A few days ago a member came up to me and said: I’m at the gym all the time and I’m not getting any stronger. My first reply was: Congratulations on graduating from your beginner gains. I explained that during the first year of training the body keeps adapting to new stressors and strength gains comes really easy because as you train, two major things happen at the same time: 1 muscle tissue adapts to the training and technique gets better which both of course drives gains. Every time this process happens you will see improvements so if you are new to training this process will happen all the time. At one point, which for this member is now, you will start to see smaller or no improvements for a period of time as the body has adapted to a lot of the stress you have put it through. This is called a training plateau. When you hit a training plateau it is time to reevaluate what is going on.
Are they Training hard and smart? Yes. They are turning up multiple times per week. They listen to the coaches and they are keen to improve their technique as well as strength.
Are they Eating healthy: Yes and No. They have breakfast every morning but that is all they have until tea time so here is a thing they could improve like making a light lunch. Could just be some fruit to start with and then move on to cooked lunches later on.
Are they stressed: Yes. Taking care of a family & running their own business. Family first of course. So how are you running your business? Do you schedule everything so your days are planned out? Do you have contingency plans for things that come up or go wrong. How much work do you bring home physically? How many business problems to you bring home mentally? All these things are important because they add to stress which will hinder progress. Don’t bring your work problems home with you. You have a business, you are not your business, Keep your business and personally life separate as much as possible.
Are you sleeping: No. They get around 4 hours per night. Have a set time you go to bed and stick to it. This can be a tough one if you don’t feel tired but you might need to give yourself some tough love here. Go to bed turn off your phone, close the curtains, don’t have a TV in the bedroom.
As you can see there are plenty of things this member can improve on if they want to see new gains for all the hard work they put into every training session and it is all outside influences. We had a chat about each of the things they could improve on and it will be awesome to see some new gains soon. If you find yourself in the same situation, ask us about it so we can give you some easy to follow advise and you can get back to improving your strength and fitness and most important your health.
Christian
Thursday 1/11/18
MetCon: 12 min EMOM
1st: 200m Run
2nd: 7 TTB & 14 Reverse Lunges
3rd: 10 DB Thrusters (AHAFA)
Straight into
3 Rounds for Time
200m Run
7 TBB
14 Reverse Lunges
10 DB Thrusters
