Hitting a fitness plateau after months of hitting an Oakland gym is frustrating and demoralizing. It’s no wonder many people abandon their fitness routines when this happens, as it’s easy to feel like you’ve hit a wall that you just can’t get around or over. If you’ve recently hit a plateau, take heart; it is possible to push through by using a little creative thinking and getting help from our Oakland gym personal trainers. In this article, we’ll learn more about fitness plateaus, what our Oakland gym personal trainers can do to help you push through them to continue on the path of reaching your fitness goals.
What is a fitness plateau?
You’ve been working out for months with a specific goal in mind, whether it’s to lose weight or become a better athlete. Suddenly, you notice that your progress has come to a standstill. The numbers on the scale aren’t moving, or you can’t seem to cut anymore time off your running mile, or your weight lifting is stuck at a certain limit. For those that have changed all their bad habits for good ones and are committed to improving their lifestyle, this sudden halt in progress, called a fitness plateau, can be best described as frustrating.
Fitness plateaus often occur thanks to repetition in the work out routine. Our bodies are incredibly efficient machines and are able to adapt to any kind of work that we give it. When we give it the same tasks to perform over and over again, the body adapts to the level of work and becomes more proficient. Once the body gets to its optimal efficiency in performing these tasks, it requires less energy and consequently burn less calories, putting a stop to our progress.
Subtle changes make the difference
In order to push through the plateau, some changes have to be made, but they don’t have to turn your whole fitness routine upside down. We’ve learned that the body has adapted to the level of fitness, so it is using less energy and burning less calories. That means that we either need to lower the number of calories or step up the level of exercise. In most cases, the number of calories should not need to be lowered. It is tempting to drop one hundred of more calories from your daily intake, but lowering the calorie intake below what your body needs to work at its optimum efficiency is dangerous and could lead to health problems.
Instead, most people should seek the help of an Oakland gym expert and change their fitness routines, even if it’s only in small ways. Those losing weight may need to change the disciplines or exercises they’ve been doing, while weight lifters can change the amount of time that they rest between sets or the number of sets they do during a work out.
Get the help you need
If you feel like you’ve hit a wall and just don’t know how to get around it, consider hiring a personal trainer at our Oakland gym to help you get to the other side. An Oakland gym expert can evaluate your current fitness program and revise it in order to help you get over the hump. Sometimes all we need is another person’s point of view to help us push through and think of ways to vary the fitness routine that we hadn’t though of ourselves, and the best choice is a professional that can make sure you make safe changes that will put you back on the path of reaching your goal.
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