Breaking Through Training Plateaus

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Sal De Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews You just found the number one podcast in the world for fitness, health, and entertainment. This is Mindpump. Today's episode. We talk about the signs that you're not training hard enough. By the way, we have thirty days of free coaching This is all information that's sent to you over thirty days, diet, exercise, strength, training. You name it. We put it together. It's totally free. Go to thirty daysofcoaching d. comot That's three zero days of coaching com. Now this episode is brought to you by a sponsor. Cisp power So this is pretzel snacks twenty eight grams of protein Her bag, they're vegan, they're delicious If you want high protein, you want to snack on the go, you want to watch a movie, you want to eat something delicious, but you also want protein. Go to crisp power. Go to crisp power . com that's crisp P O W E R. dot com forward slash mind pump, use the code Mind pump get ten percent off. We also have a sale on some workout programs. By any Maps fifteen style workout program, get any other Maps fifteen style program for free. Buy one, get one free happening right now. Go to maps fifteen Bogo . com All right, real quick. if you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mypumpstore. com I' talking right now, hit pause, head on over to mypumpstore. comot That's it. enjoy the rest of the show When it comes to your workouts, there are a lot of factors that play a role in whether or not you progress posossibly one makes the biggest impact. intntensity. how hard you work out. In fact, the data proves this. Of all the factors, intensity is probably the most important. So we're going to talk about are the signs that you're not working out hard enough. How do you know? How do you know if you're working out hard enough to make good progress. That's what we're going to cover today. This is a good conversation for us to have because we tend to communicate the other side more often. That's right a lot more often. Yeah, I think that We recognize that a large portion or majority of our audience probably into fitness or have been into fitness for a long time. even a lot of fitness fanatics that listen to the podcast. And so most of the content has been centered around The over application of intensity and volume and and just overdoing it. Yeah overding it, right?? Which we would agree that we all probably fall in the category and can totally relate. Although when I think back to training personal training clients one on one I did deal with this maybe fifty percent of the time. Yep. you know, maybe maybe half the time. U I had the other side, which was, you know, my clients' not training hard enough and I'd have to communicate this and there are several different reasons or ways that would lead me to believe so. But it was more common when I think about training clients. When I think about this podcast It was less common. And so I felt like that's what we've always kind of the other side. I'll never forget. I've told this story before, but it was it's such a memorable moment for me as a trainer. I had a client that I was training just every day, kind of regular person No experience with strength training, not really athletic background, just a normal woman She was in her forties. I was a young trainer And it was one of our first workouts And we went to a rope press down. We're going to do triceps. And I remember we're doing the triceps, so it's very very basic exercise.'s pressing it down, bring it up pressing it down bring it And she suddenly lets go of the rope, The weight stack slams And she goes, ow, ow. And I'm you know, young trainer. so I'm like, oh my God, didid hurtbody chairir mzle Yeah. Yeah, it's like o, know,'s big,'s hge fear for trains like you hurt your client. you don't hurt your client. You know, but you know, tryicep press down. likeike hurting yourself on a press down is pretty darnicult. It's like a deadlift or a squat So I remember, she's like, Oh, and I'm looking at her And I'm like, Okaykay, where do you feel the pain? and I'm having you explain it? And she's like, it hurts right here You know, And she's like pointing to her tricep and And I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, well, just It hurts it hurts. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but I hurt myself So I'm like, is this your elbow? is it this? I'm haavving your moved? She's like what does it hur anymore And I realized she felt She felt the muscle burn. Yeah. And that was so foreign to her. She just she had no idea. And like you said, Adam, a significant percentage of my clients One of the things that I had to train them on was knowing how hard to go, not because they went too hard but because it's uncomfortable and they just didn't know like, o, is this how far I go? like this U what does this burn feel like? What does this struggle feel like? Um, and it was it was something they had to learn how to become accustomed to and develop a relationship with. There's lots of valueues that by the way, because When you develop a relationship with pain where you can kind of feel and understand good pain, it actually helps the rest of your life But it was relatively common, relatively common that I had clients that just had no idea to train hard enough? This was a tough one for me coming into the gym world and from the athletic world and where everything was like we're trying to maximize our potential for loading and you know getting stronger and to realize, you know, the general population. , where you have to start sometimes? And it was like Wow, because I would demonstrate something and then just the coordination and everything that it took to organize their body in a certain way, they just they didn't have that. It wasn't just like intuitive. And so yeah, it it was all the way across the board. and it was good for me really to to learn how to communicate like from, you know, the most severe where it's like somebody could barely even, you know hold themselves up for too long. They had to like brace themselves or so you just got like a a whole variety of clients and I learned so much, but one of them that was just like, I remember just stopping mid trrack like I can't, like I can't with this. L this lady didn't want to do a kettlebell overhead press because it rested on the back of her arm. It's like cow. Like just deal with it. You know, L I didn't know I didn't have anything. Yeah. You know, it's most you know kind of fundamental root Exercise is a stress. This is what makes your body progress with exercise. So All exercise, all workouts. Unless you're just trying to be active, which is different. Well, you're just trying to move. Okay, That's different. We're talking about like structured exercise. If you're trying to develop more stamina more strength. more flexibility, just anything above and beyond what you have, your body will only pursue that or will only adapt in that direction if it feels like it needs to And stress is what tells your body that it needs to. Why get stronger? or why build stamina? or why require more resources? because that's what all of those kind of require if we don't need them Now, if you're working out, your body doesn't know that you're in the gym. it just feels stressed the environment you're in. And the stress is what gets the body to adapt. So you know, number one, if you're if it's not strenuous att all You're not training hard enough. Now, here's where it gets difficult If your idea, if your baseline of what would be considered strenuous, if you look at your life and your life consists of Zero strenuous anything. If you wake up in the morning, drive to work, sit at your desk you know, drive home, sit on the couch U It doesn't take much for you to feel like you're doing something But it needs to feel difficult It needs to feel difficult. otherwise your body has no reason to progress, has no reason to build muscle, has no reason to get stronger or build any stamina. So If you feel like it's just not strenuous, you're probably not working it hard it. Well, I remember having clients that had trained before. so this isn't like a brand new person to lifting weights And they would I'd kind of evaluate what they've been doing. when I get someone like that, a lot of times I'll have them take me through like how they train or they do so I so I can see versus me like right away, here's what we're following. likeike, Hey, take me through what a workout or a lift session will look like. And I remember meeting quite a few clients like this that just stopped when it started to burn.. They thought that that was the time to stop. was just like, oh, it's burning. I'm good. Yeah. You know, And so then versus continuing to kind of push through that uncomfortable feeling. And so as soon as they felt any of that kind of burning sensation in the muscle, it was like, oh, that's that's enough. and then stopping it right there versus kind of going through that And again, not being strenuous enough, like not causing enough stress or enough damage to elicit growth and change. In other words, it has to feel hard. Your workout should feel a certain level of hard. Otherwise your body has no reason to progress And then along with that Adam, this one always this one shocked me early on, but then later on it was like this what I expected. peopleeople who didn't work out hard enough when when I would ask them to take me through the workout or even just explain their workout. Like, okay, tell me what your workout looks like They would give me the exercises and the weights that they use. This is the most common. This is when you talk your story about the lady Dropin Tice so, and I think of my example of not training hard enough was the clients and it was not always, but more often than not were my clients that did kind of the at home workout. you know, that had like a routine or a video cassette that they used to follow or a DVD And they had these, you know, array of exercises, give it fifteen or twenty. It was a routine. It wasn't workout. Yeah, yeah. And it was and it was always these five pound dumbbells. It was the same every. five pound dumbbells for all the movements. Yeah For Ch chest press for shoulder press forose to the end. Yeah, all the way through every movement, you're using these same set of dumbbells for all these different muscle groups and that's what you just do. And that was real that was really common. And that somebody who, you know, was told that lifting weights is good for them and they need to build muscle and build their metabolism and it's great and felt like, Hey, I do this three four times a week and I've been doing it for years. and I'm just not seeing the results. That was When I think of people not training hard up, that was the most common. Yeah. what it sounded like to me would be they would tell me, Yeahah, you know, what does your workout look like? Oh when I do squats and I'll use a thirty pound dumbbell And then I'll do curls with the fives and then I'll row the ten pound dumbbell. And so I'm not really paying attention to the exercises. I'm paying attention to the fact that they know the exact weight they use for every exercise. And I say how long have you been doing these exerces? Oh I've been doing it for last four years. And how long have you been using those weights? Oh, you know, for four years If you've been using the same weight every single time, your body has no reason. progress. You're comfortable. It is not going to building it. but whyy would it build it? It's already as strong enough as it needs to be because you're doing the same thing every single time. It has no reason progress So if you've been working out for a long time without the workouts feeling hard and it's and you know exactly what dumbbells and exactly what weight to grab for your exercise because that's the one you've always been using, you're probably not working out. I'd say the thing that we come across and I remember we had a callar. It was a while ago when we had a callar like this and we've had a few U that workout from home and they only have like two or three pairs of dumbells I have fives. I've got some, you know, fifteens and like twenty fives and all their workouts consisted around those You should need new dumbbells soon. Yeah. you're actually getting That's not something you should a barbell. Those three those three sets of dumbbells should not last you, you know, five years. No No, no, no, no, no no Here's the next one is that you leave the workout feeling exactly the same as you enter. So Here's what it feels like at the end of an appropriate intensity workout. One that's hard enough to cause change, but one that's not so hard that you blew yourself out right. You should leave the workout feeling a sense Ten energy. So it should feel like you did something like, oh yeah, man, I like I worked out, but you should feel good and calm afterwards. If you're if the end of your workout, you feel like exactly as you did. walking in, like you didn't really do much with your body. You just kind of moved. You don't feel this sense of relax that comes from you know, something that's strenuous Um, then you haven't worked out hard enough. You should definitely feel different. You should feel at the end of workout Somet happened. Yeah this is probably the hardest one to describe to somebody because then you I feel like you either land on the two extremes. Yeah. Either you didn't do enough. if you feel like you need to lay on the couch out or you got or you go sor you can't Yeah or you punish the shit out of yourself and you're destroyed. And so I find this one of all the points that we're making one of the more difficult to get somebody to learn how to do that. And I guess it just takes take some practice When I have somebody who doesn't train hard enough The way I get them to learn this is I end up pushing them a little far until they feel that o, that was you overreached. You were so sore. We were sore for To three days later after like, okay, that was we overreached. So we want to find somewhere between where we started when you first started working with me and that and that's kind of like where we want to ln. It's good to find that line, I think. And so yeah, it does take work to get to that point to, you know, have them understand, okay, o, wow. So this is, you know, the soreness and all this is what you experience when you actually like boost the intensity. Yeah after a good workout, and this is again, just from my experience of training people, but also for myself, I feel like I exerted myself, but I feel a calm sense of Zen. like like the kind of relaxation you get from the fact that your body's tired. it worked. But energy is expended. But not fried. There's a difference, right? Fried is like, oh my gosh, I need to lay down or oh, this is not good. It's more like, I did a hard workout and I feel I feel good, I feel really calm You should again, if you leave your workout and it's kind of like the same like you just did a routine that you're used to all the time Uhing your body has no reason to change. Nothing's going to happen, whichich brings us to the next one, which is Every single time you work out, you feel nothing the days after. Now this does not mean You need to feel sore after every workout. That's a terrible gauge of workout success But if you never feel anything, Always, like if you've been doing your workout for a while or you do workouts in the next day, Every time you work out, you feel like you did nothing Push yourself a little harder, see what happens. You know, feeleing a little something is normal after your workouts. Now, the crippling soreness typically means you did too much Again, you should feel somet like little tightness, a little like I was work. You should you should be able to point to what you did. feel feeling sore after workout doesn't determine a good workout. It usually follows one though. Yeah Yeah.' it's like I think that that's a better way of saying that is that it's it doesn't determine whether you had a good workout or not you don't But it does usually follow one Yeah. And so I think feeling that little bit of sore that's I'm always looking for that. I want to feel like a little bit of soreness in the, but it's not so much that it impedes on the next workout. right? So that's to me the level day. rightight. If I'm if I'mah like regular function, right? walking or getting up and out of a chair you like that's really difficult for you to do because you're so sore where you're sore by the touch of someone touching your chest. Ohh, that's hurts.'s that's overreaching. But I want to feel. I want to make movements right and go, oh tell I worked out yesterday. and so that's kind of what I'm looking for. So it doesn't determine good workout, but it usually fall. And sometimes it feels like a little tightness in the muscle. Itesn't have to be soreness, but you'll go you worked out your hamstrings u soil the next day or the two days after You go to stretch your hamstrings and you go, Oh, I can tell I worked out. If you feel like nothing happened after every single workout, then what I recommend is push yourself a little harder and see what happens, seeee how you feel And if you feel a little bit, keep going in that direction and then you'll probably start to see some progress kick into gear. Here's another one and this is just you got to know yourself You know that you are a verse to the feeling of hard workouts. And you know if this is you. Hard workouts are't comfortable So I want to encourage people right now. First off, I want to empathize with you because It's not comfortable. It hurts, right? It burns It's exhausted You gota push, you gota grind, you gott to pull, you're sweating maybe It's hard And but you will develop a relationship with your workouts if you do this right over time to where it's not It's not an undesirable feeling, okay? And I know that sounds crazy to somebody who's listening, who's new to this because they're like, man, when I go and do a hard workout, I hate the feeling. I hate pushing myself. I hate how hard this feels. It feels uncomfortable, which is true in the beginning as you practice this over time, your relationship to that kind of pain. Now we're not talking about overdoing it T' about doing it appropriate Y relationship to this kind of pain changes to where it's a different category of pain. If I'm sick or I hurt myself belongs over here and that sucks and I don't like the way that feels. But a good hard workout I've been doing this long enough and I have had clients that I've trained for a long time where this actually starts to feel good and desirable And yes, it will happen if you do this consistently enough and you do this wr and you start to connect it with results connected with muscle and fat loss and just feeling better in your everyday life. When this starts to happen, the struggle of a workout when it's done appropriately starts to become desirable. And when you enjoy that feeling Then it's not a problem. but in the beginning it could be hard for some people. And I know this when I would get brand new clients and I would train them and they were just not used to have to through it until you actually start to really feel the results from it. tootally Yeah, the work that's actually beneficial and moving you forward and progressing. How' that quote go? The thing that you need to be doing most is the thing that you continue to avoid or something. There's a good quote somethinghing like that. Yeah ye. It's another paradox that. The thing you should be doing most is the thing that you tend to be avoiding something like that along those lines. And so this is one of those ones that you have to ask yourself. like are you the person that tends to avoid a hard workout like that at all costs or try not to as much as possible? You probably need to lean into Right now, what does that say the magic're looking for is in the work you'revoiding. There you go. There you go. Yeah I can off the top of my head, I can actually picture right now a few clients that I've trained. where the first couple months of our training was me getting them accustomed to pushing themselves. It was like they were so averse to the difficulty of the workout. and the avatar that this fits I'm just timid Yes, these are people that never played sports, they never push themselves physically. U so this is just foreign to them. And I mean, I can think of one guy in particular when I was training him you know, we get to we do some some reps and right when it starts to get hard You could tell he's like, I want to run out of the room. That's the look he would have on his face. likeike I can't do this anymore. And we would stop In the first couple months of my training was like him just getting developing a relationship intensity so that he doesn't it's not so averse. And now after I trained him for a while, probably a year He started to enjoy the challenging workouts. And in fact, I used to point this out to him. I remember it was like a year into our training and I would tell him, say, Do you remember how much you hated Do exercise Do how much you hated? Yeah. feeleing what you're feeling right now? And it was even hard for him to remember. He's like, really? I said, Yeahah, dude, we would as soon as it got a little difficult You'd want to throw dumbells it down, and I could tell you hated being here And but now look at you. now it's like you want to push yourself harder because you have a different relationship with it. So if you know this about yourself, if you know and you know this, this is you. It's like, I hate swweating I hate feeling tired. I hate when my legs burn. I hate when my arms burn. I don't like pushing things that are hard. If this is you, odds are you're not working out hard enough, but you can change your relationship to this kind of pain by slowly pushing a little harder each time. You don't have to go full bore But little by little start to challenge your tolerance pain and this strenuous effort and you will get to the point where you start to enjoy it. Now the last one is the result of doing any of these, right? So if you fall any of these categories, you're getting know no results is the plateau. And this is like somebody who is not training hard enough and for any of these reasons, it will result in a plateau. Y. I mean, if you're somebody who needs to be training hard enough and you're not then you're certainly not because if you're seeing progress, you you're not in a plateau and you don't need to change that. You't you're not the person who techn needs to train harder You In fact, that should be the goal, right? is to do as little as possible to elicit the most change. And so if I'm doing enough strenuous work to elicit change, and my body is adapting and changing, that I'm good. But if I'm not then I'm not seeing any results. The people that all of this tends to fall under, if I were to like paint the picture of an avatar, it's typically people who previous injury And so they're really afraid of hurting themselves. Maybe they had a bad experience or maybe they just had a bad injury they're coming from. So they're just really afraid to re injure themselves. And then the other category of people this falls under are people in advanced age People in advanced age who start strength training are really afraid pushing themselves. They just don't. And so I see this in the gyms all the time. You see older people working out and their intensity is too low to cause any real progress. Now it's better that they're moving versus not moving so it's better than nothing. But when I would get clients in advanced age, one of the fast besides showing them proper technique and all that stuff, was like, I'm just going train them with appropriate intensity and're here's the deal. If you're listening and you're older and your s is you and you're getting started I'm going to tell you something right now, all the studies demonstrate You will build muscle and get stronger. Your body will adapt. And if you're not seeing anything like that because you're afraid to test yourself, push yourself a little bit I think it'd be shocked You'll be shocked what can happen Look, we have something called thirty days of coaching. It's free, thirty days of coaching for myself, Adam and Justin. And essentially what you get is you get coaching every single day sent to you with a different topic, whether it be diet or exercise or exercise type or workout programming. And you get this sent to you, it's thirty days. It's totally free. We've had it for a while. It's very, very popular. Everybody gets it if you go to thirty daysofcoaching. com. So it's the number thirty. Days of coaching . com It's totally free