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Escape The Plateau:

Get The Body You Want Easier And Faster

You’ve probably either heard a similar story from friends or experienced it for yourself: you go to the gym but after a while the same exercise routine becomes a little repetitive, your enthusiasm dries up and so do your results.

You might even decide that working out isn’t for you and stop altogether. Which would be a shame, because with a few simple tips you can take control of your workout, totally banish any thoughts of boredom and get the results you want in record time. Here’s how.

Evolution and adaptation

Your body has developed over millions of years with one thing in mind: how to preserve energy and limit calorie expenditure so that limited food resources go further. To do this our bodies have learned to adapt to new internal and external stimuli very quickly, meaning that the same movement with the same load uses less energy and creates less muscle the longer you use the same stimuli.

After two weeks, depending on the frequency and intensity of the stimuli, your body will have started to adapt. After four weeks, the show is almost certainly over and your muscles are coping with both movement and load without being particularly challenged.

To achieve our goals and progress beyond them, we need to challenge our evolutionary ability to adapt, and one way of doing so is through adopting what is known as Phase Training.

So why is Phase Training so effective?

Training phraseology can sometimes appear daunting and complex, but all ‘Phase Training’ means is changing the variables of your workout every 2-4 weeks, so that your body is given sufficient stimuli to adapt according to your goals.

Research and our own extensive experience shows that changing variables through a logical path of progression is an extremely effective way of achieving results. There are many variables you can alter, such as load, repetitions and speed of movement, depending on what your goal is – the variables and path of progression for fat loss would be very different to that used for a sprinter, for instance. 

The National Academy of Sports Medicine uses the following basic phases (which we’ve simplified slightly here):

Stability -> Strength -> Power

At 3D Personal Training we’ve used this as a basis for creating our own training phase method. When creating a fit, lean, balanced, functionally strong and mobile body we often use the following 6 phases:

• Stability (involving necessary postural correction)

• Strength

• Muscle Growth

• Fat burning

• Endurance

• Power

Each phase demands its own specific program design, and this what a good personal trainer will be able to develop for you. You may be able to use the internet or your own experience to put together your own program, but if not investing in a good personal trainer often proves to be just that – an investment in your health and fitness, not to mention your goals.

So what can - and should - you change in your exercise program?

In our experience a lack of variation in training (whatever your method or goals) can lead to:

• Injury through repetitive strain – using the same movement over and over again

• Performance and progress plateaus due to under-stimulated muscles and a lack of physiological adaptation

• Mental and physical boredom from a lack of new stimulus

Every 2 to 4 weeks depending on the frequency, intensity and your training experience, variables should be changed to enhance performance and limit the potential plateau. Six possible variables to play with include:

1. Exercise type

2. Exercise order

3. Speed of movement

4. Load (weight)

5. Number of repetitions (individual times performed)

6. Number of sets (groups of repetitions)

The following will give you a very basic idea of how to change your routine, although because each person has particular health and fitness issues and goals, creating programs for phase training is an exact and individualised science:

So this gives you a basic plan for phase training, but what kinds of exercises should you use for maximum effect? Our philosophy at 3D Personal Training is that you can either train muscle groups e.g. back, chest, legs, shoulders, biceps, triceps or movement patterns e.g. push, pull, twist, lunge, squat, bend; or better yet both!

These kinds of exercises are most effective when performed using cables, free weights and your own body weight. Your whole body then contributes to generating the movement, challenging more muscles than is possible using machine weights which isolate and work a specific muscle. Using 14 muscles in one repetition rather than 3 is obviously going to get you where you’re going faster, and get you the results you want.

And what variables can I change within each phase?

As we’ve mentioned above, there are a number of variables we can change, other than just the phase. These other variables include the number of sets we perform per exercise, the number of exercises we use in a session, the load (weight), the number of repetitions in a set of exercises, the speed with which we perform a movement and, importantly, the amount of rest we take between each set.

In the following table, you’ll see a basic plan for how we can, and should, adjust the variables for each particular phase. Remember that we’re outlining a plan aimed at creating a fit, lean, balanced, functionally strong and mobile body, and that each plan should be different according to your goals and your individual circumstances:

The key to phase training is being organised enough to plan your next phase, so that you can move on as soon as your body has adapted to the previous physical stimulus. Otherwise, you’ll just keep on doing the same old thing, and your results will fade as quickly as your motivation to succeed.

Through careful planning using the principle of variation, or phase training, plateaux can be broken and dramatic results are possible. For those who are new to these strategies, we hope you decide to take the time to implement the basic plan we’ve covered here – we hope you’ll agree that it’s worth every second. Get yourself a few blank sheets of paper, a pen, a chair and table, and start taking control of the next 18 weeks of your exercise program now! 

Yours in health,

Craig Burton and Matt Brereton-Patel.