Why Am I Not Making Progress?
You do cardio four times a week, get over 10,000 steps a day, and watch what you eat. But nothing is happening to your body. No change on the scale, no change in the mirror. What's going on?
What type of exercise are you doing?
What's your primary mode of exercise?
Cardio
Strength training
Circuit training
Yoga
Barre
Cycling
Oftentimes you can find yourself in a rut if you focus too heavily on cardio. Cardio isn't bad at all, but most people don't realize how quickly your body adapts to your regular running routine or your spin class.
You'll see great progress the first few weeks, but you won't get the same benefits over the long run (pun intended) unless you're strategic about programming.
How to change intensity
One way to change the intensity of your cardio is to get away from working at a consistent tempo/pace for all of your sessions. Add intervals or sprints.
An example of an interval workout would be 10-20 seconds of sprinting (very high effort, about as hard as you can go in running, biking, rowing, etc), followed by 2-3 minutes of recovery, repeated 5 times. When you look at the total "work" time for this particular setup, you'll end up at less than two minutes for your ENTIRE workout.
But those 60-120 seconds are at a much higher intensity than you would have done if you went for a 40-minute jog. Your body will not feel the same after each one. It's not easy to work at that intensity, but it's only short bursts and you're rewarded with a good amount of rest.
*side note: there are a LOT of different timing structures you can use, this is just one example
Strength Training
Strength training can also be very helpful. If you're focusing exclusively on cardio, you're missing out on the benefits of maintaining or increasing your muscle mass. You may actually be losing muscle over time, resulting in a slower metabolism and less "toned" or "defined" muscles.
But the same trap exists for strength training as it does for cardio. Instead of going through the motions, it's important to add intensity. This can be as simple as adding two pounds to your previous lift. Or adding another repetition on top of what you did last time. You don't need to run yourself into the ground every workout - just focus on making slow, steady progress over time. That means YOU SHOULD BE TRACKING YOUR WEIGHTS.
Nutrition
How is your eating? Nutrition is a huge component of health and body composition. A lot of fitness professionals say it's 80% of the puzzle, while workouts are only 20%.
So don't get too caught up in your workouts if you're eating a lot of low-quality food. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you'll need to build a solid foundation.
We have a lot more resources on nutrition, so we won't go too deep here. But start with improving the quality of your food. Replace highly-processed options with fresh fruits and vegetables, quality protein sources, and good fats. Making these changes can have a dramatic impact on the way you look, feel, and perform. It also makes you more resilient overall; when you have a strong foundation, an occasional night of pizza and beer won't throw you off course with your goals.
Sleep and Stress
How are you recovering? It's important to realize how the stress of our workouts gets rolled into the other stress we experience (relationships, jobs, family, etc.). If you're going through a very stressful time in life, crushing yourself in the gym on a daily basis probably won't get you the results you want.
We must provide our bodies the opportunity to recover. Incorporate more restorative activities like walking, light biking, yoga, meditation, and other things that provide both physical and mental benefits without elevating our levels of stress.
Sleep is a major component of recovery. Sacrificing two hours of sleep every morning to fit in your workout can actually do more harm than good. It's important to get into a consistent sleep routine. Watch the video below for ideas on improving both your sleep quality and quantity.
Recommendations
Track your workouts - make sure you're progressing.
You don't necessarily need to increase weight or running speed every workout, but make sure that over weeks/months, you're improving.
Try interval or sprint training to mix up your cardio routine.
Add strength training if you haven't already.
Evaluate your nutrition - do you have a solid foundation?
Pay attention to your overall stress load - are your workouts helping or hurting?
Let’s make some progress!
Your bStrong Team