateau. When I reach a plateau, I go through the strategies above in the order given. After you have reached and overcome a few plateaus, you will get a pretty good feel for what works best for your body. For me, the problem is usually related to not sleeping or eating enough or getting into a state of overtraining. And if it's none of the above, then increasing the repetition ranges and increasing the weights in smaller increments usually solves the problem. However, other bodies may react differently and you will find the best way to overcome plateaus through experience. Source: https://www.muscleforlife.com/weightlifting-plateau/ By Michael MathewsChoosing the right strategy for overcoming plateaus
References:
After taking a look at the anatomy of the shoulder muscles in the first part of the article, looking at the most common mistakes that are responsible for unsatisfactory results in shoulder development and the basics of effective shoulder training, in this second part of this article we will move on to the 8 best shoulder exercises and look at some effective training programs for building impressive shoulder muscles.
The best shoulder exercises
As with most muscle groups, there are a variety of exercises you can choose from for your shoulders, but only a handful of these exercises are really necessary. The following are the exercises I used to dramatically improve my shoulder development. They will help you achieve the same.
1. standing or seated shoulder press
Barbell and dumbbell presses are the most effective way to build your shoulders because even though they focus on the front shoulder muscle head, they also engage the other two shoulder muscle heads and allow you to press a heavy weight without risking shoulder injury.
EMG studies have shown that dumbbell shoulder presses may activate the shoulder muscles slightly more than barbell shoulder presses, but the differences were relatively small and EMG data is not 100% reliable in this regard. From a practical point of view, I wouldn't say that dumbbell shoulder presses are better than barbell presses, or vice versa.
As with the bench press, I have also found that dumbbell and barbell shoulder presses complement each other well, which is why I have been using them both in my shoulder training sessions for some time now. Both require strength and stability and produce good results and I would recommend that you alternate these exercises. What I like to do is train 6 to 8 weeks of heavy barbell shoulder presses, followed by 6 to 8 weeks of heavy dumbbell shoulder presses.
There are two variations of shoulder presses: standing shoulder presses and seated shoulder presses. Try both and you'll quickly find that standing shoulder presses are significantly harder than seated shoulder presses - and harder usually means better.
The aforementioned EMG study supports this. It showed that standing shoulder presses (performed with both a barbell and dumbbell) activate the shoulder muscles slightly more than the seated version. Furthermore, many well-informed fitness experts say that standing barbell shoulder presses are the better choice and I don't disagree. As far as a full body workout is concerned, there is no doubt that standing shoulder presses are superior.
However, standing shoulder presses have three disadvantages that you should be aware of:
- Your 1RM weight will be lower.
- You need to be more careful when trying to move heavy weights (80%+ of 1RM weight).
- You will need more time to learn how to perform standing shoulder presses correctly.
Standing shoulder presses also put more stress on your lower back and core than the seated version, which means you can't move as much weight and the risk of injury is higher if your exercise form is sloppy. These disadvantages apply in particular to standing shoulder presses with dumbbells, which are less suitable for heavy pressing.
This makes standing shoulder presses the better full-body exercise, but if you are trying to overload your shoulders to the max, the seated version will allow you to load your shoulders with heavier weights. My personal preference is seated shoulder presses (barbell or dumbbells) as I feel that my heavy deadlifts and heavy squats are more than enough for my core and back.
2. arnold presses
Arnold Presses are a variation of the traditional dumbbell shoulder press that increases the range of motion.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6ikMW_fNk)
3. dumbbell front raises
Dumbbell front raises are an effective exercise for targeting the front shoulder muscles.
4. dumbbell side raises
Dumbbell side raises are one of the most effective exercises for building the lateral shoulder muscle heads, which need targeted training to keep up with the front shoulder muscles. Pressing alone will not be enough.
As your shoulders get stronger, you will find it harder to maintain correct exercise form if you try to move both dumbbells at the same time. An effective way around this problem is the hanging variation of this exercise(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw5I3MFHU0o)
5. dumbbell side raise bent over
The posterior shoulder muscle head is the smallest and weakest of the three shoulder muscle heads, but it should still not be neglected. If you want three-dimensional shoulders that don't look completely flat from behind, then you need to train your rear shoulder muscles. And bent over side raises - sitting or standing - are an excellent exercise for this.
6. barbell rows bent over for the rear shoulder muscles
Barbell rows for the rear shoulder muscles is another great exercise to target the rear shoulder muscles. This exercise is similar to bent-over rowing, but you are focusing on a maximum, conscious contraction of the rear shoulder muscles.
7. face pulls
Face pulls are an excellent exercise for strengthening the posterior shoulder muscles and the rotator cuff. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiRAi2KOfRQ)
8. barbell flat bench press and incline bench press
Barbell bench presses are usually thought of as a chest exercise, but research shows that this exercise and its variations are also very effective for building the shoulder muscles (13).
Remember that progression is the key to muscle growth
So much for the exercises. Of the dozens of exercises you can use, these eight are the only ones you really need to build strong, full and functional shoulders. However, the key to impressive shoulders is not simply performing the exercises described above - the key is progression in these exercises. This means increasing the weight you use in these exercises over time.
Always remember that as a natural exerciser who wants to become more muscular, you need to focus on getting stronger.
The 3 best shoulder training programs
The following shoulder training programs cover all aspects of effective shoulder training:
- They use multi-joint exercises and isolation exercises to work all three shoulder muscle heads equally.
- They include a lot of heavy training.
- They focus on progressive overload.
Before we get to the training programs themselves, I want to make an important point:
Since all pressing exercises train the shoulders, you need to consider your chest training when planning your shoulder workouts. For example, if you train your chest (and therefore your shoulders) twice a week, two additional shoulder training sessions per week would be too much.
For this reason, I consider all training sessions with pressure exercises as shoulder training sessions from a training planning perspective and then plan my dedicated shoulder training sessions accordingly. So if you already train your shoulders twice a week, then you shouldn't plan more than one additional shoulder training session per week.
On the other hand, if you only train your chest once a week and really want to focus on growing your shoulders, then you can probably get away with two additional shoulder training sessions per week.
Keep things simple though. The workout programs I'm going to outline below will train your chest and your shoulders (with special emphasis on the shoulders). Depending on how often you train your chest in addition to these workouts, you can choose a shoulder training program with one, two or three shoulder workouts per week.
If you choose the two or three day training program, you should make sure that there are at least one or two days between the training sessions (either non-training days or training days for other muscle groups).
Here are the workouts:
1 x per week shoulder training program
Training session 1
- Dumbbell or barbell shoulder press sitting or standing: warm-up and 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Barbell incline bench press: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of 1RM
- Dumbbell incline bench press: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Dumbbell side raise bent over: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
2 x per week shoulder training program
Training session 1
- Barbell flat bench press: Warm-up and 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of 1RM
- Dumbbell shoulder press sitting: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of 1RM
- Dumbbell side raises: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
- Face pulls: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
Training session 2
- Standing or seated shoulder presses: warm-up and 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Arnold presses: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Barbell rows for the rear shoulder muscles: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
- (Optional) Dumbbell front raises: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
3 x per week shoulder training program
Training session 1
- Barbell flat bench press: Warm-up and 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of 1RM
- Dumbbell shoulder press sitting: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Dumbbell side raise bent over: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
- (Optional) Face pulls: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
Training session 2
- Standing or seated shoulder presses: warm-up and 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Arnold Presses: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Dumbbell side raises: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
- (Optional) Dumbbell front lift: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
Training session 3
- Dumbbell incline bench press: Warm up and 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 reps with 80% of 1RM
- Flat bench press: 3 heavy sets of 4 to 6 repetitions with 80% of the 1RM
- Dumbbell side raises bent over: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of 1RM
- (Optional) Dumbbell rowing for the rear shoulder muscles: 3 heavy sets of 8 to 10 repetitions with 70% of the 1RM
If you have just started strength training, then the shoulder training program with one training session per week is an excellent start. However, if you want to get your shoulders growing as quickly as possible or already have some training experience, then you should give the programs with two or three shoulder training sessions per week a chance.
Here are a few things to keep in mind with these workouts:
1. once you reach the upper limit of the repetition range, increase the weight
This is known as double progression and is one of the most effective ways to ensure that you progressively overload your muscles. For example, if you can do 6 reps of shoulder presses with 60 kilos, then increase the weight on the bar by 5 kilos on the next set. If you can do at least 4 repetitions with 65 kilos on the next set, then that is the new weight you work with until you can do 6 repetitions again and increase the weight, and so on.
If, on the other hand, you only manage 3 repetitions, then reduce the weight by 2.5 kilos and see how the next set goes. If you can still only do 3 repetitions or less, reduce the weight back to the starting weight with which you did 6 repetitions and continue training with this weight until you can do 2 sets of 6 repetitions before increasing the weight.
2. rest 2 minutes between sets
It is important that you recover as much as possible between sets so that you can give your best in the next set. Yes, this will feel like a lot of standing around, but getting enough rest is an important part of a heavy workout. This is the time during which your muscles regain their strength so that you can give your maximum on each set.
The bottom line on the best shoulder training program
If you want to look muscular and toned, then you need big, strong and defined shoulder muscles - and this is especially true if you want to look impressive in clothes.
Most exercisers know this but still fail because they make one or more of the following mistakes:
- They focus on the wrong shoulder exercises
- They focus on training with high repetitions
- They neglect progressive overload
On the other hand, you can achieve good results by taking exactly the opposite approach:
- Focus on multi-joint exercises and supplement your training with isolation exercises
- Do a lot of training with heavy weights
- Make sure you increase your weights over time
If you follow these principles, you can't go far wrong, especially if you use the following exercises most of the time:
- Standing or seated shoulder presses
- Arnold presses
- Dumbbell front raises
- Dumbbell side raises
- Dumbbell side raises bent over
- Barbell rows for the rear shoulder muscles
- Face pulls
- Barbell flat and incline bench presses
And remember, the key to impressive shoulders is not just using these exercises, but also continually increasing the reps and weights used.
References:
- http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2011/08/suppversity-emg-series-m-deltoideus-m.html
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25853914
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20847704
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20512064
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25799093
- https://www.miotec.com.br/pdf/Pinto_et_al_2013_Med_Sport.pdf
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28834797/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29470825
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02640414.2018.1555906?journalCode=rjsp20&
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17326698
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16287373
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23096062
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25799093
Source: https://www.muscleforlife.com/best-shoulder-workout/
By Michael Matthews
If you're over 40 and want to get back in shape but don't know what you should be doing differently than before, then this is the article for you. Read a few of these "get fit at 40" articles and you might get the impression that reaching 40 means you have to immediately swap barbells and dumbbells for a rollator and a senior bath.
Does your training really have to change radically as soon as you reach 40?
The short answer to this question is of course a resounding no. The fact that you're old enough to remember TJ Hooker's theme tune doesn't mean that your training program should include nothing more strenuous than shoulder rolls, toe raises and a few deep breathing exercises.
So if you're in your forties and you're worried that it might finally be too late to get back in shape, I've got good news for you: it's never too late.
Why being fat and unfit can be a silver lining
There is something positive about being overweight, unfit and out of shape. When you start exercising, your body will change relatively quickly. For someone who is lean, fit and strong, building muscle and strength takes a significant amount of time, effort and sweat.
If you are overweight and out of shape, on the other hand, you will make progress much faster.
In one study, researchers assembled a group of overweight and unfit men with an average age of 41 and had them train with weights three times a week (1). In addition, these subjects performed 30 minutes of light cardio training such as walking or cycling during the same training session.
After 14 weeks, these men had lost an average of 16.3 pounds of fat, which equated to just over one pound of fat loss per week. But that wasn't all. In addition to this fat loss, these men had gained nearly 10 pounds of muscle mass during the same time period, which equates to a significant amount of muscle.
And there was more.
Blood sugar levels, triglyceride levels and insulin levels had dropped. The levels of the "good" HDL cholesterol had risen. VO2max - a measure of cardiovascular fitness - had increased by over 25%.
Of course, these men would not have continued to make such rapid progress indefinitely. Over time, results tend to come more slowly. And no two people will respond in exactly the same way to an identical exercise and nutrition program, so no one can tell you for sure how quickly you can expect results.
But this study illustrates a very important principle quite well: if you are in your forties, out of shape and not fit, then it is possible to make big changes to your body in a relatively short period of time - in this case within 3 to 4 months - as long as you are willing to put in some time and work.
The basic rules when it comes to getting back in shape over 40
The basic rules for getting back into shape over 40 are basically the same rules that apply to exercisers in their 20s and 30s. Although the fact that you've moved around the sun a few more times will affect the rate at which you progress, people of different ages respond quite similarly to training. It's mainly the volume of results and the speed at which you achieve those results that make the difference.
I would say that your training doesn't have to be radically different once you turn 40. So you certainly won't have to change everything you do. However, I do have some ideas that can help make your training sessions more effective, protect your joints and avoid injury.
Heavy weights aren't everything
If you train with heavy weights all the time, you will eventually start to feel slight pain in your knees, wrists, elbows and shoulders. Over time, these initially annoying little things will become so serious that they will affect your training. It will take weeks, if not months, before they disappear and you can train properly again.
The solution is quite simple. If a heavy workout causes pain during certain exercises, then you should simply use light weights instead. Regardless of what some people will say, muscles can be built using lighter weights and higher repetition ranges.
In fact, a number of studies published in recent years have shown that lighter weights and higher repetitions can do a surprisingly good job of stimulating muscle growth.
In one study, high reps and light weights (3 sets of 30 to 40 reps) stimulated muscle growth just as well as heavier weights and lower reps (3 sets of 10 to 12 reps) (2).
And this is not limited to untrained beginners, who tend to build muscle regardless of what they do. Even for exercisers with an average of four years of training experience, sets of 20 to 25 repetitions work almost as well as sets of 8 to 12 repetitions when it comes to stimulating muscle growth (9).
Heavy weights...medium weights...light weights...all can be used successfully to get back in shape over 40.
Don't stop moving
Nagging joint pain and injuries can make it harder to get in shape over 40 than it was at 20 or 30. The standard approach to dealing with such an injury is to rest the affected areas. However, for some injuries, exercise may be the better way to go.
So-called eccentric training has been shown to work very well for treating tendon pain in the elbow and Achilles tendon area. In some cases, such training works better than surgery.
In one study, Swedish scientists investigated the effects of heavy eccentric calf training on a group of 15 middle-aged recreational runners (5). The subjects were told to continue their training even if they felt pain and to stop only when the pain became unbearable.
All subjects had been diagnosed with Achilles tendinitis at the start of the study - a degeneration of the tendon's collagen in response to chronic overuse. At the beginning of the study, the test subjects had already suffered from tendon pain for an average of 18 months.
At the beginning of the study, the pain was so bad that it prevented the recreational athletes from running. After 12 weeks of daily eccentric training (3 sets of 15 repetitions twice a day), all study participants had returned to pain levels similar to those before the injury occurred.
A control group of 15 runners with the same diagnosis and duration of symptoms were treated conventionally. In none of the cases was the conventional treatment successful. All patients in the control group ended up undergoing surgery.
In a group of subjects who were in their late forties and who suffered from a condition known as tennis elbow, performing an eccentric exercise known as the Tyler Twist in addition to a standard program of physical therapy led to a significant improvement in symptoms (3).
The authors of the study noted the following:
"All markers of chronic lateral epicondylosis showed significant improvement with the addition of an eccentric wrist extensor exercise to a standard physical therapy program compared to a physical therapy program without isolated eccentric exercise. Performing 3 sets of 15 repetitions daily for approximately 6 weeks appears to be an effective treatment for the majority of patients."
Similar results were observed in a group of men and women suffering from golfer's elbow, for whom all other treatments - physiotherapy, cortisone injections and painkillers - had previously failed (4).
There is also some fascinating research showing that regular heavy strength training works just as well as eccentric training in treating tendon pain.
A study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports compared three different treatment methods - corticosteroid injections, eccentric single-leg squats and heavy, slow resistance training (6 seconds per repetition) (10).
The authors of this study also emphasized the fact that pain during exercise was "acceptable" but should not get worse after exercise is finished.
After 12 weeks of treatment, all three treatment methods showed similar results. After 6 months, however, things looked different. In particular, the eccentric training and slow resistance training led to further improvements, while the improvements with the corticosteroid group were less pronounced.
Note: If you are suffering from an injury, the first thing you should do is consult a doctor instead of trying to solve the problem yourself. And if what the doctors tell you contradicts what I tell you, then listen to their advice and not mine.
Bandages can work small miracles
If your knees and elbows are causing you pain during training, try wearing neoprene elbow and knee supports when you train. The main benefits of these types of supports are that they provide compression and warmth, both of which go a long way to making your ligaments and tendons much happier during training.
Here's what powerlifter Gary Gibson had to say about this in an article on StartingStrength.com:
Warm ligaments will perform better under load than cold ligaments. The likelihood of injury is much lower with warm bands than with cold bands. But here's news that might shock you: a simple warm-up will make the muscles warm, but will leave the ligaments cold. This is because a lot of blood flows through the muscles, which is not the case with the ligaments. Knee supports retain the heat generated by the muscles and make it available to the ligaments in the immediate area. Think of these supports as a greenhouse effect for your joints.
I'm not suggesting that neoprene knee supports are some kind of universal cure for knee and elbow pain regardless of the underlying cause - but they are definitely worth a try. They helped me and could help you too.
Stimulate rather than destroy
Leaving the gym feeling like you've just gone several rounds with Mike Tyson at his best may make you think that your last training session was an effective one, but all that effort needs to be part of a structured plan that gets you closer to a specific goal. And that plan should include days that are hard and heavy as well as days that are easier.
If you push your body to its limits with every training session, several things will happen that you won't enjoy:
- In the evening, you'll feel that "weird tired feeling" where you want to go to sleep but can't.
- At 2am you'll still be staring at the ceiling wondering why you can't fall asleep.
- You will get up the next morning just as tired as the night before.
- Trivial things that you never noticed before will start to annoy you.
- You will feel moody and irritable.
- And worst of all, your results in the gym will start to diminish and you may well get worse instead of better.
Most athletes divide their training into different time periods, during which they train at different levels of intensity depending on how close they are to a competition. They don't train at maximum effort all the time.
Hard work is a tool used to stimulate physiological improvements. It is a means to an end and not the actual goal. Push yourself to your limits every day and there's a good chance you'll burn out sooner or later.
Stretch what is tense
Static stretching has come under increasing criticism in recent years, mainly due to the fact that it simply doesn't do many of the things it's supposed to do. Most research shows that stretching has little effect on muscle soreness and doesn't seem to do much to prevent injury.
However, if you feel that certain muscles feel a little tight (the leg flexors, hip flexors, quadriceps and gluteus are the usual suspects here) or you have some asymmetry in your flexibility (often one leg feels tighter than the other, for example), then it's worth experimenting with a little static stretching to see if this makes you feel better.
If you want a simple recommendation for better mobility, then aim to stretch tight muscles for a total of 60 seconds per day. Stretching for 60 seconds has been shown to improve mobility faster than stretching for 30 or 15 seconds in subjects with tight leg flexors aged 65 to 97 years (6). In addition, subjects who stretched for 60 seconds remained more flexible for longer than subjects in the other groups.
One stretch lasting 60 seconds and 6 stretches lasting 10 seconds each work equally well when it comes to improving mobility (7). Regardless of the duration of the individual stretches, the total daily duration of the stretch is the key to improvement.
Like most things, flexibility is influenced by our genes. There is a gene called COL5A1 that is associated with your innate level of flexibility (8). One version of the gene means that you are quite agile, while another version means that you are not. This means that both the rate at which your mobility improves and the point at which you stop improving are not entirely under your control.
So don't be discouraged if the whole thing takes a little longer.
Choose your weapons
Some people have a bone structure that makes them better at certain exercises than others. You may not be built to do deep squats with a heavy barbell on your shoulder, deadlifts from the floor, pull-ups with a straight bar or bench presses through the full range of motion.
If you have short arms and long legs, for example, you will find it much harder to do deadlifts from the floor without rounding your back than someone who has long arms and short legs. However, this doesn't mean you should give up deadlifts. Instead, use rack pulls where you use a starting position that allows you to maintain a normal rounding of the spine.
If your wrists hurt when you do pull-ups with a straight bar, use a bar with rotating handles. This will allow you to move your wrists more naturally as they are not fixed in the same position throughout the entire range of motion.
If bench pressing hurts your shoulders, use a so-called "shoulder saver pad", which shortens the lower part of the movement by 3 centimeters. Or use dumbbells with palms facing inwards and elbows held closer to the body (this simple modification of the exercise is often enough to get rid of shoulder pain with almost immediate effect).
And if you can't do deep squats with your buttocks touching your heels without adopting an unnatural lower back position, then less deep squats are perfectly adequate.
Getting in shape at over 40 does not require you to train through your full range of motion, especially if this causes you pain.
There will always be exercises that will hurt no matter how you perform them. If this is the case, don't shy away from these exercises and find exercises that don't hurt. There is no single exercise that you absolutely have to do that cannot be replaced by something else.
Find new ways to overload your muscles
To build muscle, your focus should always be on improving your training performance over time. You need to give your muscles a reason to grow or you will be stuck with the muscle mass you have now.
The way most people achieve this is by increasing the weight of each exercise. Once you are able to perform a certain amount of repetitions with a given weight, you increase the weight. However, as you get older, it will become much harder to increase the weight continuously.
In addition, you will often notice that the higher the weights, the more your joints will hurt. What is the solution? Should you train through the pain? Or just accept that it's impossible to get in shape when you're over 40?
Increasing the weight on the bar is not the only way to overload your muscles. You can do more reps with the same weight, reduce the speed at which you move the weight or use techniques to extend your training sets such as descending sets, static holds or rest pause.
These are all highly effective ways to increase the amount of work your muscles have to do, which in turn will make them bigger and stronger.
Take your time
Many in their late teens and early twenties come to the gym, do some loose arm circles and then immediately start doing the heavy stuff. However, if you're over 40, you're going to hurt yourself sooner or later if you do this. You need to take the time now to warm up well.
The exact warm-up and what you should do for this will depend on what your training sessions look like. It will vary from person to person depending on the environment you are training in, how strong you are, etc.
First of all, you should start each training session with about 10 minutes of easy cycling on the ergometer. A rowing machine can also do a good job here. This will help you to raise your body temperature. The time you spend on this will depend on your environment. If it's warm, a few minutes on the bike or rowing machine may be enough, but if it's cold, you'll need to warm up a little longer.
While I'm on the bike, I usually open my training diary and write down what I'm going to do. This helps me to clear my head and focus on the training session ahead. Having a plan on paper means I don't have to think about anything. All I have to do is follow the plan and focus on my training as much as possible.
Next, I start directly with my first exercise and do a very light warm-up set. I then progressively increase the weight over the course of several sets. All of this helps my joints, muscles and nervous system prepare for the heavy workout to follow.
If a warm-up set feels heavier than it should feel, then I repeat this warm-up set a minute later. The second round often feels much easier.
For the heavy basic exercises like squats and deadlifts, I sometimes do 7 to 8 warm-up sets, which is especially true if I'm working out in a cold gym. But even though a good warm-up can reduce the risk of injury and increase performance, it doesn't have to last forever.
Fascia rolls, dynamic activation exercises and other accompanying exercises can be used at certain times or by certain individuals, but many people do all this simply because they are doing what everyone else is doing, rather than because it actually helps them in their training sessions.
Final thoughts
If you're over 40 then you're likely to have more on your plate in life than you did when you were 21, making it harder to focus on eating right and exercising regularly.
Your previous enthusiasm for exercise may have waned - especially if you haven't been able to achieve the results you were hoping for. You may also feel that your body can no longer cope with the stresses you put it through in your twenties and that your recovery is taking longer than it used to.
But in the end, none of this really matters. With the right type of training, you can continue to build muscle and get stronger in your forties, your fifties and beyond.
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9309627
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22518835
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20579907
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24944855
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9617396
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11319936
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12741862
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21362053
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27174923
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19793213
The rules of specialization vary from muscle group to muscle group, but the basic concept is to increase the volume for that muscle group. You can do this by increasing the number of sets per training session or by training that muscle group more frequently.
Here's a good trick for latissimus specialization:
- Train heavy on Monday with 4 to 6 repetitions per set
- On Tuesday, use other latissimus exercises and perform 8 to 10 repetitions
- On Wednesday, use other exercises again and even higher repetition numbers in the range of 15 to 20 repetitions per set to extract every last milligram of glycogen from your muscles.
Your goal is to overtrain your latissimus. Give your latissimus four days' rest before training it again.
Here is an example program:
Monday (full recovery between sets)
|
|
Exercise |
Sets |
Tempo |
Pause |
|
|
A1 |
Pull-ups with close parallel grip |
5 |
4-6 |
4011 |
120 sec. |
|
A2 |
Dips |
5 |
4-6 |
4110 |
120 sec. |
|
B1 |
One-arm dumbbell rowing |
5 |
6-8 |
3012 |
120 sec. |
|
B2 |
Dumbbell incline bench press |
5 |
6-8 |
32X0 |
120 sec. |
Tuesday (incomplete rest intervals)
|
|
Exercise |
Sets |
Tempo |
Pause |
|
|
A |
Lat pulldown with close parallel grip |
4 |
8-10 |
2011 |
60 sec. |
|
B |
Rowing seated on the cable to the neck |
4 |
8-10 |
2012 |
60 sec. |
Wednesday (mega sets)
|
|
Exercise |
Sets |
Tempo |
Pause |
|
|
A1 |
Pull-ups with medium-wide grip |
3 |
6-8 |
30X0 |
10 sec. |
|
A2 |
Lat pulldown with two single handles with parallel grip |
3 |
8-10 |
30X0 |
10 sec. |
|
A3 |
45-degree lat pulldown |
3 |
10-12 |
20X0 |
10 sec. |
|
A4 |
Lat pulldown with wide grip |
3 |
12-15 |
20X0 |
10 sec. |
|
A5 |
Iron cross lat pulldown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXPJ0wp9ElA |
3 |
15-20 |
10X0 |
10 sec. |
Avoid direct lat pulldown training from Thursday to Sunday.
This system does not work with every muscle group. For example, a better method for the calves is to pair them with a strong muscle group like the arms. So you do a set of bicep curls and instead of taking a normal break afterwards, you just pause for 10 seconds (or as long as it takes to go to the calf machine), do a set for the calves, pause again for 10 seconds while you go back to where you were doing curls, do your next set of curls and repeat.
Calves can also be trained every other day - every 48 hours - which no sane person would attempt with a larger muscle group.
Build your pecs with dumbbell squeeze presses
This exercise may look strange, but it works great for building bigger pecs(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtVdL77e2qc)
By Christian Thibaudeau
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-build-your-pecs-with-the-squeeze-press
Your body is designed to survive - not to look balanced and aesthetically pleasing. When you move weights, you stimulate your muscles to get bigger and stronger. This is an adaptive response to physical work.
However, simply performing an exercise does not guarantee that you are stimulating growth in the muscle you want to maximize. When you bench press, your body doesn't know that your goal is to build bigger pecs. All it knows is that a heavy weight is threatening to crush you and that you will die if you don't push it up.
In the interest of your survival, your body will use the muscles that are best suited to get you out of this predicament. If your triceps or shoulder muscles are stronger than your chest muscles, then your chest will not be fully stimulated by the bench press as the nervous system will shift more of the work to the stronger muscles. This is the reason why some exercisers build a muscular chest simply by bench pressing, while others only build their triceps or shoulders using this exercise.
Just because you're doing something traditionally known as a chest exercise doesn't automatically mean you're going to stimulate maximum pec growth. Sometimes you need to force your body to use the muscles you want to stimulate. This is exactly what squeeze presses do.
Dumbbell squeeze presses
Squeeze presses are a variation of dumbbell bench presses with one slight difference: the dumbbells remain in contact with each other throughout the exercise and you actively push them inwards against each other as hard as you can. This simple variation will shift the load onto the chest muscles.
It is very important to understand this point: You should push the dumbbells against each other as hard as you can during every inch of every repetition. This is what makes this exercise effective. You must use hexagonal dumbbells for this exercise and the palms must be facing each other. This is easier on the wrists and trains the part of the chest muscles running towards the sternum to a greater extent. If you don't have hexagonal dumbbells, you can also simply place a foam pad between two regular dumbbells.
Use these 5 types of supersets
Here's everything you need to know about supersets
By Christian Thibaudeau
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-use-5-types-of-supersets
This is one of the first high-intensity training methods a beginner learns when they start training seriously with weights. Unfortunately, most people use supersets in the wrong way, randomly pairing exercises together without thinking about the underlying logic of such an exercise pairing.
A superset is the execution of two exercises one right after the other with no rest between sets (you only rest as long as it takes to move from one exercise to the next). There are several intelligent ways to perform supersets.
1 - Pre-fatigue
This refers to a pairing of two exercises for the same muscle group. The first exercise is an isolation exercise (an exercise where the target muscle does most of the work alone) and the second exercise is a multi-joint exercise. An example for the chest would be performing a set of flying movements with dumbbells immediately followed by a set of bench presses.
The underlying logic is that in a multi-joint exercise, the target muscle does not work alone and therefore is not necessarily fully stimulated at the end of the set. By pre-fatiguing the chest with an isolation exercise, you will feel your chest muscles more during the subsequent bench press, which will help you to focus on these muscles. The downside is that you won't be able to use as much weight as you normally would on the multi-joint exercise, which is the better mass building exercise of the two.
2 - Post-fatigue
Here the exercise order is reversed: you start with the multi-joint exercise and then perform the isolation exercise. This allows you to fully stimulate the target muscle but does not affect the amount of weight you can use on the heavy multi-joint exercise.
3 - Compound sets
This is the type of superset I like the least and rarely use. Such a superset consists of a pairing of two multi-joint exercises for the same muscle group (e.g. bench press and dips for the pecs). The problem is that this doesn't help you focus on the target muscle group.
In the case of bench presses and dips, if your triceps are stronger than your pecs, then you will still rely mainly on your triceps for both exercises and your pecs may well continue to be under-stimulated. The only advantage of a superset consisting of multi-joint exercises is that you can train more than one part of the muscle during the same set. However, you can achieve this better with isolation exercises.
4 - Supersets that consist of isolation exercises
This type of superset combines two isolation exercises for the same muscle group. The purpose of this is to focus on multiple areas of the target muscle at the same time. For the biceps, for example, you could combine an exercise that focuses primarily on the long head of the biceps with an exercise that focuses primarily on the short head of the biceps.
This is where it gets a little tricky. For this technique to work, you need to choose exercises that train different parts of the target muscle. If you choose two exercises that target the same area, then you won't get maximum benefit from this technique.
5 - Antagonistic supersets
In this variation, you pair two exercises for opposite (antagonistic) muscles. As with other supersets, there is no pause between the first and second exercise. With this approach, you can combine exercises for these muscles:
- Chest and back
- Biceps and triceps
- Quadriceps and hamstrings
- Lateral/front shoulder muscles and rear shoulder muscles
- Abdominals and lower back
Perform lean-away side raises
Expand your range of motion and achieve better results
By Christian Thibaudeau
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-do-lean-away-lateral-raises
Compared to other variations of the side raise, this variation puts the shoulder muscles under tension over a larger range of motion, making each repetition more effective. In addition, the shoulder muscles are more overloaded at the highest point of the movement.
Lean-away side raise(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u8s1E7cxK0)
As the lean-away side raise is a unilateral exercise (performed with only one arm), it promotes the recruitment of motor units with a high stimulus threshold in trainees with a strength deficit, in beginners and in trainees with long arms.
The 500 repetition bench press in 11 minutes challenge
It's time to test your mettle and your muscles
By Christian Thibaudeau
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-bench-press-500-reps-in-11-minutes
Alex Vigneault is a CrossFit Games athlete I work with. Alex is a real workhorse and doesn't seem to know such a thing as lactic acid buildup in the muscles. He can perform repetition after repetition like a machine. You can't take this guy down! So I challenged him to see how much work he could do without rest on a simple, non-technical exercise that practically everyone knows: the bench press.
Don't let the weight (or lack thereof) fool you. Very few people will be able to complete this challenge - no matter how strong they are.
The challenge
The challenge consists of 500 repetitions with the empty bar on the bench press (a 20 kilo bar for men and a 15 kilo bar for women). All repetitions must be performed without interruption. This means that you are not allowed to put the bar down during the set.
You may pause during the set, but only with the bar held at arm's length. You may not place the bar on your chest during the challenge.
Why should you accept this challenge?
First, to prove that you are tough enough to endure the pain. To test your mental strength.
This challenge will also have an impact on your muscle mass. Alex had sore muscles in his chest and triceps for three days after this challenge. And while muscle soreness is not necessarily a sign that a training session was optimal, it did indicate that this training session had a significant impact on the muscles.
This method will lead to the release of a lot of growth factors and will have a positive effect on the tendons. It could even be helpful for people with nagging shoulder problems.
500 repetitions in 11 minutes
How did Alex do? He completed 500 full reps in exactly 11 minutes. The next question is how you will perform. Will you have the strength to take on this challenge?
Perform drag curls for bigger biceps
Do you need a better biceps exercise? Yes, you do. Try this one out!
By Christian Thibaudeau
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-do-the-drag-curl-for-bigger-biceps
This is an excellent exercise to grow your biceps, but it's rarely used - probably mainly because it doesn't allow for as much weight to be moved, which many strength athletes' egos can't handle. Additionally, this exercise requires the use of perfect form and control - things that the average exerciser does not have.
Drag curls emphasize the brachialis and the outer portion of the biceps (the long head). The most important rule is this: deliberately contract your biceps extra hard at the highest point of the movement. Drag curls are performed as follows(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj3ysKvp08Q):
- Begin the movement with the bar in contact with your upper thigh. Keep your shoulders, hips and knees in line.
- Bring your elbows back slightly as you curl the weight upwards. The bar remains in contact with your body throughout the movement. You are literally pulling the bar up along your torso.
- The range of motion for this exercise is shorter than for regular curls, especially if you have muscular upper arms. Compensate for this by deliberately tensing the biceps hard at the highest point of the movement.
- Lower the weight in the same way, keeping it in contact with your body throughout the movement. You can use both a regular and reverse grip for this exercise.
For this exercise to be effective, you should use a controlled tempo. You will need to use less weight than with regular curls - so leave your ego in the locker room.
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-49
When it comes to training with weights, there's nothing more frustrating than reaching a seemingly insurmountable plateau
If you've been training with weights for any length of time, you'll be familiar with this dilemma: you arrive at the gym each training day, loaded up with your pre-workout drink and determined to move more weight than your last training session.
You load up the bar with weight plates, turn up the music, convince yourself it's a light weight and go for your set with everything you've got...and then comes the humiliation. The weight feels crazy heavy and you end up doing the exact same number of reps with the same weight as your last workout (or worse).
What's going wrong? And what can you do to finally make progress again? Let's find out.
The physiology of progress when training with weights
The human body is very good at adapting to stimuli and whether we're talking about metabolism or muscle mass, its goal is to maintain a normalized state where things stay more or less the same (also known as homeostasis).
This is great when it comes to survival, but not so good for building muscle and strength. The more time passes, the better and better your body gets at adapting to training and this is the reason why so many people fall into a kind of rut: they simply don't push themselves hard enough to make further progress.
The bottom line is that once you get past your beginner gains, you need to work damn hard to keep pushing your muscles to get bigger and stronger
What you're after is known physiologically as supercompensation. This is the process by which your body strengthens its existing muscle fibers, tendons and ligaments to become more muscular and stronger.
And as you may know, the primary factor that drives such supercompensation is a progressive one - moving more weight in a given repetition range over time.
This is also the reason why plateaus in muscle mass gain are always accompanied by strength plateaus. You can be sure that people who look the same month after month will move more or less the same weights month after month.
And this is the reason why you should try to avoid such plateaus at all costs. If your workouts are exact duplicates of each other week after week - if you perform the exact same exercises with the same weights and the same repetitions - then you will maintain your current body development and performance level and make no progress at all.
A properly designed training and nutrition program will go a long way to preventing such plateaus, but plateaus are still part of the game - no one is immune to them and they will happen from time to time, albeit irregularly, even with the best programs.
So don't despair when you reach a plateau. Patiently use the strategies I will describe in this article to break through these plateaus and you will never fall into a real rut.
Before we get to the strategies for overcoming plateaus, however, let's first define what exactly a plateau is.
What a training plateau is and what it is not
Whenever people tell me that they are not making progress with their training program, I first ask them for details. What exactly do they mean?
It often turns out that they are making progress, but that this progress is not the progress they want to make. They can't increase their weights as quickly as they used to, or they can't increase all the exercises they do during a training session, or their progress doesn't meet another desired criterion.
In this case, I explain to these people what I will also explain to you here, which has to do with expectations and benchmarks:
Unless you're a novice exerciser, you're not going to be able to increase your weight on the bar every week while maintaining proper form and desired repetition ranges. Instead, your weekly goal for each training session should be to increase by 1 to 2 reps on at least one of your exercises and this will usually be your first exercise.
For example, if you did 2 reps of 200kg deadlifts the previous week, your goal is to do 3 to 4 reps this week (and you probably won't do 4). If you can do this and the rest of your training session is exactly the same as the previous week (same weight and same reps on each subsequent exercise), then this is a successful training session.
I know this may sound strange, but just increasing by 1 or 2 reps on an exercise is enough to induce supercompensation and you should be happy.
Based on my experience, you will probably see improvements in more than one exercise per session when your body is ready to progress, but sometimes it's just one multi-joint exercise where you will progress while the rest stays the same. Sometimes it's the first set or two of the second exercise. Less frequently, the improvements can also come from one of your sarcoplasmic sets. But regardless of where you ultimately improve, any progress means that you are not stuck at a plateau.
A true plateau is a situation where you are stuck at a certain weight with a certain number of repetitions for at least 3 weeks on each exercise of a training session.
This means that you perform the same amount of weight with the same number of reps on each exercise for at least 3 weeks in a row. When this happens, then it's time to address this plateau with one or more of the following strategies.
Could the plateau be related to your technique or mobility?
Incorrect exercise execution form can stall your progress, especially with heavy multi-joint exercises such as squats, deadlifts and bench presses. If you do not perform the exercises correctly, you will eventually reach a plateau and if you try to overcome this plateau, you may injure yourself.
When I reach a plateau (which happens from time to time even when everything is going well), I have someone videotape my execution of each exercise so that I can check the form of my exercise execution. I play the videos in close-up on my computer so I can see what's going on. And more than once I have found something obviously wrong with the form of my exercise execution, the correction of which has enabled me to make further progress.
For example, a few months ago I tended to lean too far forward during squats when the weight got heavy, which put too much stress on my hip flexors. This prevented me from increasing the weight further.
To correct this, I reduced the weight to give my hip flexors a break and work on my form. Within a month, I was able to rapidly increase the weight - this time with good form and no pain in my hip flexors.
Sometimes, however, correcting technique is a complicated thing - and in most cases this has something to do with mobility issues. Impaired mobility in the upper and lower body can seriously affect your form. Some people can't perform certain exercises correctly simply because their body can't perform the movements.
Fortunately, this problem is quite easily correctable. By using the right flexibility exercises, most of these problems can be eliminated. Another problem is that your body will not be able to perform optimally if you don't get enough sleep. And if you're asking a lot of your body in the gym, getting enough sleep each night is especially important for both recovery and performance during training.
Anecdotally, people have known this for a long time, and science supports it too. In a study of eight men between the ages of 18 and 24 who limited sleep to three hours per night for three consecutive nights, significant impairments in bench press, leg press and deadlift strength were observed and the workouts were perceived as much more tiring than usual (1).
Although this is a fairly extreme example of sleep deprivation, other studies have shown that even milder forms of sleep deprivation impair physical performance and the body's ability to recover from exercise (2).
Scientific research has also shown that increasing sleep to at least 10 hours per night can improve physical performance (3). The subjects felt better mentally, ran faster, shot more accurately when playing basketball and were able to exercise for longer before fatigue set in.
Of course, this doesn't mean you should sleep 10 hours or more every night.
In fact, studies have shown that only a small percentage of the population needs that much sleep (4). But we should give our bodies as much sleep as they need, and according to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night to avoid negative consequences of sleep deprivation (5). A small percentage do well with less sleep, while a small percentage need more.
Since genetic predisposition and age affect how much sleep your body needs, an easy way to determine what is optimal for you is to choose a two-week period, such as a vacation, and go to bed at the same time every night without setting an alarm for the next morning.
There's a good chance you'll sleep longer than usual at first, as you'll need to make up for some sleep deficit, but by the end of the second week your body will have developed a consistent sleep pattern that includes the same amount of sleep each night. And your body will be trying to tell you something: this is exactly the amount of sleep it needs. Stick to this amount and you'll never have to deal with the negative effects of sleep deprivation again.
Are you overtraining?
Overtraining can be insidious, especially during the early stages when symptoms are still mild and difficult to recognize. When overtraining starts to set in, the first things that will suffer are your strength and muscle endurance. Your training sessions will feel heavier. This is nothing more than accumulated central nervous system fatigue and something you can easily get under control (often a week's rest or an off-load week will do the trick).
If you find yourself a week or two before a planned break or unloading week and you are stuck and everything feels unusually heavy and exhausting, then it is very likely that you already need a break or unloading phase, after which you will make further progress.
However, if you're still stuck after a rest or an off-load then it's probably not an overtraining issue unless you've been seriously abusing your body over a period of 6 to 12 months.
In the second part of this article, I will discuss other strategies that have proven to be very effective in overcoming training plateaus.
Source: https://www.muscleforlife.com/weightlifting-plateau/
By Michael Mathews
