Life is too short to stay "stuck" too long!

It’s bound to happen. After months of continued strength gains, weight loss and the wonderful feeling of becoming more flexible, you suddenly feel stuck. It seems that all the exciting changes have come to a halt. Instead of excitement, you feel a nagging sense of frustration and discouragement on your way to the club. Your great new health and wellness habits are in danger of sliding to merely good intentions. What’s going on here?

No, you haven’t lost your desire to stay healthy. Nor have you lost the ability to lose more weight or get any stronger. You’ve just hit a plateau. Plateaus tend to occur when the "honeymoon" phase of change is over and your routine becomes just that—a routine.

Plateaus happen to every one of us. And they occur in every area of our lives. A plateau can cause you to feel stuck, powerless and frustrated. However, now isn’t the time to give up. There is action you can take to move off your plateau.

I’m stuck and I can’t get up

At some point in the past you said, "I’m stuck and it’s time to change." You determined you wanted to get healthier, stronger, more fit, more flexible or more involved with other people. You came to Flagship to achieve your goal.

You worked your way up that mountain of a goal. You’re a different person than the one that started out at the bottom, and your goals will need to be adjusted accordingly. The good news is that if you recognize you’re at a plateau, you’re ready to move on. In fact, you must move on to experience more benefits and changes.

Flagship member Betty Greenlee summed it up when she said, "I was frustrated because I wasn’t changing anymore. I knew I needed to get journaling my food again and figure out how to add or adjust something to my workouts." She knew she was stuck—and needed to do something different.

Getting Unstuck

How long you remain stuck is really up to you. If you’re ready to move on and feel the continued joy of achieving your health goals (which impact all your life goals) consider the following 6 ideas to get in gear again:

Get a paper and pen and answer these questions.

What about my workouts and eating habits feels stale? What has worked well before that I can do again? What do I want to feel differently, physically and emotionally? What specific changes do I want to see happen? What classes/programs have I been curious about but never tried before? How can I creatively incorporate changes into my eating and exercising program? What would need to be different for me to feel good about my exercise and eating habits? How would fitness fit into my dream life? Who can coach me through these changes? Who can support me?

At some point in the past, you had a dream about improving your health. If you’re at a plateau, that means you’re closer to that dream (or you’ve decided on a new one) than you were before. Clarify the gap between what you are experiencing today and what you want to achieve. After answering these questions, you may know what you need and what questions to ask personal trainers and staff to help you jump off that plateau.

Cross train to challenge your body and wake up your routine.

Have you ever eaten the same foods month after month in the name of a diet? Boredom breeds discouragement. One of the most amazing things about the human body is its ability to adapt—and one of its pitfalls is its ability to adapt. Once it has adapted, you have to shake things up to cause change again!

You don’t have to add a lot of time to your workouts to see change. Instead, increase your intensity. If you’ve been on the Body Trek at the same level for months, it’s time to change. Instead of having one level or speed you always "press in," forget what you did the day before and set it according to your body’s energy for that day. Push a little. Find a running partner who is faster than you and run with them once a week. Track your progress by measuring your effort level with your speed level. What is incredibly difficult in September may be routine by January.

Change the sequence of exercises to create variety and a new overload.

Because of our body’s ability to adapt to specific movement patterns and weight levels, it’s smart to change the exercises you do for specific muscle groups. Changing the angle or direction of an exercise will stimulate continued strength development. For instance, you can work the chest muscles from different angles and intensity with push-ups, bench press (free weights) or the chest press (Cybex equipment).

This summer members mixed routines up while working the same muscle groups by doing Body Sculpt first, followed by PowerWalking. Previously, they had done aerobic work first, sculpting second. Because their lower body muscles were already fatigued, it changed their class workouts and challenged them in a slightly different, but important way.

Change your training frequency.

If you usually train all the major muscle groups three days a week, you may make further improvements by exercising your lower body Monday and Thursday and the upper body Tuesday & Friday.

Add or incorporate something new.

Move off your plateau by taking a yoga, LIFT or Spinning class. Add trekking or aqua classes to your routine. Check your self-talk when considering something new or unfamiliar. It will either hold you back or kick you into gear. Member Mark Amann said, "After coming back from a rotator cuff injury, I plateaued. I started considering running. Despite never being a runner, I thought, what the heck. It won’t hurt to try."

He’ll never be able to say he’s not a runner anymore. When we run, he has to do the talking, because it takes all I have to keep breathing.

Tell your spouse, partner or friend you’re stuck.

Ask for encouragement to try new things. Hire a personal trainer to move you to the next level. They can help you adjust your training methods by mixing up sets, resistance or repetitions.

Relationships plateau, careers get stuck, seasons of life change, weather changes, family dynamics change. Feeling "stuck" is a common challenge. Life is too short to stay on a plateau for too long.

Welcome the plateau as a signal for more growth and potential success. It really is a breakthrough place. The entire staff at Flagship is trained and waiting to help you climb to that next level of vitality and health. When you break through, so do we.

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