How to move forward when everything seems to have stalled.

The first few months of some ones training journey will usually be some of the most gratifying months of their life. If they have trained little or never before, they will experience huge changes from day to day. They wake up sore but satisfied, stronger, faster, more flexible. They are learning new things every week, and are able to perform them like they couldn’t have possibly done the week or month before. 1 pull up turns into 10, 40kg turns into 80kg, and the idea of being upside down no longer scares them. At this stage it’s hard not to feel like the gainz train isn’t going to roll right on up to Wollongong or Carson, we have all felt it, and that’s what makes Crossfit so addictive; progress.

But the honey moon period can start to wane. For some it may be years, others months. The PB’s become fewer and further between, small injuries prevent you from completing the lifts you love at a level you KNOW you can do them at. Particular lifts stall at a number for what seems like forever, and others go BACKWARDS, and you start to wonder if it’s all worth it. Doubt in your progress has crept in, it seems like everyone is streaming past you and you are getting left behind. Perhaps you even wonder if this is all you are ever going to be capable of, and you have reached the end. Well as the great Ron Burgundy once said;

NEWSFLASH! – NOW IS NOT THE TIME YOU THROW IT ALL IN!

This is possibly the worst time to change your plans away from the gym. If there is ever a time to think about hanging up the Nanos, it’s when you have achieved all your goals, not when they seem out of reach. Instead, re-evaluate how you approach your training, and set it up to continue progressing, even if this is at a different rate to what was previously considered normal. Think about these ideas to step back into the light.

Isolate weaknesses – in the beginning, EVERYTHING seemed to be getting stronger, you were lifting more each week, so why change anything? But our body is a very complex machine, and it has a naughty habit of letting the dominant muscle groups keep doing the work, and leaving others behind. Then months down the track, the dominant group has reached its limit, it’s getting no help from the other groups left behind, and you stall. These can be really tricky to pick up on yourself, so have a coach take a look at the movement you feel is troubling you, and find the weak link. Then go back to square one and build it up. You shouldn’t feel disgruntled that it is so weak, you should be excited that you have found a weakness that you can build up, and consider how strong you will be when the WHOLE system is working, instead of only half! Going back to square one is not a backwards step, it’s just a side step initially, then onwards and upwards.

Accept smaller increments – 5kg/10kg PB’s are fantastic, but don’t think you have to make those jumps every time to make valid progress. Break your progress into steps, where 1kg is one step towards a goal. Let’s say a lift is at 80kg, and you really want it to be 100kg. Break that down into 20 steps. Do you really need to take 5 steps at once every time attempt to max it out? Take one step at a time and relish everyone of them, rather than aim for 5 and never reach it.

Injury – we won’t discuss the nitty gritty on actual rehab here, but ensure you are seeing a professional  who can provide you with a clear path forward with the area affected and make sure they share it with you. Then choose other movements that don’t impact the affected area to focus on, anything at all, that you can dominate while you rehab the other area that is limiting you.

Make a new training buddy – now I’m not suggesting you stop talking to your mates who you lift with at all here, but sometimes training at a different time of day, with someone you don’t normally train with, can give you a different perspective on something that has troubled you. They could lift in a way you have never seen before, and you apply it to your own movement and it works, or they might just yell at you a bit louder than normal to help you stand up a new max. It could simply just change your outlook on training just enough that you stick it out for another week or so, and then things start to look brighter again.

When the weather is lousy like it has been, it is easy to allow doubt into your training. Now spring is (slowly) arriving, allow the light, both physically and metaphorically, to come back into your training, and approach each session with the aim to take a step forward, no matter how small, but never back, or out the door (except if it’s for a 400m sprint)