Climb through the Plateau

You work and work, make incredible progress and then ... bang ... the progress stops. What happened?

If you are serious about your eating and training, this phase in your development is inevitable.

What is a plateau? A plateau is characterized by an actual or perceived lack of progress towards your goals; fitness goals as it relates to this discussion, but applies to most endeavors.

What causes a plateau and what can be done about it?

A plateau occurs for exercise acclimation reasons and for dietary nutritional reasons (sleep deprivation and stress may very well play roles as well.)

In short, our bodies acclimate to habit. If we do the same exercise at the same pace for any amount of time, our bodies will acclimate, expending less energy as the muscles are "trained and remember." From my observation this is the biggest reason that people either plateau or don't achieve progress in the first place.

Related to this is the simple concept of effort expended. If you are on a treadmill every day, walking at a speed that allows you to read a book, it is highly unlikely that you will make any appreciable progress towards your goals, for both acclimation and insufficient effort reasons.

What about the case where you are working hard but are just not seeing any improvements in your muscle definition or weight loss goals?

One potential answer lies in the fact that muscle weighs more than fat. You may not see the scale move much but may be losing fat and gaining metabolism-firing muscle. Muscle drives your metabolism up.

Lets talk more about metabolism. Many people like to do consistent cardio; same overall time, same consistent rate and energy expenditure because they remember that they were told that you must stay in the fat-burning zone. This has been proven to be inaccurate. Interval training where high levels of expenditure > 85% of maximum heart rate are followed by short lower intensity duration and then repeat the cycle, is better for the cardio vascular system, and results in elevated metabolism sometimes for hours after such a workout.

There is nothing wrong with cardio workouts as long as resistance training is major part of the exercise plan. Again, interval-based cardio workouts; e.g. Tabata, spin classes with a knowledgeable instructor and workout programs like Insanity, 21 Day Fix, T25 and similar workouts are excellent ways to get your cardio workout in. Some of these programs are especially good because they combine high intensity cardio interval work with resistance training. An interval workout of half or a third of the time of traditional "steady intensity" workout, will generally burn at least as many calories.

Vary your workouts daily. Don't watch just the scale; watch the mirror. Wear a heart rate monitor to get an accurate assessment of your heart rate. Work with a qualified and knowledgeable trainer or coach to help ensure that you are optimizing your time and effort.

Diet and nutrition can have an impact on the plateauing effect. While calorie restriction through portion control can have positive effects on being aware of exactly what and how much you are eating, as your body becomes more efficient at burning fuel, caloric restriction can have an effect of slowing down the metabolism and pushing you into a plateau scenario.

Be aware also that not only are your calories in line, but that you are getting adequate nutrition. These don't always go hand in hand. Sometimes you just need to eat more or supplement. Pay attention to how your feel. Are you getting increasingly sore after workouts? Reassess your supplementation and overall nutritional needs.

Finally, ensure that you are getting the kind of support that you need to meet your goals. Surround yourself with like minded individuals and consider the investment in yourself with a highly qualified coach and trainer; one who understands the roles of nutrition, portion control, interval training, periodicity, need for adequate rest and how to change up routines to maximize your results and expectations.

#thisoldfitguy

Getting the most of your stationary cycle workouts

I hear a lot of people talk about how they are bored with an indoor stationary bike and then, of course, don't get effective workouts or just quit altogether. I want to share some thoughts and experiences.

Some preliminaries first:

Measurement and metrics - Be careful to not "over interpret" the statistics you are presented by the bike. For example, several brands of stationary bikes, when reporting distance traveled do something very interesting. The slower (and harder) you bike, the more mileage you accumulate. What can happen is that the bike is reporting "effective" mileage. That is, for the effort you are extending, from selecting higher intensity levels on the bike, the bike is reporting how much mileage you would be accumulating if you were on a flat surface, expending that effort (assuming you even could.) Calorie expenditures should also be viewed very generally. The bike knows nothing of your heart rate, your body size or weight; which are all factors that go into determining calorie expenditure. (Invest in a heart rate monitor and use a bike that interfaces with your HRM; such as Polar.) Having said this however, keep in mind that over time, if you are getting "more distance" reported, then certainly you are doing better, relatively speaking. Just don't take those numbers as "gospel".

They may look the same ... but .. I use one of the older LifeFitness models at my gym. Be aware that two bikes that are identical looking may be anything but similar. The programs loaded into the bikes may be different. For example, this model of bike has several different programs; one goes from Level 1-20 and another goes from Level 1-12. Some have a 60 minute max, some have a 90 minute max. The point is that if you are keeping track of your time and intensity, be aware that a given level on one bike may be completely different from another bike of the same model.

We are creatures of habit and like to be able to measure progress. That can mean repeating a task and measuring progress. The problem is that our bodies are very capable of adapting, resulting in diminishing returns. The problem is that we have been trained to measure the wrong things. This is not to say that keeping track of progress is a bad thing. What matters most however, in terms of what to measure is our recovery time. That is, how long it takes for our heart rate to recover back to a resting or near resting rate. That is the real indication of cardiovascular health.

So how do we change up our workouts (in this case on a stationary bike) to keep things fresh. Again, I am going to use the bike that I know the best as a reference point. You can easily translate the suggestions here to any indoor bike that you use. Here are several different kinds of workouts that I go through to keep things fresh. (These are all for my bike where the max intensity is Level 12.)

1. Random intensity mode. 90 minutes. For 10 minutes each, Level 8,9,10,8,9,10,8,9,10. Relatively constant RPM.

2. Same as above in Hill Mode. Hill Mode kind of has a built-in "interval" training aspect to it.

3. Same as 1, except I will go 8,9,10,11,12,7,8,9,7.

4. Random mode. 35 minutes. 5 minute intervals. 9,10,11,9,10,11,7

5. Random mode. 45 minutes. Interval ride. 45 seconds 'on',  75 seconds 'off'.
Warm up for 5 minutes at level 6. 10 minutes each at level 8, 9, 10, 11. Then cool down. The key with interval training is that it doesn't mean just "go faster". You have to go as hard as you can in the 'on' cycle. If you have to bail, go down a level for 3-4 minutes, then come back again. If you have anything left at the end of this workout, then you need to extend the levels or extend the time split between 'on' compared to 'off'.

Note, these are just a few of the workouts that I do. I will post more. Also, obviously, this kind of variation in your workout can be applied to ellipticals or any other kind of indoor cardio machine workout.