Dwindling Progress in The Gym
If you’ve been lifting more than 2-3 years now, your strength or size may have plateaued since you first started lifting. Do you feel like you should look much better for the number of hours you consistently put in the gym?
I’ve had years where I felt like this and could remember thinking to myself how many hours I spent on routines that just wasted my time. Other days felt like I was going to the gym just because it was just something to do.
If you ever went to the gym without any kind of purpose or getting some kind of result at the end of the day, you’re pretty much just wasting time.
Many people that stick to fitness past the first year without quitting usually end up plateauing later on, since this is when the fastest muscle growth happens.
It’s easy to go to the gym when you’re getting results, but way harder when you don’t see anything happen. This is when the The Law of Diminishing Returns applies to bodybuilding.
How Does The Law of Diminishing Returns Apply to Bodybuilding
Making quick growth in the gym can happen in the first year of working out because of the adaption principle. A weightlifter witnessing this kind of growth would be in the “newbie gains” phase of growth that occurs within the first 12-18 months of consistent training.
The law of diminishing returns is when the benefits of doing something are much less than the energy invested.
If no new stressors are introduced in the workout program, you’ll start to see plateauing of weight lifts, body weight, and/or body fat levels.
When a weight plateau occurs, it’s usually because there was very few alternatives to stimulate growth. You have to know how to challenge your workout with heavier weight, repetitions, sets, intensity, or a little combination of all the above.
If your workout progresses over time, this could affect your diet and how you store fat. Bad diets are easy to get away with when you first start to exercising since your metabolism changes to match your new fitness lifestyle.
As your workout plateaus, any diet rich in highly processed carbs, refined sugars, and low amounts of protein will increase fat storage in your body.
Excess fat storage can ruin your physique over time since some fat cells are harder to get rid of than others.
Ineffective workouts will become demotivating since you won’t see visible results and you begin to accept false ideas like “maybe that diet that another guy is doing is way better than mine” or “yeah…that guy’s definitely on ‘roids, I’d look like that if I was using too.”
Thoughts like this are common with athletes and are known as external locus of control, or relying on external factors for achieving goals like luck, genetics, or substances.
A great workout program can keep you encouraged long enough by consistently tracking your progress over time.
The Wrap Up
Your progress in the gym starts to diminish when you fail to improve or change anything you’re currently doing. Before you get stuck on a plateau, focus on making weekly improvements on the routine that you’re doing. After making small progress for a few months to a year, you should see a noticeable difference in muscular development and gains.
