Find out why you have been unable to get off the ground for years and punch your progress in gaining mass or burning subcutaneous fat. Every athlete may be faced with the concept of a training plateau. It means stopping the progress of athletic performance. Note that the reasons for the stagnation of results in sports can be different and there are a lot of them. Today we will tell you about the most common ones.
The emphasis in this article will be on bodybuilding, since it is this sport that is most popular today at the amateur level. Since there are many reasons for the stagnation of results in sports, there are also many ways to solve problems. However, athletes often misidentify these causes and use the wrong methods to overcome plateaus.
The main reasons for stagnant results in sports
You must remember that mass gain (growth of muscle tissue) is an adaptation of the body to powerful physical activity, which is possible during supercompensation. The athlete needs to increase the load in each lesson in comparison with the previous workout.
As a result, muscle tissue is destroyed, and this is disadvantageous for our body, since it leaves the state of homeostasis. To return to balance, it is necessary to eliminate all the damage received in the lesson. For this, the body begins to actively synthesize protein compounds.
When all microtraumas have been healed, the body does not calm down, but continues to regenerate tissues, thereby creating a small margin of safety. This process is called supercompensation. In turn, supercompensation is the growth of muscle tissue.
We can single out two factors, without which weight gain is impossible:
- Supercompensation.
- Load progression.
Simply put, for muscle growth, an athlete must first destroy tissue by overloading it, and then give the body time to recover. Thus, the timing of the next lesson is an important factor. The body is not able to adapt to changes in external conditions instantly and it takes a certain amount of time for this.
If after training the body does not rest enough, then supercompensation simply will not come. At the same time, excessive rest also does not contribute to mass gain, since supercompensation will pass. We can distinguish four important periods of time:
- The time of destruction of muscle tissue in a class is the shortest period, since a training session lasts a maximum of 60 minutes.
- Recovery time is the period during which tissues are restored to their original state. The duration of this period of time is influenced by a large number of factors, and the average indicator is 7 days.
- Growth time - also depends on the individual characteristics of the organism, and the approximate figure is from 7 to 14 days.
- The time of loss of supercompensation - comes in those cases when you do not exercise for a long time.
Having studied these periods of time, we can draw conclusions about the possible reasons for the stagnation of results in sports. Let's start with the first segment of time - muscle breakdown. If during the training you did not inflict microtrauma on the muscle tissues, then the body has adapted to this load. When an athlete constantly uses the same load, the muscles gradually become stronger and their performance increases.
We have already said that the body always strives for a state of homeostasis and restores tissues after training with a small margin in order to prevent destruction during repeated similar load. When external conditions change, the body adjusts the internal ones to stay in balance.
You've probably noticed that after each increase in the load on the lesson, pain is felt in the muscles after its completion. If everything is left as it is, then it will be easier on the second workout, etc. As a result, after a couple of weeks, the load becomes light for you. This suggests that the body has adapted and the muscles have become stronger. Until you increase the load, there will be no muscle growth.
To help you progress easily, keep an activity diary. Without it, it will be extremely difficult for you to progress, since remembering all the numbers (working weight, number of sets, approaches, etc.) is simply impossible. Before starting each workout, look at the indicators of the previous session and slightly complicate it. The lack of progression of loads is precisely one of the most common reasons for stagnant results in sports. Almost every novice athlete observes a good growth of muscle tissue during the first six months of training, and sometimes even a year. This is quite understandable, because strength training is a new external condition for the body. To maintain the state of homeostasis, the body begins to adapt to physical activity and during this period muscle growth is observed.
However, the main reason for the stagnation of results in sports is insufficient time for rest after training. Often, athletes believe that the more often they exercise, the more progress will be made. But in practice, everything is different, and there is no growth in such a situation.
Let's say after intense training of your chest muscles, your body needs about nine days to recover. During this time, muscle tissue will only be restored to the level that they had before the start of the session. If you work on this group again nine days after the previous session, there will be no growth. If even less time passes between workouts, say, six days, then the situation will worsen even more.
Not only will you not grow, but your athletic performance in such a situation will gradually decline. As a result, it will come to the point that the body will turn on a special energy saving mode, which in sports is usually called overtraining. Thus, for progress you must rest, it is necessary for the full recovery of the body time. If you exercise frequently and you are not making progress, then you definitely need to increase your rest time. At the same time, it is impossible to give specific recommendations on the duration of pauses between classes. This is an individual indicator that is influenced by a large number of factors.
You must remember that larger muscle groups need to rest longer. Also, with a high intensity of exercise, the body is restored over a longer period of time. Keep in mind that well-trained muscles also take longer to recover. The time of loss of supercompensation is no less important, and this reason for stagnation of results in sports is not as popular as the two previous ones. It occurs when you rarely exercise. In this case, muscle tissue is restored with a reserve and supercompensation occurs. However, due to rare activities, the body returns everything to its original state. Simply put, when you miss supercompensation, the muscles destroy the previously made reserve after a certain period of time. To solve this problem, you need to train more often.
Today we talk about recovery time all the time, but we did not give exact advice. This is due to the fact that the body of each person is individual, and you will be able to determine the lengths of time you need only empirically. If you feel weak after exercise and cannot handle the new weight, then you need to rest more.
These are the main reasons for stagnant performance in sports, but there are many others. These include, for example, genetics. Each person has certain restrictions on muscle growth, inherent in nature. The closer the athlete approaches this limit, the more difficult it is to gain mass.
At the same time, purely physiological reasons are also possible, for example, insufficient nutrition. Sometimes athletes forget that muscles grow and they need more nutrients. However, they continue to eat in the same way and there is no growth.
To summarize, in order to progress, you need to progress the load, get good rest and eat right. Under these conditions, you will definitely progress. Bodybuilding is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. It's not enough just to work with iron, you also need to think.
How to start muscle growth and what is the main reason for stagnant results, see here:
