Ever had the feeling that no matter how long or hard you work out for you cant get any bigger or stronger? Its most likely because you have hit a muscle building plateau. This generally occurs because muscles don’t have the time to recover completely from a workout, and sometimes a plateau can even lead to a loss in strength and muscle mass. Recovery is the ultimate goal of every athlete, weather its between workouts, sets, reps, plays or shifts, the faster and easier your body is able to recover the more you will gain, the more results you will see and the better you will perform.  To break through plateaus there are many different ideologies and methodologies that people believe to be true, and depending on your metabolism and body’s anabolic capacity some may work better for you than others will.

                A workout buddy of mine, whom plays college football at a US Div-1 school advised me that when I reached a plateau I should simply take a few weeks off working out, or more specifically for muscle building, take a few weeks off lifting. He said some light cardio was fine, and that it might help my body to maintain its current muscle mass, while giving my muscles ample time to recover from all the previous damage and stress that was put on them. He said that this is for sure the best thing for athletes who are just coming off their season/post-season to do. Take two weeks off rest, and then go back hard in the weight room.

Photo property of Marshall Brady

                Another method that i have heard to work is taking a whole plethora of vitamins (zinc, multi, D,C,E,b-12,magnesium, omega-369). Your body needs sufficient nutrients to aid in the recovery of muscular tissue after a workout and by taking vitamins it will help to supply those nutrients to your muscles thus speeding recovery and helping you body to see constant gains. For those who don’t have to pass a drug test, don’t care about the health side effects, and have a plug who can get them illegal steroids, “the juice” basically just supercharges the recovery process by upping testosterone, the hormone responsible for recovery.

                The last and possibly most effective method is simply just changing up your workout routine, whether it be moving from barbell bench-press to dumbbell bench-press, or from bicep curls to chin-ups. This can stimulate your muscles by changing up the range of motion used to something that your body is less accustomed to. There’s hundreds of books out there, combined with some great online resources that can be used as well, such as bodybuilding.com.  There are also many machines and workouts that can be done to stimulate multiple muscle groups in new ways such as TRX bands.

                Now that your armed with this information, it’s about time that you get off your computer and break through that plateau yourself. Happy workouts!