Breaking through platues

Breaking through plateaus can be difficult. A plateau is basically where your muscles stops growing or changing because it has adapted to the exercises/sets/reps/weight you are training with. You have to think about it logically. We were not always in this time of plentiful food and nourishment. There was a time where we would have to hunt for food straining day to day life. You're body still carries these instincts and your body still constantly strives to find the easiest way of doing something so you do not have to expend much energy.

It does this by adapting to what you do. You see that all athletes have different kinds of bodies due to the different sports they do - a marathon runner is an ectomorph so they don't have much weight to carry for the long distance events where as a 100m sprinter is heavily muscled as they are built for power and quick acceleration. With this in mind you'll be able to see if you do the same thing day in day out your body will adapt and you will no longer make any progress. So it's easy; we have to keep the muscles guessing in order for them to grow. Below are my top tips to avoiding plateaus or smashing out of them.

Up the Intensity

So this is the first thing you can do. It's a very easy one, it costs you no money and changes nothing in your schedule during the day. It's only going to cost you a lot more sweat and pain. There is no easy way about it but who needs the easy way, I personally think earning your dream body or performance is just as satisfying as actually having it. How do we exactly up the intensity though?

Reduce the Rest

You could start by reducing your rest. This is a simple step forward. Most people do not time their rests and they just sit around for a while until they feel comfortable. I'm sorry to burst your bubble but exercising isn't supposed to be comfortable. Start bringing a stop watch or using your phone to time rest periods. You can start with maybe a minute rest in-between sets and then gradually reduce it. If you go with a partner and he/she is wasting time after the times up give them a slap and tell them to work. By reducing the rest you are giving your muscle less time to recover. By doing this you are adding greater stress to the muscle in a shorter period of time which will promote it to grow/tighten up.

Change Your Reps & Sets / Upping or Lowering the Weight

This is easy once you have the knowledge to back you. You have to realise there will come a point where you can't lift anymore weight. There will always be a limit. You can't just keep going up and up and up or you're going to hurt yourself. I see people all the time who just constantly lift heavy weights and cannot move up any more because they have dug themselves into a plateau. It is important to change it up. To some extent it is right that heavy lifting = more muscle, and light lifting = more toning - but many people don't do it right.

So I'm trying to gain muscle but you do not see me lifting heavy all of the time. I change my sets between 4 and 6. Usually the higher the sets will be the lower my reps will be. I will start by lifting heavy weights so 6 reps for 5 sets and then after weeks of doing this I will up the reps and decrease the sets. By doing this I'm constantly keeping the muscle guessing while keeping the intensity high.

By changing reps/sets I don't just mean the numbers and weight. Start adding drop sets in, this will get that little bit more out of your muscle at the end of an exercise. Super sets are also a good way to go, take a chest workout for example; if you super set incline press (compound exercise) with an incline fly (stretch exercise) you will be putting a greater deal of stress on the muscle promoting it to grow. This is because you will be doing two exercises for one basically, which will cut your rest time.

You can also slow down the speed of you reps, little pulses can actually promote the muscle to grow as you are stimulating fast twitch muscle fibres. As you are pulsing your muscles power increases. Another way to change would be going slow down and powering back up. By doing this you are getting a full stretch which will tear the muscle fibres but when you power up contracting the muscle you are forcing it to work harder. The last thing you can do to change your reps is by doing negatives. This is one of my favourite things to do as it gets that last little bit out of you on your last rep.

Eating more food

By eating more food you are giving yourself more energy and by having more energy you are allowing yourself to up you intensity in the gym. It's quite simple, if your intake is not high your intensity won't be either, you have to fuel your body! So by eating more food and having more energy we will be able to lift more weight as our levels would have increased, we would also be able to get one more rep out which will promote muscle growth. Don't get me wrong though, I don't mean eat anything in sight or junk food. You have to have a well-balanced diet. A well balanced diet is the key thing towards unleashing what you are actually capable of.

This will hurt to do but it will be worth it in the long run. Remember to always change things up so you don't get yourself into the plateau in the first place. This way you will always be motivated to carry on as yourself and other will constantly seeing you getting in better shape.

8 habit changes to make some serious changes

Bad habits are the cause of stunted and slow progress towards your goals - be that losing weight, gaining muscle or shaving 5 seconds of that sprint time. This shows the importance of breaking them. As soon as you change your ways, you will be one step closer. Over the years I have found that many of these bad habits are the same for a lot of people so have a look below, see if any apply to you and learn to break them!

1) You skip breakfast!

I recommend that you need to have breakfast every day. You need a nutritionally balanced and use things like honey as a substitute for sugar if you have a sweet tooth. You can even start experimenting and adding protein powder to you oats! If you want to lose weight a black coffee (hold the milk!) in the morning will also wake you up and help burn fat due to the caffeine speeding up the metabolism.

2) You drink a lot of sugary, fizzy drinks!

You need to stop drinking fizzy drinks. Each fizzy drink you consume will likely have an alarming amount of sugar in it, spiking your blood sugar, affecting your training and your mood - while pre-disposigng the body towards fat storage. It's also thought that cutting fizzy drinks from your diet can secure a better night's sleep - supporting better recovery. It has been shown that also 8 hours of sleep a night can boost free fat weight loss. Switch to water!

3) You drink too much!

For most of us, sometimes going out is inevitable. I mean it's fun and important to let loose and enjoy yourself once in a while. Just learn that if you do go out, try not to overdo the usual binge, just take it easy. The usual binge can lead to a hangover where you will often crave junk food afterwards. Without even mentioning the fact that alcohol will take its toll on the liver and dehydrate the body. And rememeber, a dehydrated cell is not geared for efficient functioning for performance or fat burning.

4) You eat a lot of pizza and high salt ready meals!

Easy to cook meals such as pizzas and microwave ready-meals are easy and will be out of the oven quick and the food is done. However nutritionally they are not ideal - often far from it. If time is a common issue, a good solution to this is to precook a day's food the night before with things such as sweet potato, chicken, salmon, rice etc. This way the healthy food is all prepared and it just needs to be reheated. So no excuses!

5) You eat a lot of sugary, sweet snacks!

Hopefully as you start eating better quality food the snacking will subside but what I can do is provide healthy snacking alternatives. Dry fruit and nuts is a great way to keep the hands busy and keep the calories down. The nuts have good fats in and particularly almonds are good for filling up. Beef jerky is also brilliant and so tasty to snack on and gives you some extra protein to repair those muscles!

6) You miss meals!

By missing a meal you are denying the body the nutrients it needs to function, grow and repair. This is particularly true for anyone training regularly. When you train, the body will need more of these nutrients so if you don't eat you will be in a deficit and be in danger of losing weight rapidly and unhealthily. It is important that you stay in the recommended guidelines for your age.

7) You don't drink enough water!

Relating back to the fizzy drinks you need to increase your water intake so to keep the body in a constant hydrated state. This will allow you to perform and feel better. 2hr before exercise you should have up to 500ml of water, during you will need 200ml every 15 minutes and post 15% of BML (body mass levels) to keep yourself hydrated. 

8) You're not getting the your RDA of fruit & veg!

Here's the big one, you will need to up you veg and fruit intake. This is because these food items will provide yourself with nutrients and minerals. These foods are also low in fat and calories and will fill you up so can be used for snacking also. An easy way to hit the recommended daily allowance and take in a whole host of key vitamins and minerals would be to supplement with a greens powder such as SUPER GREENS.

Choosing the right training partner for you!

Everyone knows that when going to the gym, having a partner can either make you lazy or make you work harder. It's someone there that can spot you, someone to compete against and someone to generally push you that little bit harder. Sometimes this is not the case though, everyone has probably been put in that position where your partner is being lazy taking ages between sets and usually it rubs off on yourself, and for that one session, being 'lazy' results in not benefiting fully from that session. I'm in-between, sometimes I like being with a partner and sometimes I like my headphones and just keeping my head down. So know we have established that partners have their advantages and disadvantages why is choosing the right person key?

Your Goals

Choose someone with the same goals. What is the point of going with someone trying to lose weight while you're trying to gain muscle? This means that you can share your knowledge with one and other. Knowledge is power. With two minds going together to complete one task be that gaining muscle or losing weight, you will make less mistakes meaning you will get there quicker and more efficiently.

Your Training Level

Secondly, you need to find someone at the same level as you. I have been burdened time and time again with my friends asking me to help them. Now I don't mind helping out but it kills my work out because of the constant questions or even if they join I don't feel that push to lift more weight. If you want help in the gym hire a personal trainer. That's what they are there for. So for example I go with my friend Aaron. We are both at about the same strength and we push each other time and time again, if I put and extra 2.5kg on he'll put an extra 5kg on. If I get 1 more rep he'll go for 2 more. After we leave like we have been hit by a car, have a high five and say it was an ace workout. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. You want that competition, you want to feel if you don't go for a while you may get left behind, it gives you that drive to go even if you are tired.

Your Mindset

Thirdly and lastly, you want someone with the same mind set as you. We all know what it's like to get bailed on. Not nice. If your partner is not driven and focused you're not going to be either. There is a good saying that is, your personality is comprised of the five people you hang around with the most - so make sure those five are not lazy! If you start going to the gym for 2 hours a day, 5 times a week with someone who is not driven, it will eventually rub off on you.

So, why is choosing the right person key? Choosing the right person is key, because it will determine how successful you will be at the gym or just working out in general. We can push ourselves harder, we can reach the same goals together and we can help each other out. Partners also help decrease rest times, if you are ready to work as soon as they have finished their set you will be pushing your muscles to the max! Choose wisely people, that person you decide to workout with may determine where you end up!

Losing “weight” effectively

Losing weight, well, that’s an ambiguous term. It doesn’t really specify your goals efficiently. What are you trying to do? Lose muscle mass? Not retain as much water? Lose fat free mass? It’s probably the end one isn’t it? So the correct terminology is losing fat free mass and not weight.

Why is this article here?

I have seen countless people losing weight incorrectly. They pile on everything at once and wonder why it doesn’t work. They throw in insane gym sessions lasting hours, long sessions of cardio, fat burners, cut carbs amongst other things in an attempt to shed the fat. At the time this seems the correct way to do it, until you burn out. As you are putting your body under this much stress at once it is inevitable that you will burn out and start binging again which is basically a yo yo diet. By doing something like this you will actually gain more weight than when you started because you’ve effectively slowed your metabolism down when you dieted and then during an unhealthy binge session you start piling on the weight as your body just stores all of the extra fat that’s going in. It’s a survival mechanism. You’ve basically starved your body so much that when you reefed it takes in everything it can as it thinks you may go through another stage like that.

On top of what was previously said you will be psychologically drained. If you’ve taken your sugars out and really downed your carbs there will not be much glycogen in your muscles so you will feel heavy and tired along with not being able to exercise at a good intensity. You will also lose strength so you’re muscles will start to decline in size which is very unhealthy. You may even start overtraining leading to actually hurting yourself also which will mean you would have to take time out. This is due to your body being in a very catabolic state putting you in a vulnerable position.

Why listen to what I have to say?

Now as you’re reading this article, you obviously want to lose some fat free mass, and I don’t know what your specific goals are but losing some of this fat will be within in it. You’ve probably read through hundreds of articles on how to do this, you’ve definitely seen fad diets around claiming you can get thin in 31 one days and blah blah blah. So with in this in mind why trust my opinion? Well I’m not going to bore you with my qualifications and all of that but I’m going to base everything you’re reading here on my personal experiences. So I’m not regurgitating information I’ve found from unreliable sources on the Internet but my actual first hand experience of my experience of weight loss. Now what works for me may not work for you, that’s a given but hopefully this insight on how to fat effectively and correctly will set you on the right road.

Last year I competed in a competition. It was imperative that got to a low percentage of body fat while at the same time keeping my strength and muscle size. This is possible, why do you think you see all of thee massive bodybuilders about with incredibly low percentages of body fat? It is mainly down to correct dieting and training. Leading in from my competition then… I had a certain time frame to compete this task so again it was at the up most importance that I didn’t do much wrong to hinder my results.

Now you know I was doing this for a competition. You may read this and take it on board for your competition or you may just want to fit into that next trouser size, or look better in a t-shirt for example. You need to understand that whatever the case we are manipulating our bodies and it will change. It will change as you’re going to be increasing your energy output while decreasing your energy input, in normal words you will be doing more exercise with eating less food.  So as we are changing our bodies through a diet it soon becomes the start of you changing your lifestyle. The diet is just a catalyst to get you started and then when you’re eating healthily its no longer a diet; it’s just a habit, a healthy habit.

Lets get started. The main steps.

 Step one: Macros

What we need to do is firstly calculate your macronutrient intake. By finding what we put into our bodies we can precisely cut things out so to reach out goals.

We need to know how much carbs, protein and fat we are putting into our bodies. This way we can weigh out food precisely as the calculation gives us exactly what our bodies need. Once the macros have been calculated you have to split these up into each meal you are going to have. It is good have meals little and often as you can always top yourself up. Remember this as it comes into play a lot more during the end weeks of your diet.  In issue 1 there was an article explaining macronutrients so give that a look to get started! It is very complicated to explain but essential to reaching your goals.

Step two: Timings

Secondly, what you need to get your head around is timings. Timings in this game are fundamental. Start you cardio to early you may hinder results. Cut your carbs to quickly and you may experience over training and negative psychological effects which will again slow down your progress. So what I mean by timings is when to have your meal within the day such as 2 or 3 hours separated alongside effectively planning when to cut things out and put things in.

Step three: Plan ahead

So now we have a grasp on timings what you need to do is plan ahead. You can’t plan the whole diet of course as you don’t know what your body will do as the weeks go on.  Make a little table for yourself to follow, something to follow is easier than making it up in your head as you go along. As we have already calculated our macros, as this was the first step you can write down the exact amount of grams for each meal meaning you just have to refer back to it if you ever get a bit lost.  Make sure you put your times in here too so for example: meal one at 8am meal two at 10am etc etc. You’ll soon remember the times you can have a meal but the initial change from eating what you want to actually setting out a timetable is a struggle.

These are my top tips. I know it’s only three but calculating your macros, timings and planning ahead is it really. It’s that simple. These are very broad statements, it’s obvious that you will need to exercise and eat good foods to help you lose weight and that is widely known which is why I haven’t talked about it. I’m addressing the issue of how people go about it to lose the most amount of weight in the safest way.

Example: Case study

Now we know all of this information lets put it into a little case study. Firstly we have calculated all of our macros and have decided to have 7 meals a day. We have set a plan out and decided on what times to eat. The first week into this cut and weight has been lost. As the weight is dropping nothing needs to change. Lets fast forward another week but the weight has stayed the same this time so now we add in a little low intensity cardio at the end of your work out as you will be in a fasted state which is optimal for burning fat.  When your weight stops going down again we will increase this cardio, not the intensity but the time. For example 20mins will increase to 30mins. Another stop in weight will result in some fasted cardio in the morning. Now can you see what is happening? You are eating the same amount of food but you are just increasing the exercise so weight will continue dropping off. Once cardio has reached around 45minutes to an hour for the morning and after training we will need to start looking at the food situation.

This is where the carbs will start to be cut BUT WE GRADUALLY TAKE THEM OUT.  In each meal I remember I had around 40g of carbs for each meal until 6pm (which was my carb cut off). So simply I took out 20g of out of one meal, which wasn’t my morning, pre or post training meal. After another decline in weight loss all of the carbs will come out of this meal. Further on from this I would start gradually taking carbs out of other meals until only my morning, pre and post work out carbs were left.  Another weight plateau would then lead to gradually pulling back these carbs too. This is where life gets a little hard.  Only because the decrease in food will result in you feeling hungry due to the exercise still staying at this high intensity. Now to give myself a little edge when I was losing weight I used fat burners on top of this just to spike my metabolism to get everything running a little quicker but this was only added in at the very end. 

Lets conclude

Can you see that from all of these steps we have lost fat in the most comfortable way? By doing this I got to low numbers of body fat while still retaining my strength and muscle size. I completed all of these steps in 12 weeks so don’t be mistaken; it’s not something you throw in all in a few weeks. By gradually doing this and pulling things back in your diet and gradually increasing your energy output you are allowing your body to adjust to what is happening to it.  This means you will not experience mind numbing hunger or insane tiredness as you are bringing everything back slowly. And by pulling things back step by step you are constantly changing what happens to your body so this means it cannot adapt fully to what you’re doing to it so you will keep losing weight.  I hope this helps you guys, try my tips out and see how it helps.

Client of mine who participated in my 8wk fat loss programme