When you first start lifting weights, it's amazing how quickly you get results. Looking back at pictures of yourself just a few months ago might feel like you're looking at an entirely different person. But after you've been lifting for a while, it's not unusual for your results to stagnate. You keep pushing yourself, but you just can't seem to gain any more muscle. If you've stagnated before reaching your goal, there are a few things you can do to push forward and keep seeing more results.
Consider steroid supplements.
Steroids have gotten a bit of a bad rap. Indeed, if you buy them illegally and inject them without much knowledge of dosage or how they'll affect your body, your side effects are likely to outweigh the benefits. But there are legal, carefully formulated steroid supplements out there. Research legal steroid companies in your area, like SDI Labs. These supplements will help you continue to gain muscle with a lower risk of side effects.
The key to success with any legal steroid supplement is finding the right dose for you. If you can find a trainer who has experience with the specific supplement you're taking, see if they have some recommendations as to a good starter dose. From there, you can add a little more if you're still not getting the results you want, or you can back off a bit if you're getting some minor side effects like oily skin or unwanted hair growth.
Meet with a dietitian.
When you're first starting out, you can usually cobble together a decent training diet for yourself by gleaning advice from books and tutorial videos. But when you're trying to break out of a stagnant rut, it's all about fine tuning your diet to your unique needs. Maybe you need a few more grams of protein, or perhaps you are not burning as many calories as you thought. You'll do well to meet with a dietitian who can speak with you one-on-one and recommend some foods to eliminate and other to add to your meal plans.
Make sure you select a dietitian who has experience working with body builders and lifters, specifically. They'll have more precise knowledge about training diets and will be able to rely on their experience with past patients to come up with a personalized diet plan for you. Once you have your diet plan in hand, be sure to follow it to a "T." Making changes based on hearsay or advice from friends may throw the entire plan off and keep you from getting your desired results.
Switch trainers.
Perhaps you have someone you've been working with all along. If you've stopped getting results under that trainer's guidance, it might be time to seek out a different trainer who takes a different approach. Changing to a different routine can help kick-start gains after a stagnant period. Challenging your muscles in new and different ways will cause them to adapt even further -- and adaptation means more growth.
If you'd prefer not to work with a trainer, you can make some changes to your routine yourself to kick-start those gains. Here are a few suggestions:
- Decrease your rest time between sets.
- Change the exercises that you're using to target each muscle group.
- Start doing some drop sets. These are sets in which you start with a heavy weight, do a rep, lower the weight, do a rep, lower the weight again, and so forth.
- Add days to your training routine. For example, start hitting the gym 5 days a week instead of 4.
Most weight lifters and body builders reach a point where their gains drop off and their weight stays stagnant for a while. Success is all about busting over this hump to keep building muscle.
