Bodybuilding and building muscle can be a challenge if you come across a plateau or stumbling block in your workouts and diet. You have to arm yourself with the necessary knowledge to find out what to do once you stop building muscle or stagnate in your training. Because regardless of how well planned or perfect your current program is, the body will eventually stop adapting and growing new muscle. This is the law of habituation and accommodation.
When you start a new workout or training routine to build muscle, the muscles hasn't adapted to it yet so it will be more receptive to respond and grow new lean muscle mass. You'll grow stronger with thicker muscles. Then over time, with the same repeated stressors using the same program, your body will adapt less and less. This is the rule of diminishing returns. And it's a natural physiological law that happens to every single one of us.
So what happens if you want to overcome that plateau? What do you do? I've tested and identified 4 of the best weightlifting tips to help you overcome that stagnation and continuing building more muscle. There are several key things you can do.
1) Change Exercises
Exercise variation is crucial to re-ignite muscle gains. If you pound your muscles with the same exercises day in and out, it becomes less and less effective. The body has already programmed that specific movement into its neural system. Now it's time for a change of stimulus. Use different variations of the main movements you've been doing.
For example, do front squats instead of the normal barbell back squats. Switch over to dumbbell lifts instead of barbell movements. Each barbell movement has a dumbbell equivalent that's just as, if not, more effective or mass and strength. Check out the "ultimate dumbbell training" guide for a detailed overview of how to incorporate dumbbells into your training for variety.
Go do dumbbell curls on an incline bench instead of regular barbell curls. Do preacher curls instead of regular dumbbell curls. Swap them for incline curls as another option. Do dumbbell shoulder presses while standing instead of sitting barbell military presses. Do dumbbell shoulder presses while sitting as well.
Try a set of heavy push presses instead of lateral raises for shoulders. You get the idea. Exercise variation will bust through your strength and muscle gaining plateaus to direct more results. On this note, you also want to make sure you've been using compound exercises. Compound lifts will automatically build more muscle if executed properly with good form.
You don't have to stick with just dumbbells or barbells. Use them both. Make your workouts dynamic.
And don't be afraid to learn some of the more sports-specific and skilled movements like olympic lifts: snatch, clean and jerk, and split jerk. These explosive movements add a powerful stimulus to your muscle building arsenal. A more explosive muscle is a much stronger and functional muscle for adding mass.
2) Alternate rep ranges and change the volume of the workouts
This means to use a different set and rep range than the one you've previously used. For example, start doing lower reps and lots of sets like 10 sets of 3 or 6 sets of 4 instead of 4 sets of 12. Or if you're used to doing low reps and a lot sets, start doing less sets and more reps per set. Swap rep ranges to the opposite of what you've been doing. This allows you to use different weights and poundages for your exercises. Your body adapts accordingly as you introduce ever-increasing stresses.
Plan your workouts into 4 week cycles and stick to one rep range, then change to another for the next 4 weeks. Or you can use different rep ranges within the same week training different strength qualities. The body responds to all sorts of rep ranges and volume so make sure to take advantage of this. All rep ranges will work at some point in your training career to build strength and muscle. Why not take advantage of this?
Common rep ranges you can use (sets X reps)
- 5 x 5
- 10 x 3
- 3 x 8 - 10
- 6 x 4
- 4 x 12
- 8 x 3
- 5 x 10
- 3 x 5
- 8 x 8
3) Work out more frequently
If you've been only training each muscle group once a week, restructure the program to train each major muscle group twice a week. Do this for 4 weeks and evaluate the results. This increase the body's ability to do more work. The body will be able to handle a higher work capacity allowing you to train harder and longer for more hypertrophy and strength.
If you stick to training each muscle only once per week, you'd be leaving out a lot of potential for gains in muscle and strength because you're not providing the body any "excuse" to work harder and longer. By adding more workout sessions, the body is forced to work much harder to accomodate the new stress. The result is renewed adaptation to the training stress.
* A word of caution: if you're new to strength training and bodybuilding in general, do not ramp up the volume and the number of times you work each muscle group. Working each muscle directly 1-2 times is adequate for a beginner. Jumping right into higher frequency training will lead to burnout and overtraining. You want to build that strength foundation first while improving work capacity so you can lift more often later on in your lifting career.
More muscle and strength built with high frequency. I recommend an upper body/lower body split weekly. Train each the upper and lower body twice per week. A total of 4 workouts per week leaving the weekends off for rest or some light cardio. Another viable option is to train the entire body 3 days per week with full body workouts (focusing on just the compound exercises with 3-4 total isolation exercises thrown in for good measure rounding the routines. Leave the weekends or at least 2 days per week off for rest.
4) Do rest-pause sets
Rest pause sets are an old-time favorite of many old school bodybuilders and even powerlifters . Essentially, rest pause sets are groupings of mini sub-sets to increase training volume. You perform one full set of a given exercise to positive muscle failure (failure means you do as many reps as you can in one set until you can't complete another rep in good form), take a short rest of 10 to 20 seconds, then do another set to failure, rest another 10 to 20 seconds and do another set to failure. Keep on repeating until desired.
Each successive mini set has you doing fewer and fewer reps. The intensity with respect to effort is increased with rest pause sets. The combination of a full set and several mini sets makes the workout much more intense, while saving you time since rest periods between these mini sets are minimal. Try 2-3 mini sets for a full rest-pause set for one main exercise of a muscle group.
You can easily mess up on form on rest-pause sets so make sure you pay attention to using good form. Remember, you want to actually stimulate and target the muscles involved so it can grow and get stronger. If you use bad form, you're not hitting the muscles and they will have no reason to grow. Use good form.
The above 4 weightlifting tips will help you build muscle in the long run, when you hit a plateau in your training and lifting.
Train Hard. Train Smart. Train Safely.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
photo credits:
jontunn
jontunn
jontunn
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