5 Plateau Breaking Tips to Crush Your PRs

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Reaching a plateau while working out is a common experience for many individuals who are trying to improve their fitness levels. You’ve blown through your beginner gains and now you feel like your stick in the mud. It can be frustrating to put in the time and effort only to feel like you’re not making any progress. However, it's important to remember that plateaus are a normal part of the process and that they can be overcome. Here are some tips on how to break through a workout plateau:

1. Increase the weight

This may seem intuitive, but without progressively overloading your lifts you can guarantee you’ll reach stagnation. The old adage that you have to “stress to progress” means you can’t do the same thing and expect different results. Gradually increase the weight you're lifting to challenge your muscles and avoid getting stuck at the same weight. There are several ways to progressively overload. The most basic is a linear progression, simply adding 5 or 10 pounds to your lifts every time you do them. If you’ve been lifting for less than two years, this may be your ticket.

2. Change your routine

Are you already progressively overloading? Maybe it’s time to shake it up. Your body is a remarkable machine, and it quickly adapts to any exercise routine that you perform regularly. To keep making progress, it's important to shake things up by adding new exercises or increasing the intensity of your current workout routine. Maybe swap our back squat for a safety bar squat. Or mix it up completely and use a sandbag instead of a barbell. Or start adding isometric holds to your lifts. Add a little spice and you might find something nice.

3. Look at your conditioning

If your lifts are plateauing, maybe shift your focus to your conditioning. Before your 1-rep-max will improve, your submaximal work will show gains. This could show up in your working maxes (3-rep, 5-rep, 10-rep) and in your conditioning. Being stronger likely means you can do more work in less time. Everyone loves a big PR on their 1-rep-max, but there are plenty of other areas that can show improvement before those big numbers change.

4. Increase your rest time

Maybe truly nothing is progressing. Well then you’ve got to look at your rest schedule. Both between sets and between days. It seems counterintuitive, but to make leaps forward you sometimes have to take a step back. During your workout, in sufficient rest time will lead to fatigue too quickly. If you’re trying to smash heavy weight, try resting 3-minutes or so between sets. And if you’re hammering heavy weights every day, give yourself 24- to 48-hours recovery before trying to smash a PR.

5. Track your progress

Sometimes, we fool ourselves. We as humans tend to notice the negatives more than the positives. If you track your training, you may find that you’re actually improving despite what you think. And single weights aren’t the only way to track. You can track your density by taking the volume (total reps) and multiply it by the weights lifted for those reps.

Breaking through a plateau can be challenging, but with these tips, you can overcome it and continue to make progress in your fitness journey. Remember to always listen to your body and make changes to your routine that work for you. With patience and persistence, you can reach your fitness goals and feel better than ever before.