Guest Coach Jen: Have you hit a plateau?

Posted by Coach Jose on Sep 5, 2010 in Home, Stories & Tips | 1 comment

I am always happy when participants contact me with questions about their program or approach to a more active lifestyle. Usually I get questions about how to be more active, but recently in working with a participant a different type of question came up:

“How can I keep getting results from a routine once I’ve been doing it for awhile?”

 

Maybe you have experienced this too. Perhaps you started doing something like taking the stairs to the 6^th floor. At first it was tough, but after awhile your body adjusted and it became easier to do. This is a good, and a bad thing. Good because you are more fit, but bad because you are not really pushing yourself in the same way that you used to.

You need to continually challenge your body to see continued improvement. There is nothing wrong with sticking to your routine, but you will see less results than if you were to switch things up.

It has to do with the concept of a training plateau. The human body is really good at adapting to whatever you ask of it and in her case, her body had adapted to the demands/stress being placed on it, so she was no longer seeing results. Her step class that was once exhausting had become relatively easy. Biking to work was no longer challenging. So, what can you do if you hit a training plateau? Change it up!  There is an easy acronym used in the fitness world to combat plateaus: FITT

F:            Frequency – change up how often you do the activity

I:             Intensity – change up how intense it is. Make it shorter and more intense or maybe do intervals (for instance alternating between 1 minute fast walking, then a 1 minute slow jog)

T:            Time:     – change up how long you are doing the activity. Perhaps longer and less intense, or shorter but more intense

T:            Type: – change up the type of activity you do. If you bike, try the elliptical. Or if you really love the activity that you do…change the terrain. For instance, if you walk and love it, try varying it up by walking on hills instead of flat ground. This will require slightly different muscles and thus, put a new and different demand on your body.

The participant that brought this up with me has only just started this modified routine but already says her muscles are sore after her workouts, which makes her feel like she’s breaking through the plateau.

How long have you been doing your routine? Have you hit a plateau? Play with the FITT principle and see what you can achieve!