Every so often a person gets to a point in their training program where it seems they are working their butt off but getting nowhere. This is described as a strength "plateau". When you get to a plateau something needs to change. First you should evaluate your program. Ask yourself: How long have you been consistent? How often do I change my workout routine? What is my diet like?

Chances are you have been doing the same routine for over 3 months consistently and/or your body is not getting enough of the proper nutrition it needs to grow. If nutrition is the case, you need to keep read the nutrition area of this newsletter. If you have been doing the same routine for 3+ months then you may need to "shock" your muscles to get them to grow! Its always a good idea to change your routine every 3-4 weeks or so to keep them growing. Here are some great ways to shock your muscles into shape!

Challenge yourself by putting in more exercises into your routine without using more time. Or you can try to get the same routine done in less time. This means less time between sets and it requires a fast recovery rate. This is sometimes called HIT or high intensity training. Its perfect if you are trying to build a lean physique too because your heart rate will constantly stay in the "fat burning" mode throughout your muscle growth routein.

Heavy and light days. This is an excellent way to continuously shock your muscles often. Use heavy and light training days. On heavy days, use as much weight as you can for 3-4 reps and on light days, put on as much weight as you can for 12-15 reps. This is good for people who train 6 days a week doing each body part twice per week.

Forced reps are pretty popular. I don't like them too much but people do get pretty good results from them. I guess they are better than cheat reps. A forced rep is when you are trying to lift more weight than you can lift by yourself and you need your partner to help you get it up. The only time I like these is when you are at your failure point and you just need a little help to get the last one up.

Partial reps are a great way to get your muscles to burn. When doing partial bench press reps, you should only lift the weight about 4 inches off of your chest. This goes for any other exercise as well. Only do the first half of the rep. (don't do these for squats- they are a waste of time, IMO).

21's are another form of partial reps. Instead of doing the full motion of the rep, do only the first half of one full motion for 7 reps. Then do the second half of one full motion for 7 reps. Then finish off the set with 7 reps of full motion for a total of 21 reps.

Isolate your muscles to get the most out of a particular workout. Doing leg extensions are a great isolation workout for your thighs. For biceps I recommend doing dumbbell curls, for legs, do extensions one leg at a time.

Isotension is imperative if you want to be a competitive bodybuilder. This is when you continuously flex and relax your muscles before, between, and after your workout and even between sets. Practicing your posing routine is a form of isotension as well.

Negative reps are when you are lowering the weight. My favorite exercise to do negatives on is with straight bar curls. To do this, you curl the bar up as normal then lower it very slowly. Concentrate on holding the weight as hard as you can. If you can hold it easily, then its not enough weight.

Slow reps are really fun. Basically, using a lower weight, you can do any exercise in slow motion. This not only takes away the momentum of the faster movements, it forces you to do a good slow negative rep and will give you a great pump! Some people believe this is the ONLY way to exercise... I dont think I like that idea. hehehee..

Cheating (on purpose) is when you lose your form just for a second to help get you through a tough spot in your workout. For instance, if you are doing standing military press and you can't seem to push out the last rep and you begin to use your legs to give you momentum to lift it, this is cheating. Normally I would never tell someone to "cheat" on an exercise. But it can be real beneficial to get you through a plateau if you do it once in a while. Keeping good form in general is one of the most important criteria to becoming strong and staying healthy so this type of practice should be avoided as much as possible.

Pyramid reps are probably the most common in weight training. Usually people "pyramid" their way up to their workout weight then back down again. For instance a guy might usually workout with 300lbs on bench press. He builds up to 300 by starting with 225lbs for one set of 10, then go up to 285lbs for one set of maybe 8, then go to 300lbs for 2 or 3 sets of 6-8 reps. Then he would finish the exercise with a set of 225 again, this time going to full exhaustion.

Heavy Duty training is when you go to your usual workout weight right after warming up. Usually, I do a few (3-4) sets to pyramid up to my workout weight and get the blood pumping. With the heavy duty method of training, you skip the pyramid and go straight to the heavy weight.

Staggered sets are usually used to help develop an underdeveloped area. For instance if your calves were a little smaller than you like, you might incorporate an extra day of calf exercises on a day that they aren't scheduled for. So when chest day comes around you would do a set of calf raises between each exercise you do that day. By the end of the day you may have done 20-30 sets! This is a great way to do abs.

Prioritize your workout so that you are putting a specific emphasis on your "weak" areas. For instance if your back could use a little more work. On back day you could use one or more of the techniques above to help make your workout more enjoyable and effective. You could also schedule your back day on Monday so you are more fresh... get the point?

Supersets are one of my personal favorites! This can be done two ways actually. 1) You can superset the same muscle group. i.e.: doing pushups or dips between sets of bench press, and 2) You can superset opposing muscle groups. i.e.: doing pull-ups between sets of bench press.

Stripping weight as you go is... oh man.... its rough! It's great because it allows you to work with heavy weight so you can get the mass building effects of heavy weights while you still get to work through your fatigue and really get in a deep burn that goes mostly with high rep low weight. So, to do these (wth any exercise) you start heavy and do as many reps as you can until you are completely fatigued. I prefer to keep the first set around 10 reps so if you can go more than that, add weight to bring it down. Then you immediately "strip" some weight off of the bar, maybe 10-20 pounds depending on the exercise, and go again until you are fatigued at that weight. Then you do it again ... up to 3-4 times. Dont do this for every set or every exercise on one day. Just do it once per week on a bodypart. This is a good way to make you feel weak, but you really get a pump! It's crazy when your muscles are so wasted that you cant even curl a 20 pound dumbbell 5 times! This technique is often called Drop Sets as well.

I Go/You Go. Need a partner for this one, but it's a pretty fun exercise especially when you and your partner are about the same strength and size. Basically, if you are doing straight bar curls, once you are done with your set you hand the weight off to your partner then he goes. You can go back and forth until one of you gives up. Or you can do one, then your partner does one, then you do two, then he does two, then three and go up to 15 or so then back down.