Adaptation: the enemy of bodybuilders everywhere

Our bodies have an incredible ability to adapt to almost any situation it encounters. Whether it be working more efficiently because of ingesting fewer calories, or becoming stronger and gaining muscle through weightlifting, the body works to adapt to whatever stresses it encounters to allow it to handle the tasks more efficiently each time. Because of this, it can be difficult for someone trying to gain muscle to do so for long periods of time because the body will soon adapt to the program you’re on and it will quit growing altogether. Simply performing the same exercises with the same weights over and over again will not allow for the consistent growth you want to occur as part of the bodybuilding regimen. This means if you want to continue making progress, you're going to have to make some changes.

When bodybuilders hit a point in their training where their existing routine is no longer effective and they quit seeing results, it is called a plateau. These plateaus are fairly common and can happen from time to time and in every case, change is the thing required in order to continue making progress. Now, the most common form of change in bodybuilding is to add additional weight to whatever exercise you’re performing. Weight training for bodybuilding requires a principle called progressive resistance training in order to truly be effective. What this means is, as your body grows and gets used to the workload you're putting on it, you'll have to add more and more weight to continue making progress. But simply adding weight is not the only way you can continue progress and burst through these plateaus.

Sometimes, simply changing the routines and exercises you’re performing can be all that is needed. You see, there are so many muscles in your body that just by changing one movement, you'll end up working different muscles a different way and this will help to spur new growth. In addition, you may look at changing your routine altogether and instead of working out one time per day three days per week, you might start working out two times per day and four times per week to help you get through any existing plateau and start adding on significant muscle again.

So, if you're muscle gains have slowed or even stopped altogether, don't despair but simply attack your muscle building regimen from a completely different angle altogether. Shake up your routine by adding different exercises and changing the days on which you workout. In addition, while we mentioned that as part of progressive resistance training you want to continue adding heavier and heavier weights, you might even try a few weeks of lighter weight training to help keep your muscles toned but give them a bit of a rest. This way, when you start picking up heavy weights again, your muscles will be ready once again to adapt to the increasing loads and begin to grow again.