If you are training as hard as you can and eating as well as you can but still aren't seeing the results you want, the answers to your frustration might be a few small fixes. Often these fixes are like the 500-pound gorilla in the room that no one sees. If you just adopt one, your training progress will receive a giant leap forward.

Take a break

I often take off a week to 10 days between particularly intense training cycles. I always come back active, refocused and feeling great. Taking a short time off also has a benefit of letting your body "de-train" a bit, or "de-condition." This means that you should reply better to your training program when you come back to it because to an extent, your body will treat it as new. So rest up, and get more from your workouts.

Step it up

Whether you want to admit it or not, you probably aren't working as hard as you think you are. Ramp up your effort, and you'll see results again. Take less rest between sets, add an extra set, run a hill program, whatever, just find a way to create your workouts a little tougher so you don't just "phone it in" like a lot of people do.

Think out of the box

The enemy of progress is complacency. Change your activities every once in a while. If you love step class, try kickboxing. If you love Body Pump, try indoor cycling. If you train with freeweights, try some bodyweight calisthenics. If you are a bodybuilder, try traditional powerlifting. Do something entirely different than what you're used to. Don't box yourself in to doing the same thing all the time. Get out of that box!

Sneak some work in

Three to five mornings a week, get up and do a quick bodyweight circuit, which includes push-ups, squats and some abdominal rotation. Do two to three sets of as many reps as possible. The three additional workouts in the week will add up, helping you burn some calories fist thing in the morning. Plus, you will have a great "organic" base of strength that will greatly benefit your strength training.

Adopt one of these fixes, and you'll get good results. If you adopt them all, you'll be a rock star (in your own world of course). Simple fixes are often the best. Start today and your body will respond faster than it has in a long time.


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