The topic I’ll be hitting today is plateaus. I have mentioned plateaus in many other articles, but never have I addressed it directly. So let’s get to it!
Plateaus – Weight Loss
A good basic definition of a plateau is an extended period of stagnant weight loss or body composition. The scale isn’t moving and the calipers keep measuring the same body fat percentage.
WARNING – Don’t be offended if you email me about plateaus, or post a comment about plateaus, and I ask you questions like:
- Are you tracking everything?
- Are you hitting your macros perfectly?
- Do you weigh and measure ALL your portions?
- Are you meeting your deficit?
If you aren’t watching your diet very closely and taking these steps, I doubt you are actually plateauing. Your weight loss may have plateaued, but it is actually because you are overeating. How could you ever know how many calories you are eating if you aren’t tracking? You don’t know if you are going way over on carbs or sugar… you don’t know if your deficit is shot! Clean eating is not enough, exercise is not enough, you can out-eat your exercise even with a clean diet if you aren’t tracking it.
If you have been consistent with your deficit and hitting your protein, carbohydrate, and fat budgets, it might be time to consider what you can change to break through the plateau. As you lose weight, your metabolism will change and your caloric needs will change. Obviously you are getting smaller, so you need fewer calories. If you had needed 2000 calories to be at a 1000 calories deficit on day 1, you may need to be below 2000 if you’ve already lost 20 pounds and want to keep the pace up. Realize too that your metabolism will slow down, so be okay with the slower fat loss or drop a couple hundred calories to encourage more fat lose.
Plateaus – Strength
The other common type of plateau is in your strength numbers. It should go without saying, but you only will know if this is happening if you writing everything down! Tony’s reminded you of that enough.
If your numbers for push ups or pull ups have not increased for a couple weeks, it might be time to consider some techniques to help change that. The first and easiest is to finish you sets with assisted moves. For push ups, drop to your knees and add as many reps as you can after your regular push ups. For pull ups, get out your chair or Chin Up Max and close the set with some assisted pull ups. Both will act like a drop set and further fatigue your muscles, much more than a normal set. Try adding assisted reps for two weeks of workouts and see what happens to your numbers.
The other strategy is to load up the weight! This will actually drop your reps even more, but your strength will improve. Doing push ups and pull ups with a vest or weighted backpack will test you. An extra 20 lbs is a good place to start. Don’t worry if you can only get 8-10 reps, that is the point. As you increase in reps with the added weight, your normal body-weight reps will increase too. The same thing can be done with dumbbells too. If you are stuck at a weight for curls, go up 5lbs and squeeze out fewer reps. Maybe you will only get 5-6 the first week, but it will improve and you can take that strength back to your normal rep ranges with more weight.
Beat your Plateaus! Stick it out!
Plateaus are hard to get a perfect grasp on, but stick with it. The most important thing is to be recording all the information you can. Then you can start making small adjustments and check to see their effects on your progress. Most plateaus happen when people lose focus and small things have been slipping without their knowledge. Keep your nutrition on point and we can always work from there.
Need a coach?
My email: coachwayne@teamripped.com
IG: @wayne_wyatt
