Answer Fitness®: Practical Fitness Advice for Everyone

8 Ways to Break a Weight Training Plateau | Weight & Resistance Training Tips

Hit a Plateau with Your Weight Training or Resistance Exercise Routine? Use These Proven Techniques to Jump-Start Your Training and Get Back On Track.

Training plateaus are inevitable.

Anyone who has been exercising or weight-lifting for an extended period of time will eventually hit one. It’s never an issue of will I plateau, but when. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re a casual gym goer, a highly-conditioned athlete, an amateur body builder or a professional fitness model. You will hit a plateau eventually if you are exercising and training on any kind of regular basis. 

Training plateaus can be particularly frustrating because they will typically occurr when you feel the strongest or following a period of rapid progress. So psychologically, they can be demotivating because they take the shine off from all of that progress you’ve made over the previous weeks or months. You’ll feel like you are spinning your wheels and going no-where fast, and it can make working out less rewarding.

The good news is that there are a number of proven techniques that you can use to break through a weight training plateau.

In some cases, you’ll be able to break your plateau fairly easily with just one or two of these techniques.

In other cases, especially if you’ve been training for for several years and are already in a very good physical condition, you may have to try multiple approaches or some of the more advanced techniques.

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Is Cardio Better Before or After Lifting Weights? | Ask The Fitness Nerd

When Is the Best Time To Perform Cardio: Before or After Lifting Weights? Or Does It Even Matter?

Dear Fitness Nerd,

Is it better to do cardio before or after you lift weights? I’ve been following your full body workout routine and love it, but I’d also like to slip in some cardio on top of the weight training. What are your thoughts? Should I lift weights before I do cardio? I’ve searched online and seem to get mixed opinions which is better. Any help would be appreciated. –  Andrew (Chapel Hill, NC)

Andrew, I get this question quite a bit. In fact, it’s probably one of the most frequently asked questions in the comments area on the Answer Fitness full body workout routine.

Whether it’s better to perform your cardio before or after lifting weights really depends on your current conditioning, stamina — and to a certain extent — your mindset. There are also some physiological  and scientific reasons you might preference weight lifting over cardio earlier in your workout — but even here you’ll find some disagreement among trainers, exercise physiologists and even bodybuilders.

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Total Body Workout with Weight Machines | Workout Routines

Not ready for the free weight room? This total body workout routine uses the most common weight machines at the gym to give your entire body a great workout in under 60 minutes.

Total body workouts (also known as “full body workouts”) are a great way to build muscle, burn fat, develop core stability and strength, and cut down on your overall time in the gym. Generally, total body workouts are most effective when they are built around compound, multi-joint exercises that use free weights like dumbbells and barbells.

But not everyone feels comfortable in the free weight room, and if you are just starting a resistance or weight training routine, it can take some practice to learn how to perform free weight exercises with good form.  Weight machines can provide a way for newcomers to get a feel for basic form and movement, build a nice strength foundation, and eventually feel more comfortable transitioning into free weight exercises.

Incorporating weight training machines into your workout can also benefit advanced trainees as well, since machines allow you to go with heavier weight than you can typically use in a free weight lift. This can be useful for breaking training plateaus. And because weight machines don’t require you to swap out plates, you can typically move through your workout more quickly — a plus if you are pressed for time.

So by popular demand, I’ve created a version of my free weight full body workout that is adapted to give you a total body workout using weight machines alone. Actually, this workout uses a combination of multi station weight training machines, cable exercise machines and some body weight exercise equipment like chin/dip stations. With a few exceptions, the same rules and guidelines of that total body workout apply to this version. We’ll recap those a bit later.

But first, let’s take a quick look at the advantages and disadvantages of using weight machines, instead of free weights, as part of a total body workout routine.

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Full Body Workout Plan | Workout Routines

Full Body Workout Routine Not Only Builds Muscle But It Torches Fat  … in Less Than 60 Minutes.

Can you spare 60 minutes, three times a week?

If the answer is “yes” I have the perfect workout routine for you: A “Full Body Workout” program that will get you in-and-out of the gym in less than an hour, will amp up your metabolism for the next 48 hours and — after about a month — will give you noticeable improvements not only in your strength, but also your physique.

Oh, and expect to drop some body fat in the process.

Why A Full Body Workout?

Full body workouts are probably the single most under-utilized workout routines in the gym.

Regardless of your experience level or existing strength, working your entire body in a single session is not only challenging, but an extremely effective way to build muscle, strength and even burn fat in the process. Even experienced bodybuilders can reap the benefits of switching to a full body workout, especially if they’ve been on a split routine plan for an extended period of time.

Before we actually take a look at a full body workout routine, let’s quickly discuss some of the advantages of working your entire body in a single session and the basics you need to know about before getting started.

The Benefits of Full Body Workouts

There are a number of benefits to performing full body workouts, including:

• Better core development
• Less overall time in the gym
• Improved recovery intervals
• Reduced risk of overtraining
• Greater training frequency per muscle group
• Increased energy expenditure during and after training
• Increases in beneficial growth hormones
• Highly customizable to different training goals, whether that is strength, muscle size (hypertrophy) , endurance or a combination of the three
• Better overall muscular development and symmetry
• Reduced risk of developing muscle imbalances, especially among smaller stabilizer muscles
• Secondary cardiovascular benefits
• Appropriate for all ages and levels of experience, from beginners to advanced trainees

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