Login | July 22, 2025
Training plateaus
PETE GLADDEN
Pete’s World
Published: July 21, 2025
If you’re relatively new to working out then you may not be familiar with a phenomenon that will eventually afflict virtually everyone who stresses their bodies with some type of physical exercise - the plateau.
As defined by the American Sports & Fitness Association, “A workout plateau or training plateau occurs when an individual’s progress in their fitness journey slows significantly or halts altogether. This can manifest in different ways, such as a lack of improvement in strength, endurance, muscle size, or weight loss. Despite following a consistent workout regimen, the body ceases to adapt, leaving individuals stuck at the same performance level for weeks or even months.”
Now unfortunately there can be one or a host of reasons why you’re just not seeing any further progress in your fitness endeavor.
A few of the potential reasons for a plateau include: lack of sleep, ineffective training routines, improperly overloading the muscles, inconsistent training, not pushing hard enough, or even an inadequate diet and/or unhealthy lifestyle habits.
So let’s take a quick look at how to recognize these training plateaus, and then examine the steps one needs to take in order to surmount them.
Okay, so the first thing you need to do is to accept the fact that you may have reached a training plateau, and thus resist the urge to just keep plugging away with your routine despite your lack of gains.
And understand that the recognition of this fact in no way denotes a failure nor a flaw in your training methodology.
It simply means that for some reason(s) your body is not responding anymore to what you’ve been doing.
So accept the fact that you’re going to need to sit back and evaluate your routine - which includes your considering the aforementioned variables associated with plateauing.
Be honest with yourself.
First up, examine the obvious lifestyle issues like lack of sleep, diet or poor habits which might be impacting the qualitative nature of your workouts.
If those are good then it’s time to focus on your routine.
Have you been progressively overloading, pushing hard enough on each and every rep, and staying consistent with your training?
Now at this juncture if you’ve been on point with respect to the aforementioned variables, then it just might be time to shake things up by changing the structure of your workouts.
So if you’ve been doing the same weekly routine at the same intensity levels - be it in running/cycling/swimming/lifting etc., well, it just might be that your body’s adapted.
The good news here is that this situation is quite possibly the easiest fix you can make with respect to a training plateau.
Here are several great ways to surmount an adaptational training plateau.
1. Change the intensity levels of your activity
If you’ve been lifting weights for eight, 10, 12 reps per exercise, then bump up to heavier weights/lower reps for a while. Get yourself out of that, “Three sets of 10” mentality. If you’ve been running/cycling/swimming the same distance at the same relative intensity level for a while, then change it up with some interval training. You could substitute some of your typical outings with short, very intense VO2 intervals and/or longer, less intense LT (lactate threshold) intervals. You could also incorporate some fartlek (speed play), hill and ladder sessions into your routine.
2. For gym routines change your exercises and sequences in addition to the modalities
If you’ve been doing standard exercises like benching, squatting, biceps curls etc., then switch to exercises like incline benches, split squats and chin-ups. Those subtle differences turn out to be massive with respect to the muscle’s reaction to a new stimulus. You could also switch from free weights to body weight and resistance band exercises. Again, just changing the modality can really shock the muscles into a new phase of growth.
3. For you aerobic buffs
Consider adding a rest day if you’ve be varying your workouts with intensity and volume. Something this easy could actually be a game changer by letting your body adapt to the training stresses you’re imposing upon it. You may also want to eliminate one or two of your aerobic workouts and replace them with a few weight training workouts. Throw in a new activity that your body has not become accustomed to.
As you can see, just a little tweaking to your workout routine can be the game-changer in surmounting those pesky training plateaus.