Question: Who out there wants to get more fit?? I’m guessing that all y’all raised your hands!! It seems that no matter what our current level of fitness we always want more – more strength, more endurance, more leanness, more…more…more! In my book, the constant search for improvement is always a good thing. But our efforts can be easily derailed by the dreaded plateau. You know what I’m talking about. The Plateau: The point when you no longer improve, yet you try to force it forward with MORE of what you were already doing. In these situations, it’s almost like we need an intervention. We need a new approach, a new way, a new path. Well, dear athletes, here ya go! Coach Michelle’s 5 tips to shove your fitness forward! Read on!
Tip #1: Plump Up…yes…PLUMP Up!
I can hear you now. “Did Coach really just tell me to ‘get fatter’?” Yep, I absolutely did! It’s just like The Byrds song: “To everything turn, turn, turn. There is a season turn, turn, turn.” There’s a time to get fitter, a time to lose fitness, a time to get stronger, a time to get weaker, a time to get leaner & a time to get plumper. Bodies simply aren’t designed to stay the same and/or linearly improve month after month, year after year. It’s too stressful (both mentally & physically) & ignores the fact that we do better when we build in some fluctuations. Here’s an example – putting on muscle mass. Remember that skeletal muscles are expendable. You can survive without big biceps, but not without your heart, lungs & brain. When your calories and/or body fat get too low, your body will do everything possible to support your critical organs…at the expense of your quads & triceps. Get too lean or don’t eat enough & it gets harder to maintain your muscle mass & almost impossible to gain it. So, if you’re looking to add muscle mass, don’t be afraid to add some body fat!
Tip #2: Lean On Down
The other side of the Tip #1 coin is to get lean. Just like there’s a time to gain body fat, there’s also a time to lose it. (Are you starting to get the cyclical nature of this post??) An ideal time to do this is in the summer. When the weather’s warmer & the days are longer, we’re often more active, race season is upon us & the seasonal foods tend to be lighter (think fruit & veg!). So let those long summer days spent outside work to your advantage!
Tip #3: Replace Something
We humans are creatures of habit…especially in our fitness routines. And while routines are great for encouraging compliance, they are deadly for progress. If your fitness has plateaued it may be high time to try something new. But here’s the catch. You may need to replace, not add. I know how the allure of getting excited about a new thing – say rucking – and thinking you can just add it to your existing routine. And frankly, maybe YOU can. But I am suggesting that there’s a better way. What your plateaued body needs is a challenge. And you can easily give it that challenge (without the injury risk) by adding the new thing in as a replacement for something else. Maybe you’ve been running all year long. This might be the perfect opportunity to give running a break & replace that time with rucking. I guarantee the new activity will challenge your body in wildly different ways thereby busting through your plateau!
Tip #4: Avoid Injury
Fitness improvements are grounded in one foundational concept – consistency. You just gotta keep at it day in, day out, year in & year out. Aside from the unpredictability of daily life & the fickleness of motivation, injuries wreak havoc on training consistency. Now…there can be positives to injury. We can be introduced to new sports via cross-training. And, if we let it, injuries can highlight the errors in our training methodology. But neither of those are guaranteed to happen. (I know plenty of athletes who ignore their injuries & just keep doing what they’ve always been doing.) My sense, then, is that we avoid injuries like the plague. We do everything in our power to keep those little nagging aches & pains from turning into full-blown issues. Things like…
- Build regular Rest Days & Weeks into your training schedule
- Increase volume or intensity slowly
- Don’t chase numbers (i.e., weight amounts, hours of training, etc.)
- Listen to your body
- Know the difference between discomfort & pain.
- If something doesn’t feel right, STOP.
- Do Prehab/Rehab every day!
- Have your Physical Therapist on speed dial
Tip #5: Cycle Everything
Just as much as we need consistency (see Tip #4), we also need variety. In fact, regularly changing things HELPS us be more consistent! How so? Well, change keeps us motivated, it challenges us physically & mentally in new & different ways & it gives potentially overstressed body parts a break. All good things! Standardly athletes will cycle their training – Base Phase, Intensity Phase, Peak Phase. But we can cycle just about everything we do. We can cycle our foods (eat seasonally rather than relying on the same fruits/veg all year round) as well as our macros (a bit more carb during race season & less carb in the winter). Multi-sport athletes already cycle their sports, but often single-sport athletes don’t. Again, think seasonally – winter cross-country skiing & spring/summer/fall mtn biking will provide new & amazing training stimuli. The weight room is one of the best places to add variety. Here the opportunities are endless! Cycle your exercises (do Squats for a month, then switch to Deadlifts, then to Leg Press, etc.), the rep ranges (shift between high rep, low weight & low rep, high weight) & the sequencing (Bench Press feels completely different when you’ve done triceps & shoulders first!).
If you’ve taken anything away from this post let it be “change”. The more you switch things up the more positively your body will respond. Our minds often resist change…but our bodies love it!
Happy Training!
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