Plateaus and how to break through them

Very common to feel stuck with your strength on certain exercises. Here are my top 3 pieces of advice! There's a free give away at the end, enjoy!

Very common to feel stuck with your strength on certain exercises. Here are my top 3 pieces of advice! There's a free give away at the end, enjoy!

I spoke with an athlete recently that is stuck on his back squat, bench press and deadlift maxes. He's been training a few years and feels he's reached his ceiling. This brings me to my number 1 tip.

MOVE THE FLOOR

What do I mean by move the floor? Train heavier more often. This will increase the intensity of your lifting even on your "lighter days". If you are consistently training with higher reps of 8-12 reps, you may continue to be disappointed that your maxes aren't moving. Replace your 3 sets of 10 reps with 10 sets of 3 reps. Both are 30 reps, but 10x3 allows you to use much heavier weight. It's the easiest way to lift heavier weights more often. Focus on total reps, I like to stick between 18-36 total reps for 1-3 compound exercises per session. This largely depends on your goals and your current ability. Here are a few rep schemes you can use day to day for at least your primary barbell exercise each day

Week 1 Day 1- 10x3 (30 reps)

Week 1 Day 2- 9x2 (18 reps)

Week 1 Day 3- 6x4 (24 reps)

Week 1 Day 4- 10x3 (30 reps)

As long as you keep the order, keep rotating the rep schemes. It will take you 3 weeks to complete all these rep schemes if you're training 4 days a week and using a different primary exercise each of those days

USE OTHER TRAINING VARIATIONS

Most people Squat, Bench and Deadlift. Imagine that you've plateau'd on one of those exercises, much like losing over and over again to someone in 1 on 1 basketball. Instead of playing the same person you can't seem to beat, go play other players. Each player will help you develop something different and eventually you can come back to that one lift as a better lifter. Using different exercise variations is a super easy solution to change the stimulus and improve on a different weakness. Example, I think most would agree a Back Squat and Front Squat will strengthen different things, or that they are at least different enough that you can use both to help strengthen something the other one doesn't. So how many variations do you need? I prefer 2-3. You can run a single variation for 3 weeks and change it, or you can change the variation week to week.

Option A: Use 1 exercise variation for squat, bench, deadlift and overhead press for 3 weeks straight. This would hyper frequent the 4 variations which is a great option if you are newer to the variation

Option B: Switch between 2-3 variations week to week. This is a more advanced option. One reason I believe that is if you back squat today, and next week you front squat, then the next you safety squat, you're not back squatting again for 3 weeks which isn't great for anyone needing to improve technique or proficiency.

My top 3 variations to use

Flat Bench, Incline Bench, Close Grip Bench

Back Squat, Front Squat, Anderson Squat

Deadlift, RDL, Deficit Deadlift

Seated Overhead Press, Standing Overhead Press, Overhead Pin Press

Max OUT MORE OFTEN

Maxing out is a skill in itself, so the more experience you have, the better you become at lifting max weight. Does maxing out max you extra sore? Your body acclimates to the demands you place on it, so more frequent exposure can also improve recovery. How often? If strength is a high priority, then i would say every session as the last set of your working sets. But not how you're thinking. Recalibrate what maxing out is, in fact, just call it a top set. A top set is your best set of the day in a given rep range. The goal of a top set is to complete the best of the day but without failing. You don't need to, and I don't think you should be redlining each session. Top sets are also not always a 1 rep max. There are MANY forms of maxing out, some are lighter for more reps and some heavier for less reps. The smart way to do it is to strategically rotate how you're maxing out each session. Here are my favorites to keep around.

1 Rep Max

2 Rep Max

3 Rep Max

Paused 1 Rep Max

Paused 2 Rep Max

Paused 3 Rep Max

AMRAP (as many reps as possible) 75%

AMRAP 80%

AMRAP 85%

Which do you choose? Let's keep it simple, you choose one per session, but here is the rule, you can't use the same one 2 days in a row or on the same exercise in a row. So if one week you hit a 1 rep max on back squat then next week you can't hit a 1 rep max on back squat. You have to choose something different. This will keep you honest, bc let's face it we all have bias and you need a system that takes emotion out of it. My preferred way to do it is to plan it just like we did with the rep schemes above. You can use this example along side of the example above.

Week 1 Day 1- 10x3 (30 reps) Last set 3 rep max

Week 1 Day 2- 9x2 (18 reps) Last set AMRAP at 75%

Week 1 Day 3- 6x4 (24 reps) Last set 1 rep max

Week 1 Day 4- 10x3 (30 reps) Last set 3 rep max

Rotate these for 3 weeks and you will have completed a 1 and 2 rep max and AMRAP at 75% max on 4 primary barbell exercises for that training wave.

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