What's up, guys?
Sean Nalewanyj on www.SeanNal.com - www.RealScienceAthletics.com, and in this video today I'm gonna give you
12 quick tips you can apply if your strength gains in the gym have stagnated.
Gaining strength is a fundamental aspect of building muscle.
On the training side of things it's the most important baseline factor to pay attention
to, and if your performance in the gym is plateaued you can be pretty much certain that
something in your program is off and that your muscle gains will have plateaued along
with it as well.
So let's just get into it, I'm just gonna go over each point briefly and more of a rapid
style fashion.
I'm not gonna go super in-depth on each one, so you can treat this as more like a checklist,
just to give you some ideas of where you might be going wrong.
So tip number one, first and foremost, is to be patient and maintain a realistic outlook
on things.
A lot of people might think they've had a strength plateau when in reality they're actually
still gaining strength at a perfectly reasonable pace.
Remember that strength gains and muscle gains are both a very gradual process, they also
slowed down the longer you've been training, and even just performing one extra rep with
the same weight on a given lift from week to week it's still very good progress and
will add up quite a bit when you start stacking it up over the long term.
So don't expect your strength to go up by leaps and bounds every time you go into the
gym.
This is a marathon, it's a grind and it's about the long term accumulation of very small
improvements.
Tip number two is, to be very detailed and diligent when it comes to tracking your workout
performance.
Because those strength increases happen so slowly and they're often measured in terms
of individual reps, you need to maintain a written record of each session if you want
to progress as efficiently as possible, otherwise it's very easy to just end up running in circles.
So write down the exercises you did, the weight you used on the reps you performed, and then
aim to gradually build on those numbers over time.
Don't just try to keep it all in your head.
Having objective workout logs is gonna hold you accountable so that every time you go
into the gym you know exactly what you did last time and exactly what you need to do
this time in order to improve.
This is such an important point and on its own will have a huge impact on how effectively
you're able to progress over the long term.
So be precise with your tracking.
Tip number three, on the nutritional side, if your strength gains have stagnated then
one very simple thing you might need to do is to just bump your calories up slightly.
Remember that as you're lifting more and more weight, gaining more and more muscle, your
body needs additional calories not only to maintain what you've built but also to make
further increases.
So if your strength is plateaued, your body weight on the scale hasn't changed at all
over the past week or two, sometimes a small increase of 100 to 150 calories per day is
all you're gonna need in order to get things moving again.
Tip number four, is to make sure you're incorporating at least some lower rep work in your plan.
Now, you can build muscle effectively training in almost any rep range as long as you're
applying progressive overload, but if you're primarily concentrating all of your training
up in those higher rep ranges, so around 10 to 12 per set, go ahead and mix in some lower
rep work as well if you can, so somewhere down toward the 5 to 7 range, because that
range is not only going to be effective for stimulating hypertrophy but you're gonna make
faster strength increases at those lower ranges as well.
Tip number 5, is to increase your rest time in between sets.
If your goal is to maximize muscle size and strength gains then you don't want to be taking
any individual set lightly and you want to be putting forth the very best performance
that you can on each one.
And rushing into your next set before you've had a chance to fully recover from the previous
one is going to be directly counterproductive to that.
Smaller isolation lifts, you can usually get away with resting a bit shorter if you want,
but 60 to 90 seconds on a bigger compound lift is usually not enough, and I'd recommend
at least 2 minutes up to 3 or 4 minutes depending on the movement if you want to get the very
best results.
There's no exact time frame to abide by on every set but just listen to your body and
rest as long as you need to, so that you feel physically and mentally ready to train at
your full capacity on that upcoming set.
Tip number six, is to perform a proper pre-workout warm-up.
This is not only going to help you prevent injuries but it can also have a direct positive
effect on your strength levels as well.
And the specific component of the warm-up that's going to be most important in that
regard are weight acclamation sets, which I recommend doing before each major compound
exercise in your workout.
So that means starting off with very light weight for higher reps and gradually increasing
to heavier weight for lower reps until you get up to your maximum working weight.
This is going to fire up your nervous system, get you accustomed to the movement, help you
establish a mind-muscle connection, and if you do this properly then you should be a
bit stronger on the exercise in comparison to just jumping straight into things.
And a basic template you can use for this is to perform 50% of your working weight for
about 7 to 8 reps, 75% for 3 reps, and then 100% for a single rep and then perform your
first working set after that.
Tip number seven, is to make sure you aren't going overboard on cardio.
And not just regular gym cardio but any physically demanding exercises that you're performing
outside of the gym in general.
Remember that your time off from the gym is when your body is resting and recovering,
and performing too much additional activity can produce more muscle damage that your body
then has to recover from.
It uses up more of your recovery resources and that's going to make it more difficult
to gain strength and build muscle optimally if you're doing too much.
So two to three cardio sessions per week is where I’d cap things if your goal is to
gain strength as effectively as possible, never do your cardio pre-workout because that
will interfere with your weight training performance, and also take into account other physically
demanding activities like sports, or outdoor hobbies, or things like that, because those
technically can count as cardio sessions as well.
Tip number eight, if you have your activity level outside of the gym under control and
you're not overtraining in that area, another step you can try is to reduce your actual
weight training volume.
You don't need to be performing super high-volume workouts in order to gain strength and build
muscle effectively, and if you go too far overboard then you can easily push your body
beyond its ability to recover optimally, especially if your nutrition and other aspects of your
program aren't quite on point.
So if your strength gains have come to a halt and you can't seem to improve, you can try
lessening the overall weight training workload to see if that helps.
So that could mean going from five workouts per week down to four, or four down to three,
or reducing the actual volume per session.
And as a general guideline, I'd say 8 to 15 sets for large muscle groups per week in total
and four to eight sets for small muscle groups is usually enough as long as you're training
hard and going about one to two reps short of failure on the majority of your sets.
Tip number nine, is to take a one-week deload.
So this would mean either continuing to train but reducing the weight on all of your lifts
by 50%, or just take an entire week off altogether.
I'd recommend doing a deload once for every 6 to 12 weeks of consistent training, because
it's a good way to give your central nervous system, your joints, and your muscles a chance
to fully recover from all the previous weeks of hard training that you've put in.
And this can help to prevent sticking points and actually allow you to gain more strength
over the long term.
Tip number 10, is to dial in your sleep.
Sleep is very important for optimizing your performance in the gym.
Short-term sleep deprivation might not be a huge issue but if it's something that's
happening on a longer-term basis it definitely can be a factor when it comes to strength
plateaus, especially as you're getting into heavier and heavier weights.
So make sure you're getting an amount of sleep each night that leaves you feeling sufficiently
rested.
The amount is gonna vary from person to person but usually somewhere around seven to eight
hours, give or take, will be appropriate for most people.
And also take active steps to improve the actual quality of your sleep as well, that's
just as important.
And I'll link a previous post that I did on that in the description box below to give
you some ideas.
Tip number eleven, is to try rotating your exercises.
So if you've followed all of the previous tips and your strength is still stuck on a
certain lift or a certain set of lifts, one thing you can do is to move on to a different
exercise for a period of time to mix things up.
So that could mean replacing, let's say a pull-up with a pull down, or a barbell press
with a dumbbell press, or a dumbbell curl with a cable curl, just a similar movement
pattern but using a different training tool or a different angle.
And then work on progressing at that movement for as long as you can before coming back
to the previous lift or switching to a different movement again.
And then tip number 12, and this is more of just a bonus tip, it's not something to rely
on for strength increases alone, but in addition to all of the previous tips incorporating
a basic pre-workout can also give you an extra edge to push through those strength barriers
and spark some new growth.
You don't need anything crazy or over-the-top in this area.
Most commercial pre-workout blends out there are not well formulated and are mainly just
based around hype and BS, I'd recommend checking out PureForm, which is a straightforward science-based
blend of four research backed ingredients to improve mental focus, strength and endurance
during your training sessions.
You can click up at the top of the screen or use the link in the description.
I've had awesome feedback on this product so far and it's a combination I've personally
been using for quite a while in my own training, so definitely check that out if you are interested.
So, those are the 12 tips.
Thanks for watching, guys.
Following this advice should solve the majority of strength plateaus out there.
I hope you found this helpful.
If you do want to learn all the details behind mapping out a complete training program from
A to Z in order to fully maximize your size and strength gains including step-by-step
routines for beginners, intermediates, and more advanced lifters, then you can check
out my Body Transformation Blueprint by clicking up here or visiting www.BTBluePrint.com.
And if you did enjoy the video make sure to hit that like button, leave a comment, and
subscribe below if you haven't already, in order to stay up to date on future videos.
Thanks for watching, guys.
And I'll see you in the next one.