Making consistent progress at the gym requires smart training and hard work. Sometimes, despite your hard work, gains slow down or even stop. When your progress starts to lag, it's time to reevaluate what you've been doing to see what changes you can make.
Partner Up
Find a good training partner. A training partner can provide motivation, knowledge and a fresh perspective. Ideally, your training partner should be more advanced than you because you will make more progress if you are trying to catch up to her. She should also be dedicated, which will make you more inclined to show up to the gym when you are feeling lazy. In "The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding," Arnold Schwarzenegger writes about the importance of highly motivated training partners.
Focus on Compound Exercises
Plan your workout around compound exercises. Use bench presses, squats, barbell rows and deadlifts as the foundation of your program. Compound movements are superior for muscle gain because they train a large number of muscles at once and allow you to use heavy weights. Heavy weights cause significant stress to the muscles and will trigger a large growth response.
Use Free Weights
The National Strength and Conditioning Association recommends free weights as the foundation of a weight training program. Free weights are harder to stabilize and will recruit more muscle mass than the machine equivalent of each exercise. The extra muscle recruitment improves overall strength and growth.
Split Your Workout
Train different muscles on different days. Group chest, shoulders and triceps together on one day, back and biceps on another, with legs on their own day. Splitting your workout will let you spend more time on each muscle while allowing them more rest in between workouts.
Use Negative Repetitions
A negative repetition is the lowering phase of an exercise. At the end of a set, when you cannot do any more reps, you should still have the energy to lower the weight slowly. This lowering cause a lot of muscle trauma resulting in more growth. Adding a few negative repetitions to your workout can reward you with some new growth.
References
- "The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding"; Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Dobbins; 1999
- "Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning - 3rd Edition"; National Strength and Conditioning Association; 2008
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