Avoiding The Plateau

Is this as good as it gets?  That is the question people wonder throughout life.  I can't answer that question for life in general, but I can give some incite into plateauing when working out, something that many gym goers face.

So, it has been years and you have been going to the gym regularly, giving full dedication, working your butt off, but for the last few months there has been no improvement.  On the bench press it's the same number of reps at the same weight.  Curling, the same.  Leg press, the same.  Everything is the same.

When you hit the plateau it is frustrating.  We go to the gym and workout to constantly be improving our body, to get stronger, to see desired results, and when that stops happening, we don't know what to do.  You probably have tried taking a week off, to let your body reset.  Well, if you tried that, you know it doesn't work.  After that week off you come back and nothing has changed; it's still the same old you, pushing the same old weights around, that is, if you didn't regress.

For some gym rats, when that frustration over not continuing to grow gets high enough they turn to that "juice".  I have had conversations with people when they make that turn.  They are sick of not progressing and looking across the gym while other guys are throwing up double what they are and they see those extras as the only way; well it's not.

But plateauing isn't just for the people in bodybuilder mode, it's for everyone that gets stuck in a rut at the gym or working out.

After water, the most important thing, even before protein, is even scale working out, which means, WHATEVER YOU DO TO THE FRONT YOU DO TO THE BACK!  I put the solemn command in caps, but think I need to stress it more, and of coarse, explain.

Whatever body set you have, that is the way it is going to grow.  Your body won't grow deformed from front to back.   Strangely, it will grown deformed top to bottoms.  What I mean is that you can have a massive lower body and a smaller upper body or vice versa.

Therefore, if your target is one part of the body, say your chest, then whatever commitment you put there, you have to put directly behind it.  So that extra set and that one more rep you give for your chest, well, you have to treat your back like it's your chest too.  The same thing goes for abs and lower back, biceps and triceps, quads and hamstrings, et cetera.   I have been guilty of such neglect and that is when you begin your plateau and you stay there unless you adjust.

As I said it comes after, make sure you get your body enough protein to grow that new muscle too.  I don't believe you need to go double you body weight in grams (150 lbs = 300 grams of protein), a little more than even is enough for a normal gym goer (150 lbs = 160 grams).

This is based on a person that weighs 150 pounds getting double, 300 grams of protein a day, and how many calories they would consume of that product:

Protein Shake

16 grams of protein for 150 calories

300 for 2812

Chicken Drumstick (100 grams)

18 for 159

300 for 2650

Chicken Breast (100 grams)

21 for 172

300 for 2457

Chicken Thigh (100 grams)

16 for 219

300 for 4106

Ground Beef (95% lean meat) (100 grams)

27 for 174

300 for 1933

Ground Beef (80% lean meat) (100 grams)

25 for 254

300 for 3048

As good as it is, it would be very hard to consume large amounts of meat everyday.  And the 95% lean beef has the highest ratio, to get to that 300 grams of protein, you would need to eat 2.45 pounds of it everyday.  I don't even want to calculate (you can though) what it would be for someone that weighs 200 pounds.   It would take 150 ounces of protein shake, that's way more than a gallon.

If you are trying to become the next Mr. or Ms. Olympia, then your protein intake needs to be higher because you'll be working out a lot more, but even two times is a stretch, because whatever you don't burn you store, therefore, you'll have to be at the gym (or working out) a long time, around five hours, to work off a 3000 calories diet to get 300 grams of protein, something that full-time bodybuilders do.  I will say, if you have that amount of time on your hands, then go for it.

But the number one is WATER.  When you exercise, even if you're not sweating, your muscles are losing a lot of water.  You need to constantly be giving your body fresh water, which will help get waste out of your body and burn calories doing so.

And another little helper, try switching up the placement of your grips every month or so.

Mr. Felder