triceps extensions
Sticking points are the worst. You train and stay the same and just keep training and staying the same. There are different philosophies for overcoming a sticking point. In this article, I will discuss some of these philosophies.
Blast Through it
One philosophy for overcoming a sticking point is to blast through it. There are lots of articles and training courses that help people break sticking points. Most of them advocate training more or training harder in order to wake your body up so that it will respond. If you haven’t been training hard enough, blasting through a sticking point may work for you, but if you have already been training hard or too hard, then finding another way to over-train isn’t going to work for very long.
Train Less
Another philosophy is to go in the opposite direction and try training less during a workout, or to train less often. Sometimes it works; especially if you have been training too much or too often. But if you haven’t been training too much or too often, trying to find another way to avoid over training will probably not help for very long. A lot of the guys who advocate doing less in each workout and working out less often will also tell you to train with more intensity and push your sets hard while giving yourself plenty of time to recover. No doubt, this philosophy has worked for some, but for others it was futile attempt to improve. It can easily turn into both over training and undertraining. Over training because sets are pushed too hard and the nervous system rebels, and undertraining because there is not enough training volume or training frequency for many people to maintain an anabolic state.
Utilize a Training Cycle
Then there are philosophies which utilize a mixture of different types of training in some sort of training cycle. I have found some success with this methodology and it felt like I hit the jackpot for a while with this type of training. There are endless loading and deloading schemes, and a kazillion ways to mix various types of training into a cycle. I’ll share one that worked for me.
I used moderate weights that allowed eight to twelve reps and I did a variety of exercises that amounted to ten to twelve sets for each body part. I used a fast training pace with moderate intensity where there was no straining and pushing to failure. Each body part was trained twice per week and I used this type of training for just one week. For the next two weeks, I switched to short, low volume workouts consisting of two sets per body part, high intensity training where sets were either done to failure, or near failure using 12 to 15 reps at the start of the week, and six to eight reps at the end of the week. A high training frequency was used that consisted of hitting each body part five days in a row. It worked really, really good for about two cycles and then it quit working, so I did break a sticking point, but I created another one in the process. I recommend this type of training for people who need a new body in six weeks as opposed to people who want to make training progress for months or years.
Little By Little
The final philosophy that I will discuss has more to with just making progress little by little in order to get unstuck, rather than to hit the jack pot and make an incredible breakthrough to overcome a sticking point. Using this method, you don’t look for big results in the next week or in a month; you just try to make a little progress in the next week or month without training in such a way that will cause your progress to come to a stand-still after a brief breakthrough. This is the type of training that I advocate with Precision Point Training. It’s not designed to give you a big burst of strength, it’s just designed to help you gain little by little without getting stuck.
One thing I am coming to believe is that there are several variables that can contribute to gaining strength. When your training includes a little of all of these variables, you don’t over work any one aspect of your physiology, and progress is more predictable. With this in mind, your workouts should include: sufficient (not excessive) training volume along with speed and force development using light weights; medium and heavy training for strength development; and moderately light training that allows you to hit your marker rep at around 12-15 reps. I believe that this is generally more effective than just focusing on one type of training. Along with this, avoid producing muscle fatigue that causes your strength to decline during a workout. Train while you are strong, as long as you are strong, but no longer than while you are strong. Be consistent and remember that you don’t have to blast through a sticking point; you just need to start making a little progress and keep doing that over and over again. Best of training to you.