You’ve been training really hard for the past six weeks or so, the kilograms have been falling off, and you’re feeling stronger and fitter than ever. But now, even though you’ve changed nothing in your training programme, fat loss has slowed down and strength and muscle gains are less apparent. Don’t be alarmed! This is completely normal and is known as the plateau effect.

When you start a new programme, especially if you’re untrained, you tend to see positive results very quickly. This is because the central nervous system is now recruiting more muscle fibres to be that which allows the body to become stronger and more efficient, which in turn, while increasing performance, also allows for a better body composition. But eventually the body gets used to the load.

It’s like driving a car. Remember when you first started out how you had to concentrate on very specific movements to avoid the constant stalling? Now, you will rarely think about your next movement to change from third to fourth gear. Your body constantly adapts to the loads you place on it.

There are a couple of ways to get past this

Diet
As your body fat percentage decreases, your body will cling to the remaining fat stores, making it more difficult to lose fat. So be sure to control your diet.

Rest
Vigorous exercise puts a lot of stress on your body; so if you’ve been training really hard for six to eight weeks, consider taking a week off to let your body recover.

Variety
Vary aspects of your training programme including:
- Sets and reps of exercises
- The weights you use
- Your rest intervals between sets and reps
- Try the elliptical trainer for a change rather than the treadmill
- Try different forms of exercises such as yoga, Pilates or swimming.

Intensity
This is probably the most important point. Perhaps your training intensity has diminished over time. It’s important to increase the intensity of your training sessions. Try including some sprint sets into your cardio programme, or try setting new goals and up the intensity to reach these.

Volume
Volume (amount of training) is indirectly proportional to intensity. So if you up the intensity keep the volume low and vice-versa. If you would prefer to increase the volume then keep your training intensity at medium.