There's no worse feeling than putting in the hours in the gym but not seeing the results. Every now and again, we all need a reality check to fully grasp the reasons we're falling short, with our gym plan failing. There's nothing wrong with getting in a rut at 'medium' - it happens to so many people - we just need to be honest about the reasons why we can't move forward and reach our goals.
Over on T Nation, big arms expert Paul Carter has read the riot act to people who have plateaued with their gym work. Rather than blame diet plans or personal trainers, Carter holds a mirror up to directly to us. 99% of the time it's our fault, after all and Paul has identified seven ways that we're getting it wrong.
Here are his seven reasons people get stuck at a certain level.
1. You don't keep a training log.
To summarise: If you're not logging your work, you're not learning from your work
2. You have training ADD.
To summarise: you're not settling on a single plan
3. You're married to sucky, unproductive exercises.
To summarise: you're doing it wrong
4. You're focused on insignificant shit.
To summarise: you're doing it wrong by losing yourself in minutiae and technicalities.
5. You have no idea what brutally hard training is.
To summarise: you're not working hard enough
6. You care about the 'gram too much.
To summarise: you're spending far too much time on social media
7. You keep glossing over what's most important.
To summarise: you're missing out on the basics
One of these things may apply to you, all of these thigns may apply to you. Either way, you need to read the entire post to get all of Paul's intense, detailed thoughts on each subject but these bulletpoints go a long way to waking us up and getting us off that plateau we've been wasting away on.
Quoting Dr. Ken Leistner, Paul says some of the simplest advice is also some of the best advice:
"I'm fond of telling doubting trainees that it's just a matter of always adding weight to the bar, adding another repetition.
