Fit Factor: The plateau-busting plan

Have you ever driven across the great plains? It's a beautiful landscape, for sure, but no matter how far you drive, it never seems to change. Mile after mile, all that surrounds you is the same flat prairie, in some cases without as much as a small hill to change the scenery. Well, if you haven't changed your workouts, your results will flatten out just the same, causing you to reach a similar plateau.

Just like you would need to take a different driving route to see new scenery, you have to change your workout in order to continue seeing new results.

While it's not always necessary to make major changes to your workout to bust through a plateau, you must make change of some kind. Otherwise, your body will continue to maintain your current level of fitness but never go much further than that.

The tricky part is, the more experienced a lifter you are, the more dramatic the change you make usually has to be. While altering rep counts, increasing or decreasing the speed of lifts, or reducing rest time in between sets may work for some people, it may not be enough of a change for people who've been pumping iron for several months or years.

Isometric Reps. Lift a weight to a point where there is a great deal of tension placed on your muscles and then hold it there for about 3 seconds. Return the weight to its starting position, only to then lower it and repeat this holding process again.

Negative Reps. Have a spotter lift the weight for you (during the positive motion of the exercise), leaving you to handle the negative portion of the rep all on your own. Because you are only responsible for one half of the lift, you will be able to use more weight than usual, thereby shocking your muscles into growth.

If you happen to be one of those people, and if you're having trouble breaking through your fitness plateau, you may want to try the following techniques:

Partial Reps. Rather than performing the entire motion of an exercise, stop at around the halfway point. This will allow you to complete more reps and/or lift more weight than usual, confusing your muscles in the process.

Supersets/Compound Sets. Perform two sets consecutively (each for a different muscle group for Supersets, or both for the same muscle group for Compound sets) without taking a break in between.

These methods should help you see new results in a matter of weeks. Just don't make the mistake of not mixing things up again shortly thereafter. Although these techniques are great for breaking through plateaus, using them all the time may cause you to risk over-training. So, once you feel you're back on track, switch back to a more conventional workout.