When people come through the door of Athletic Lab for the first time we always give them a warning before training. We tell people to take it at their own pace and use rest days wisely between training sessions. This is because of the intensity of training and how long recovery can sometimes take. But what happens after this ‘break in’ period?

Once a person has reached certain fitness level the body needs to be pushed to the next level. Think of it as stairs, when starting we are at the bottom stair. At each stair we train for a certain time with a certain stimulus. If nothing is ever changed then we stay put on the same stair. This is sometimes known as a plateau. To continue to see positive gains/results something needs to be changed in your training, either the intensity, frequency, or mode of exercise.

The two ways I feel are the easiest and simplest to change at Athletic Lab are to increase intensity and frequency. Increasing intensity could be adding weight during the strength portion or strength class, working at a higher intensity of your aerobic capacity, or decreasing the rest between sets or reps during conditioning. Increasing frequency is simple, come to more classes. A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (Slentz, Duscha, and Johnson 31-39, 2004) states, …a clear dose-response effect between amount of weekly exercise and decreases in measurements of central obesity and total body fat mass, reversing the observed effects in the control (non-exercising) group. The close relationship between central body fat and total fat and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension lends further importance to this finding. Basically, dose-response effect means more exercise produces greater benefits.

People get comfortable in a routine which can have its benefits, but to see the biggest results, changes to the stimulus need to be made. Many times the reasons for this stagnate behavior is not knowing how to change. The results of this study show that more exercise yields more benefits. If you’ve reached a plateau, it may be time to change something up. The change doesn’t need to be major. If you’re not sure where to start try adding another day of training each week or push yourself a little harder. Athletic Lab is here to help you achieve your potential; we encourage you to use us as much as possible.

REFERENCES: Slentz, Cris, Brian Duscha, and Johanna Johnson. “Archives of Internal Medicine.” Archives of Internal Medicine. 164.1 (2004): 31-39. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.