Methods to bring some life back into stagnant exercises and keep progressing.
If your exercises are starting to feel stagnant, but they’re exercises you like doing and want to keep improving at, there are ways to encourage more progress that isn’t simply adding more repetitions or more weight. See whether the following will help:
Setting up your exercise in a way that allows you to move through a greater range of motion is a great method of progressing.
• The obvious benefit is that it makes the exercise harder (as you have a further distance to travel and/or have less leverage). This means you can back off the weight slightly and still get a big stimulus that contributes to your strength and muscle growth while encouraging further progress!
• By strengthening ranges of motion that are beyond the ranges you would usually train, you’re actively improving your mobility and overall ‘resilience’. As discussed in my previous blog post (Will Strength Training Prevent Injuries?), the goal is to increase the stress your tissues can handle. By accessing these greater ranges of motion during your exercise, you’re increasing the stress your tissues can handle in those new positions. If you’re ever exposed to those positions in your day-to-day life (which you will be) you’ll be stronger in them and more resilient (less likely to be injured).
An example: Say you’ve been working hard on your ‘Trap Bar RDL’s’ (the exercise below). You’re getting good at them, but they’re starting to feel stagnant and you’re unable to simply keep adding reps and/or weight. As an alternative, you could lower the weight and elevate your feet (as shown on the right) which allows you to hinge deeper into the movement. This makes it more challenging and stimulating (have to travel a greater distance) and will also improve your mobility and ‘resilience’ in that very bent-over position.
Here’s another example with a movement that is popular amongst my clients (Bulgarian Split Squat):
If you usually try to race through your repetitions as quickly as possible, this one will be awesome for you. Slowing the movement down (even adding some pauses) is a useful way to progress your exercises and get more out of them!
• Again, this method can help make your usual exercise more difficult. By slowing the movement down it creates a greater challenge (eg. A bicep curl where you lower the weight for 4 seconds, pause for 2 seconds at the bottom and then curl up as opposed to a quick straight down and straight back up).
• There are also the additional benefits of having greater control through the entire movement pattern (which is great for paying attention to technique and injury reduction), you’re able to get a greater ‘mind-muscle connection’ (focusing on what muscles you’re actively working and squeezing, which has benefits to both your muscle and mental growth) and slowing down the lowering phase of the movement (eccentric) will help your muscle building pursuit.
Reading them: Eg. a ‘4-0-2-0’ tempo: First number (‘4’) = eccentric phase (think lowering yourself to the ground during a push-up or descending down into a squat for 4 seconds); second number (‘0’) = transition phase (think when you’ve reached the bottom of that push-up or squat); third number (‘2’) = concentric phase (pushing out/coming up for 2 seconds out of the bottom of that push-up or squat); and the fourth number (‘0’) = the time before you perform another repetition (in this case you’re immediately performing another one).
Two ways (of the many) you could use this method:
You could perform a circuit where you perform every exercise with a ’2-0-2-0’ tempo, eg. when squatting, you lower yourself for 2 seconds, no pause at the bottom, lift up (stand back up) with the weight for 2 seconds, then no pause at the top before you squat down again. If you combine this tempo with limited rest between your exercises, it would be a great way to progress your circuits.
You could perform a ‘3-2-0-1’ tempo for an exercise you’re performing to help muscle growth.
Below is an example with a Push-up:
On the left: A push-up where you’re just trying to knock them out.
On the right: Incorporating a different tempo where you lower for 3 seconds, pausing for 1 second, coming up as quickly as possible and then back into the next repetition. Let’s call it a ‘3-1-0-1ish’)
You’re performing essentially the same movement, but with a slightly different loading position or added stability. This is a great way to add a small amount of novelty to the stagnant movement and encourage progress.
• Loading the movement pattern differently can be psychologically engaging, can result in a subtle shift in the working muscles groups and offer a slightly new stimulus which gives you more room to progress.
• Adding some more stability (eg. holding onto a rack or immovable object) when performing your movement can allow you to go a bit heavier (helps you progress and add more load through your working muscles).
Here are some squat examples:
Alternative loading: Instead of a regular squat, you could perform a ‘Zercher Squat’ for a few weeks. Yes, it’s technically a new exercise, but it’s a great way to keep performing the same squat pattern but with the added novelty and stimulus of a different loading style.
Added stability: Instead of a safety bar squat, you could perform a ‘Hatfield Squat’ (on the right). You’re performing the same movement but with some extra stability in the form of holding the squat rack in front of you. If you don’t have the weird looking bar I’m using, I’ve included another example when performing a ‘step-up’ (which you could do without any equipment at all).
See this blog post for a detailed dive into different set schemes you can incorporate and how to do it: Four Set Schemes For More Engaging Training (And Great Results)
• In summary, the benefits of performing your exercise over various rep ranges and with different weights is that it helps keep things psychologically refreshing, it can help you experience less fatigue, you can take advantage of the post-activation potentiation phenomenon (helps your performance during the exercise) and you get to challenge yourself over larger rep ranges which will help with progress overall.
So, to bring some life (and progress) back into your usual exercises, try incorporating some of the set schemes I’ve described above.
Rather than performing say, the usual 4 sets of 10 reps, you could perform a ‘load pyramid’ where the weights and reps vary each set:
• Perform 10 reps at a light/moderate weight (warm-up)
• Rest 1-2 minutes
• Perform 8 reps at a moderate weight (working set/more of a warm-up)
• Rest 2-5 minutes
• Perform your heaviest set of 3 to 5 reps (strength set/potentiation)
• Rest 1 minute
• Drop the weight to a moderate weight and hit as many reps as possible (hypertrophy)
• Rest 2-5 minutes
• Drop the weight to a light weight and hit as many reps as possible (hypertrophy/muscle endurance)
At some point it may become hard to keep progressing the exercises you’ve been performing by simply adding more repetitions or more weight. To overcome this stagnation, you don’t have to completely eliminate the exercise but instead try incorporating a greater range of motion, a different tempo, a different loading position/added stability, or perform a different rep/set scheme. Give it a go and watch yourself progress even further with your favourite exercises!
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