Are You Still Making Progress in the Gym? Part 1

Hi,

If you are like most people your workouts in the gym aren't progressing the way you want.  You aren't getting stronger.  You aren't getting fitter.  You aren't lifting heavier. 

Maybe you have just hit a plateau.  Pretty much everyone does at one time or another.  You make great gains for awhile and then you stop making any gains. 

There are a couple of reasons for this.  One might be that have overworked your body.  It needs a rest.  It can't just take hard training continuously with no break. 

Yes, there are supplements and drugs you can to take to push yourself further.  But, stop taking those drugs and supplements and you regress very quickly. 

These kinds of plateaus are short lived.  Take a short break, or just don't push yourself so hard for about a week or so and then you can start back up to your hard workouts. 

You can also cycle your workouts.  A popular way of doing this is to train heavy one workout, then use medium weights the next and then lighter weights for the final workout in the cycle.  It might take you 10 days or so to complete one cycle.  Then start up with the heavy weights again for the next cycle.

Another reason, and this one is what most people end up doing, is that to make further progress you really have to push yourself more. 

Most people will make progress with just about anything they do in the gym when they first start.  Any exercise with any weight helps them.

But, the body is great at adapting.  Pretty soon those weights and reps won't give you the same results.  That means you have to add more weight, more reps and/or more intensity. 

Most people won't do that beyond a certain level.  They think they can maintain their level of fitness by doing the same old, same old. 

Tomorrow we will discuss why this isn't true.

Thanks,

Mike Val
http://www.valshealthsite.com/