Our Rebuild: Climbing Past the Plateaus

Buddy Harris•

At the most basic level, the gym has taught me about life, and that is why I love it.

Eighteen years ago, after breaking both my legs in a car accident, I was forced to step (well, roll) into a gym. During rehab, I learned that if I wrote down a goal and put in the work, consistently, that I could achieve that goal. I learned about patience and determination. I learned about hard work and reward.

By the time I healed, I was hooked. I started applying what I was learning at the gym into other aspects of my life. That mindset took me from a rock bottom to a life with a career, a house, and a family.

But inside the gym, just like with my life at times, I faced setbacks, I ran into plateaus, and goals changed.

Dealing with plateaus is something I am currently facing, so I thought I would talk about it.

A few weeks ago, I talked about muscle memory. Our bodies are very smart. The body will remember a specific movement or movements and fire up the right muscles for the job. Because of muscle memory, my body jumped back pretty quickly after being shocked for 5 months.

I thought that would be the case. I knew that my muscles listen better than my kids, and I knew that if I spent some time reminding my body what it needed to do, that my muscle memory would take over. I was right. And, as a result, I hit some goals faster than even I anticipated.

Sounds great, right? Not exactly. The problem with muscle memory is that it can work against me at times too.

For months now, my body has seen the same workouts. My muscles have gotten used to the distress I have been putting them through (with weights and reps). My workouts have become stale. Changes to my body and strength have halted. My muscles have become more bored than my girlfriend at a Comic-Con convention.

Plateaus can get frustrating for me. But it’s okay though. It’s not time to panic or quit. It just means that it’s time for me to spice things up. No, that doesn’t mean I’m wearing lingerie to the gym. It means I am going to overhaul my workout to shock my body.

There are so many different ways to do this, depending on the goals I have. For me, right now, I’m still trying to gain back some strength and size. So, I’m going to flip around my body part grouping. I have been keeping a pretty simple routine since I came back to the gym. It currently looks like this:

Sundays–Family day; Mondays–Chest and Triceps; Tuesday–Back and Biceps; Wednesday–Chauffeur kids around to their extracurricular activities; Thursday–Shoulders; Friday–Legs; Saturday–Open Day.

I’ve enjoyed the Four Day Split, so I’m going to stick with that right now. But my new schedule for the next 6 to 8 weeks looks like this:

Sundays–Family Day; Mondays–Chest and Back; Tuesday–Legs and Shoulders; Wednesday–Still the kids taxi; Thursday–Triceps and Biceps; Friday–Legs and Back; Saturday–Open Day.

Some of you may wonder what I mean by "Open Day”. Well, I want to be able to keep some time open, as well as my mind, to try different things. Maybe one Saturday it’s running with the kids outside (my daughter is training for a 5k which I’ll be talking about in another article). Maybe one Saturday it means going on a hike with the dog. This Saturday, it means trying Yoga with Julie (I still don’t know how I let her talk me into this one).

I’ve been doing this long enough now that I felt this plateau coming, and I couldn’t help getting excited. Just like in life, a little bit of healthy chaos can be good, especially when written goals are still in place. Time to switch things up and keep growing.

Hey, Friday night may be the last time to catch me not stuck in the shape of a pretzel (is the downward pretzel a yoga move?). I’ll be featuring at the Valley Forge Casino.