part0033

Tracking your progress is one of the most important ways to figure out when something’s working and when it isn’t. It’s also how you’ll know when you’ve hit a workout plateau.

A plateau is when you stall out on progress despite continuing to do “all of the right things.” Your body has either adapted to the exercise you’ve been performing for a while and needs a different workout, or your body is fatigued from overtraining and needs additional rest in order to progress.

By tracking your progress, you’ll know if any of these issues are plaguing your workout, and I’ll show you how to troubleshoot them to ensure that you keep going on the right path.

Bonnie Blair—one of the top skaters of her era and one of the most decorated athletes in Olympic history—once said, “Winning does not always mean being first. Winning means you are doing better than you have done before.” 51 Similarly, with exercise, success is not measured by whether you reach or surpass your fitness goals on a particular day. Rather, it’s measured by the small, incremental changes you experience during exercise that let you know you’re doing better than you did before.

The best way to see these changes is by tracking your workout progress. When you track your progress, you know what was accomplished in a workout, and then you can figure out when something’s working and when it isn’t. Tracking your progress also helps keep you motivated and accountable with exercise and makes it more likely that you will reach and even surpass your fitness goals.

It’s simple to track progress. I recommend keeping track of the three Rs: repetitions, rounds, and rest.

Keep track of the number of repetitions you performed during your workouts. While each Big Three exercise is performed for up to 15 repetitions in sequence without rest, you may not be ready for that at the start. Whatever amount of repetitions you do should be the same for all exercises within a workout session.

For example, if you decide to do eight repetitions of each exercise, keep track of this number and note when you feel ready to increase it, then track your progress against the new number. Then repeat. Your goal is to gradually work your way up to 15 repetitions.

Keep track of the number of rounds you performed during your workouts. One round is counted every time you complete each of the three exercises in the Big Three.

Keep track of how many rounds you complete during your six-minute workout session. Your goal is to perform progressively more rounds over time.

Keep track of how many rounds you’ve completed before needing to rest during your workouts. Short rest breaks of up to 30 seconds are allowed at the end of a full round of exercise.

Keep track of how many rounds you complete in each session before taking your first rest break. Your goal is to perform progressively more rounds over time without rest and eventually eliminate rest altogether.

By tracking your progress, you’ll notice the three Rs improve rapidly during the first two weeks of exercise if you’re following the seven strategies for unlocking your fitness potential that I described in part 2. For most people, the rate of improvement tends to slow down a little after the first two weeks, but you should continue to see changes until week eight and beyond.

If you notice the three Rs stall for two weeks or more, you might have hit a workout plateau. Let’s now look at how to break through those plateaus.

So, what do you do when you see no progress? It depends on where you are in your workout. We’ll explore what to do when you see no progress at three different stages: after the first two weeks, between week two and week eight, and after week eight.

You should see the three Rs improve rapidly during the first two weeks of exercise. But what if you don’t notice any improvements during this stage of the program? It’s unlikely that you’ve hit a plateau at this point because you’re so early in the program, and plateaus typically happen after you’ve been exercising for several weeks or more. Likely, you need to revisit the fundamentals of exercise to make sure they’re in line.

First, review the seven strategies for unlocking your fitness potential in part 2, and make sure you’re following each of them.

Second, review chapter 17 and make sure you’re also following the suggestions for personalization, precision, and programming.

If this doesn’t resolve the issue, see if changing the level of the workout will help. Doing these things will resolve most cases of lack of progress during the first two weeks.

What if you notice no improvements for two consecutive weeks between week two and week eight of the program? It’s normal for improvements to slow down a little after the first two weeks, but you should continue to see changes until week eight and beyond.

If you’re not making progress and you’re feeling more fatigued than usual, you might be overtraining. This is a common reason for a plateau, and the most effective thing to do to overcome this is to rest. Take an entire week off from performing the exercises before picking up where you left off. After resting for a week, you should immediately start to see improvements.

If you’re feeling good, go through the same steps as in the first two weeks. Also make sure nothing has changed in your life that may impact your progress, such as:

If factors outside of exercise are impacting your workout progress, keep exercising unless your doctor tells you otherwise. Doing something is better than doing nothing, and you’ll be better off if or when these factors are no longer an issue.

What if you notice no improvements for two consecutive weeks after week eight of the program? Again, it’s normal for improvements to slow down a bit after the first two weeks, but you should continue to see changes even beyond eight weeks.

Go through the same steps as you did between week two and week eight. If none of the problems listed apply, or if none of the solutions fix the problem, it might be a sign that your body needs something different for it to continue changing; plateaus can also happen when your body has adjusted to the demands of your workout and are a sign that you need something different to continue progressing.

If you’re on Level I or II, try replacing one session a day with a higher level, or move on entirely to a higher level. If you’re on Level II or Level III, you can replace one session a day with a lower level to give your body something different to improve your progress.

On the other hand, a workout plateau after eight weeks might not be a big deal if you’re happy with your progress and don’t feel that you need additional strength, energy, and balance. If this is the case, you can maintain your current level of function without losing any of the gains you’ve made by exercising one session a day for four or five days a week.

Now that you can identify and troubleshoot issues that may plague your progress, you can sail through the program unless you have some physical limitations. In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to adapt exercise to any physical limitations you may have.