Every athlete, regardless of experience, hits a training plateau at some point. Progress stalls, and frustration sets in. Whether your goal is to increase strength, improve endurance, or achieve general fitness milestones, understanding how to break through these plateaus is key to reaching the next level.
In this post, we’ll explore what a training plateau is, why it happens, and more importantly, how you can push past it to continue making gains in your training.
What is a Training Plateau?
A training plateau is when you experience little to no progress after a period of regular improvement. In strength training, this might look like stagnation in your lifts—weights that once felt challenging but manageable now seem impossible to increase. In endurance training, it could mean hitting a performance ceiling, where no matter how hard you train, you can’t run faster, cycle longer, or recover more efficiently.
Plateaus can be frustrating, but they’re often a signal that your body has adapted to the current training stimulus. Remember, adaptation is how progress is made, but too much adaptation without variation leads to a halt in improvement. If your body isn’t being challenged in new ways, it stops growing stronger or more conditioned.
Tip: Tracking your training progress is essential. Monitor your weights, reps, times, and recovery metrics over time to recognize early signs of a plateau, allowing you to adjust your training proactively.
Why Plateaus Happen
Lack of Progressive Overload: One of the key reasons plateaus occur is a failure to continually apply progressive overload. This principle states that in order for muscles to grow stronger or for endurance to improve, the body must be challenged with increasingly difficult workloads over time. Without progressive overload, the body adjusts to the current training level and no longer needs to improve.
Useful Tip: Progress doesn’t always mean adding more weight or running faster. You can apply progressive overload by increasing training volume, adjusting rest intervals, or adding complexity to your exercises. For instance, switch from bilateral (two-limb) to unilateral (one-limb) movements to challenge balance and coordination.
Inadequate Recovery: Overtraining without sufficient rest leads to accumulated fatigue, making it harder to see improvements. The body requires recovery to repair muscle tissue and replenish energy stores, and skipping this can lead to stagnation or even regression.
Useful Tip: Incorporate regular deload weeks (where you reduce training volume and intensity) every 3-5 weeks. This allows your body to dissipate fatigue while maintaining your adaptations. In 95% of the programs we create a deload week occurs every 4th week.
Adaptation to Repetitive Training Stimuli: Using the same exercises, rep schemes, and intensity levels for too long causes your body to adapt. Once adaptation occurs, those movements become easier, and the stimulus is no longer strong enough to force improvement.
Useful Tip: Periodically rotate your exercises every 4-6 weeks. For example, swap barbell squats for front squats or lunges, and switch running intervals for tempo runs or hill sprints. This keeps your muscles and cardiovascular system guessing. At DHA we like to rotate exercises every 5th if we are not running a conjugate style training split.
Imbalanced Training Focus: Many athletes, especially hybrid or tactical athletes, tend to focus heavily on either strength or endurance, neglecting the other. This imbalance can result in a plateau because neglected areas limit your overall performance.
Useful Tip: If your training leans heavily on one fitness aspect, add some balanced work. For example, strength athletes should include low-intensity cardio to improve recovery between sets and boost overall work capacity. Endurance athletes should incorporate strength training to prevent injuries and improve running economy
Tips to Break Through Plateaus
Introduce Periodization
Periodization refers to the planned manipulation of training variables (such as volume, intensity, and exercise selection) over specific periods to optimize long-term progress. A key principle from both The Hybrid Athlete and Scientific Principles of Strength Training is that the body responds best when training is organized in phases
Block Periodization: This type of periodization breaks training into blocks with specific focuses (e.g., hypertrophy, strength, endurance). For example, start with a hypertrophy block to build muscle, then transition to a strength block to turn that muscle into power. This approach ensures you're continuously adapting to new stimuli.
Undulating Periodization: This varies intensity and volume from session to session within a week. For instance, one day may focus on high reps at moderate intensity, while another is dedicated to heavy lifting. This constant variation prevents Stagnation.
On our DHA Hybrid Athlete Training Team, we use a structured yearly cycle that is divided into Four Seasonal Cycles, each lasting 13 weeks. These cycles are further split into two blocks, one 8-week block focused on building, followed by a 5-week block that ramps up intensity.
This methodical approach is designed to ensure that athletes maintain balance across multiple fitness domains—strength, endurance, and power—without sacrificing progress in any one area and preventing training plateau's. Throughout the year, each phase focuses on specific objectives:
Fall Cycle: Focuses on muscle mass enhancement and general endurance development, with high volumes of Zone 1 and Zone 2 conditioning to build a strong aerobic base.
Winter Cycle: Emphasizes muscular strength while maintaining endurance, working within the 80%+ range for strength and targeting benchmarks like front squats at 1.5x body weight.
Spring Cycle: Shifts to power and explosiveness development, utilizing techniques such as cluster sets and Dynamic Effort Method training to enhance speed and strength.
Summer Cycle: A comprehensive phase that focuses on increasing overall thresholds in strength and cardiovascular fitness through Daily Undulating Periodization.
These cycles ensure that athletes continue to adapt and progress by gradually increasing intensity and volume while strategically including deload and taper weeks to optimize recovery. By varying training in this manner, we mitigate plateaus and promote sustainable, long-term progress.
Useful Tip: Plan your training in 8-13 week blocks focusing on different aspects (strength, hypertrophy, endurance). Keep a training journal to track performance in each block and note where adjustments need to be made.
Implement Progressive Overload in Different Forms
While most athletes think progressive overload only means adding more weight, there are many other ways to increase intensity. These methods challenge different aspects of fitness, ensuring continuous growth.
Increase Time Under Tension (TUT): Instead of rushing through sets, slow down the eccentric (lowering) portion of your lifts. This increases muscle tension and leads to more hypertrophy and strength adaptations.
Increase Frequency: If you're stuck on a specific lift, adding an extra day of practice can help. For example, squatting twice a week instead of once can push you past your plateau.
Change Tempo or Rest Times: Shorter rest intervals or varying the tempo (e.g., pausing at the bottom of a squat) can increase the difficulty without needing to add weight.
Useful Tip: If you're stuck in a plateau, try a "double progression" method where you increase either reps or weight over several weeks. Start with a comfortable weight, increase reps weekly until you hit the top of the rep range, then increase the weight and start over.
Focus on Recovery
Proper recovery is crucial to breaking through plateaus. Your muscles repair and grow stronger during rest, not during the workout. Ensuring your recovery strategies match your training intensity can make all the difference.
Deload Weeks: A week of reduced training every 3-5 weeks allows the body to recover without losing performance. This doesn't mean stopping training entirely but reducing intensity and volume.
Sleep: Quality sleep is essential for muscle repair, mental focus, and endurance performance. Aim for 7-9 hours per night, and ensure you're hitting deep REM sleep for maximum recovery benefits.
Useful Tip: If sleep and recovery are poor, consider tracking your heart rate variability (HRV) to measure fatigue levels. This can guide decisions on when to back off and when to push harder.
Manipulate Training Frequency and Timing
Training frequency and timing are crucial, especially for hybrid athletes trying to balance both strength and endurance. Too much training volume across different modalities can cause one to suffer.
Separate Training Modalities: For example, if you're doing both endurance and strength work, try training them at different times of day. Do endurance work in the morning and strength work in the afternoon or evening. This reduces interference between modalities and maximizes recovery.
Useful Tip: Avoid intense endurance work and strength training back-to-back in the same session. This prevents interference effects where strength gains may be hampered by fatigue from endurance training.
Track Your Nutrition
Nutrition plays a critical role in overcoming plateaus. If you're not fueling your body correctly, you won't have the energy or resources to adapt to your training.
Macronutrient Timing: Post-workout meals that include both protein and carbohydrates improve muscle recovery and glycogen replenishment. A balanced diet rich in whole foods will provide the necessary vitamins and minerals for energy production and tissue repair.
Supplements: For those looking to push past a plateau, creatine can help increase strength gains, while beta-alanine can improve endurance in high-intensity training.
Useful Tip: Use a food journal or app to ensure you're hitting your macronutrient goals. If performance is stalling, consider a slight increase in calories to support growth, particularly in protein intake.
Emphasize Weak Points
Identifying and targeting weak areas in your training can break you out of a plateau. Whether it’s improving your grip strength for deadlifts or working on core stability for better running form, addressing imbalances is critical.
Useful Tip: Record your lifts or runs to analyze your form. Often, fixing small technical issues can lead to significant breakthroughs in performance.
Rest and Reassess
Sometimes the best way to break through a plateau is to take a step back. Your body may simply need a reset. Whether it's a short period of reduced training (deload) or complete rest, giving your muscles time to fully recover can refresh your system.
Useful Tip: If a deload or rest week doesn’t help, consider reassessing your goals and training methods. Sometimes, revisiting the basics or switching to a new program may be what you need to reignite progress.
Breaking through a plateau is all about understanding how your body adapts to stress and managing that stress effectively. Whether you’re an athlete, tactical professional, or general fitness enthusiast, the methods outlined here can help you push past stagnation and continue improving. Apply these strategies consistently, and you’ll be on your way to smashing your fitness goals.
Feeling stuck in a training plateau? Our programs are designed not only to boost performance but also to prevent stagnation and keep you progressing. Check out our subscription-based training team on TrainHeroic, DHA Hybrid Athlete, or apply for personalized 1:1 online coaching for a fully customized approach. Follow the links below to get started!
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