Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 120: 7 Reasons You've Plateaued + 7 *SOLUTIONS*

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

In this episode, coach Danny outlines the SEVEN biggest reasons people are stuck on their fitness journey. Stalled progress s often referred to as "plateauing".---Thanks For Listening!---Check Out Our New Partner Elemental Labs!---RESOURCES/COACHING: I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE!Want Coach Danny to Fix Your S*** (training, nutrition, lifestyle, etc) fill the form HERE for a chance to have your current approach reviewed live on the show. Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Sign up for the trainer mentorship HEREFollow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!---- Support the Show By Shopping for Your Supplements At Legion and using the code “DANNY”Support the Show by Staying Hydrated with LMNTSupport the Show.

Hey everybody, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, it's me, your boy, your host, your guest host, your featured host, your only host, Danny Matrenga. And today's episode is going to be all about plateaus. We're going to talk about the seven most likely reasons you're experiencing a plateau in your exercise program, whether that be a fat loss plateau, whether that be a muscle gain or even a performance plateau. We're going to break down all of the potential reasons that you may be experiencing stagnation with your progress. And I'm even going to give you seven solutions to

overcome these common pitfalls. Because what good is whining about some shit if you don't get the actionable pieces of the puzzle to fix it, right? That's something that I see a lot in the fitness space, which is, hey, I'm going to tell you what's wrong with this, but I'm not going to tell you an alternative or actually give you a solution. And as somebody who's worked with clients in person and online for almost a decade, I can tell you that it's very easy to point out what people are doing wrong, but it's the good coaches who go out of their way

to set people on a path of doing things right. And so that's hopefully what we can do here today is identify what I would describe as the seven most common reasons people experience a plateau. And I'm gonna give you a solution for every single one. So be sure you sit back and enjoy this episode today. Before we get too into it though, just some quick housekeeping. It shouldn't be any surprise to any of my regular listeners, but we've got to do the housekeeping. Keeps the food on the table, keeps the lights on in the studio. I want to tell you guys about my coaching company,

Core Coaching Method. Core Coaching Method is the brainchild of 10 years of coaching real people just like you. From bodybuilders to soccer moms, me and my team over at Core Coaching Method are thrilled and excited to help you reach your fitness goals using state-of-the-art exercise programming, nutrition coaching, weekly check-ins, and email communication. Everything that you're going to need to execute in the gym on a structured program tailored specifically for you. If you're training from home, we can take care of that. If you're doing a little bit of both, we can take care of that. Whatever your workout situation is,

online coaching with core coaching method is going to help you tailor your gym, your home gym, your combo to your needs, as well as including customized nutrition coaching, weekly check-ins, unlimited support. We also offer Zoom coaching sessions, macro consults, programming consults, and even fitness business consults for personal trainers who are trying to kind of figure out what direction they may or may not want to take their business in this current landscape because things for the last two years have been pretty damn crazy in our industry. In addition to our flagship coaching product line, we also have

online programs that you can take with you to the gym. That would be foundations, power build, female physique one and two. So just-week programs, easy to implement. We'll talk a little bit more about the importance of that today and how that might actually be a helpful solution if you're in a plateau. And I'd also like to introduce you guys to our newest podcast sponsor, Elemental Labs. Elemental Labs makes some of the best electrolyte products on the planet. They are sugar-free, completely natural, naturally sweetened. They taste phenomenal. My favorite are the citrus and the mango chili. I love having those first thing in the morning when I wake up to get hydrated. I take about a half a packet in the morning,

and then the other half when I go to the sauna. And me and Elemental Labs have teamed up to make sure that you can try all eight of their electrolyte flavors for free. Just pay shipping to take advantage of that offer. Go to drinklmnt.com slash coach Danny, and you'll find a special offer for again, all eight flavors delivered to you for free. Just pay shipping. Okay guys. So getting into the seven most common reasons we see exercise plateaus. Now, before we get to number one, I think it's important that we actually define what a plateau is when we're talking about exercise. And I found a very simple definition online that I like, which is a plateau when applied to exercise, right, refers to a sudden and dramatic decrease in noticeable results of your regular workouts. And so I think what we're talking about here is stagnation that has become noticeable, meaning you really feel like you've hit a wall. If you just started training

and your results are slowing down, that is normal. The first year of your training is going to be hyperproductive. You're going to get stupid strong. You'll build a stupid amount of muscle. And every year after that, you will see decreased results because you're less sensitive. And we all have a genetic limitation to how much strength we can build, how much muscle we can build. And even with the perfect programming, right? Even with the perfect recovery, at some point, we reach a place of diminishing marginal returns. That is completely normal. And I wanted to touch on this because I feel like a lot of the questions I get about plateaus come from people who've been working out for less than a year. And they go, hey, I'm not getting my crazy, awesome, fast newbie gains

anymore. And I go, well, yeah, you're not a novice. Are you still making progress? Yeah, I'm still making progress, just not as fast as normal. And I go, well, that is in fact, the definition of normal. That's kind of what you should expect from this stuff. So if you're new and your results are just slowing down, but you're still seeing results, don't complain. You're not hitting a plateau. You're just experiencing the diminishing marginal returns that everybody experiences. If we all could make the gains we made lifting year after year, similar to what we make in that first couple months, we'd all be absolutely jacked and shredded and we'd never stop getting stronger. But there are diminishing marginal returns. And the longer you've been training, the more you need to follow

these seven rules that are these apply these seven solutions that we're going to talk about. But you're not in a plateau if your results are just slowing down, but you're still seeing noticeable results. I would say that you're in a plateau if you're not seeing results or you're actually seeing yourself go backwards, applying the same tactics that you have been applying. applying the same tactics that you have been applying. And so we'll touch on a little bit more of that as we go, but getting to the number one cause of plateaus in the gym with regards to fat loss, performance, and muscle gain, and that is that you just guess when you go into the gym. So number one cause of a plateau is you're just guessing. You're not following a plan. You don't have a program.

You show up and you do the exercises you like. You always find a way to talk yourself out of not doing the exercises you don't like. You'll say, oh, I'll do more of those next time. Or, oh, I'll come an extra day and add those in. Or, oh, I don't have to push that hard. You always start with the exercises you like and you always try the hardest on the muscle groups that are already really well developed and that you're really good at training. Does that sound familiar? It should because a lot of people fall into this trap of showing up, just guessing, and doing what's comfortable in the gym. And while I definitely think you should try to include a lot of the stuff that you enjoy in the gym, you should also make sure that your training is systematized, right? It's systematic. You're following. It's not

just showing up and doing what you like, even though that is a fine way to exercise, burn calories and stay in shape. It's certainly not the best way to make progress. And I want you to think for a second. If you go close your eyes with me, unless you're driving, think about the gym. You probably go around the same time every day and you probably see a lot of similar faces. If you're not going to the gym right now, I'm sure you've probably been to the gym before. And those people that you see every day, a lot of them are older.

A lot of them do the same stuff at the same time for the same number of reps every single day and their bodies never change. And one thing that I find is really interesting is a lot of young people actually default to the same thing or people in middle age, they default to the same thing. They just do what's comfortable. And when you're 70 or 60, 70 or 80, and you're not concerned with your physique or your performance, just want to get in there and keep moving. I think it's phenomenal to show up and do what's comfortable, do what works. You don't have to hammer the

progressive overload stimuli all the time, or I should say you don't have to hammer stimuli that help you progressively overload your tissue. You might just be more comfortable doing a maintenance dose of exercises that are comfortable. And that's not the best way to make progress. So showing up and guessing or showing up and only doing what you like is the biggest thing I see. And it's just, you know, if you don't have a plan when you go in there, you're not, you can't honestly try to pass it off that you're taking it very seriously. Truth be told, if somebody put a gun to your head and said, hey, you need to get shredded, you need to get jacked, you need to perform at the highest level in three months, would you guess?

Hell no, you wouldn't guess. You would follow a program. You'd sit down, you'd be like, I need to make a fucking plan of action here so that all of my training time is productive. And I think that's really important and it's really motivating because it's quite the opposite. It's very demotivating to be like, oh shit, I spent the last year of my training going to the gym, doing what I like and just totally guessing. And I didn't get anywhere. And I think that that is a big cause of plateaus is people just double down on the stuff that got them results when they first started training, which like I mentioned, when you first start, you're going to get great results. And that's pretty much no matter what, because you're so sensitive to training. The longer you train, the more you have to dial it in, the more systematic things have to become.

And so the solution for this first problem is to follow a program. Of course, we have programs over at corecoachingmethod.com, female physique, if you're a bodybuilding focused and you want to develop your glutes, upper back, we have female physique one and two, power build if you have a strength goal, or even foundations if you have a performance goal. But there's plenty of programs out there. We have online coaching as well. But the big thing that I'm trying to get out here is if you're going in and you're guessing and you're not following a program and you're not structured and you're not thinking, okay, where can I get better today? Even if it's just one to 2% better, you're going to default to the things you like at the reps you like at the set you like

at the weights you're comfortable doing a mat. And you're going to be the number one reason that you've hit this plateau. And so do yourself a favor, follow a plan, stick with it. And you'll be surprised at just how effective this one habit is at quote unquote preventing plateaus from occurring. Things slowing down is normal, but things grinding to a halt and even going backwards is usually indicative of something being off. So moving on to number two, the number two reason you've hit a plateau, your training execution sucks.

If you're somebody who goes to the gym and you're off in plateau, your training execution sucks. If you're somebody who goes to the gym and you're off in space, you're on your phone in between on every set, you're thinking about, oh, I got to do this and that. Not really thinking too much about my workout right now. You're not focused. You're not training very close to failure. Again, you're training with weights that you're comfortable with, on exercises that you're comfortable with. Maybe your execution is sloppy. Maybe you're training fast. You're not training with good intent execution. You know, that's not going to get it done. And so number two is your training execution just plain stinks. Your focus just plain stinks. So having a program will help with that because you have something to go in and do.

But every rep, every set, every exercise, shift your thinking from, I need to get this exercise done so I can go to the next one. Shift your thinking to, I'm going to put my best effort into completing this exercise and make sure that every rep is good, performed with good intent, good technique, the right tempo, right? So if you're training for hypertrophy, you probably don't want to train as fast as possible, meaning like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Every rep looks like fucking Woody the woodpecker. You don't want that. You want to train with good intent and execution. If you're training for power, you might want some explosion. You might want some velocity, some snap. If you're

training for maximum strength, you got to put some weight on the bar, but your technique's going to be really important. So think about your goals. Think about what it is you're trying to drive with your training. Think about the actual goal of each exercise in your training, right? Meaning, okay, if I'm doing a cable row, is this cable row to train my lats or is this cable row to train my upper back? And if it's one or the other, am I executing it in the way that's best going to hit the muscle I'm trying to hit, right? Or if I'm doing something like a power clean, am I jumping right into it cold? Or am I doing the proper warmup so I can perform the exercise well?

Set yourself up for success so that every set, every freaking rep is perfect. If you do that, it's really, really hard to plateau. But if you get sloppy, you go through the motions, you don't train hard, you don't train very close to failure, you can't expect to make a bunch of progress with your performance, your hypertrophy. You might be able to make progress with your fat loss because most of that's going to be driven by nutrition. And we'll get to some of the nutritional reasons that cause plateaus here in a minute.

But it really does come down to, hey, like I said, number one, are you just guessing? And then two, if you're not guessing, are you actually trying? And so one thing I tell clients all the time is stop guessing, start trying. So do your best to show up with a plan. And again, it's not really hard to show up with a plan if you have a coach, if you have a program. And then after that, and you've kind of knocked that big rock out, you're not thinking about what I'm going to next. What exercise should I do next? That should never be a question. What exercise should I do next? Shouldn't be a question for people who have ambitious goals for fat loss, for muscle gain, or for performance. You should know what's coming next and then take that mental energy that you're spending

pontificating about what to do next and apply it to executing the exercises with phenomenal technique, really, really well at the right tempo, close enough to failure. Moving on to number three. Okay. We're getting into the food stuff that causes plateaus and that's that you don't take your nutrition very seriously. So the third biggest cause of a plateau is getting lax and not taking nutrition very seriously. I see this all the time where people go, I can't, I'm not losing weight the way I was when I first started my diet.

I've hit a weight loss plateau. And I go, oh, you have? Maybe you've experienced metabolic adaptation and your metabolism has adapted to the current caloric intake. Are you tracking as accurately as you were when you started your diet? Well, I haven't been tracking as accurately. Well, why not? Well, I'm kind of burnt out on it. I'm kind of, you know, I don't know. I just tracked so rigidly

for six to eight weeks and then I got a little tired and I might be lazy and maybe that. And so that's what I see. I see this all the time, which is people are super gung-ho when they start something. They track like crazy. Or if they're, let's say they're following a fad diet, like keto. I don't recommend keto for my clients, but I have worked with plenty of people who said keto worked really well for them

and then it stopped working. Usually what it is is your eating behaviors have shifted because you all have been doing something for so long and you've done that so rigidly without breaks that you take a little bit of a mental break. You don't track as accurately. Maybe if you're doing keto, you let a couple more carbs slip in and in doing that, you have a couple more calories slip in.

Then it's more likely that behavior change and just general kind of, I hate to use the term boredom, but getting a little bored or getting a little lax with those habits is way more likely the cause of a plateau than any marked metabolic adaptation. If there is marked metabolic adaptation, all we need to do is return you to maintenance calories for a little bit, let you recover, let you bounce back, and then revisit it. And that's always a good option. But I think it becomes really important to ask yourself the question, if you feel you've hit a plateau, this is particularly true for people who are looking to build the most muscle possible or people who are looking to lose fat. It's really, really important that you ask yourself the question, am I sticking to my nutritional tracking strategy as well as I was before this quote unquote plateau? And if I'm not, I should definitely get back to that

before I try any new supplements, adding any crazy workouts into the routine, adding more rigidity to my diet. If it was working and you've kind of let off the gas a little bit with regards to how it is you've been tracking or how it is you've been implementing these protocols, whether it's tracking your macros, whether it's following an eating structure, a meal plan, whatever it is you've been tracking or how it is you've been implementing these protocols, whether it's tracking your macros, whether it's following an eating structure, a meal plan, whatever it is, if something was working for you and you've just simply gotten bored of it and deviated, ratchet up the accountability and go back to what was working, right? I hate, I don't want to overcomplicate it. If you are experiencing that metabolic adaptation and you've been doing something for weeks and weeks and weeks, and you really are nailing it, that's when we start to look at things like reverse diets. That's when we start to look at things like diet breaks or refeeds. But I find it's much more common when people say that the same diet that they were on that was working well stopped working.

necessarily that their metabolic adaptation has occurred to a point where that deficit is now maintenance. It usually is. They just got a little bit bored of the training. They got a little bit bored of the nutrition and they decided to kind of let off the gas, a couple snacks sneaking in here and there. Oh, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. And so that's the biggest thing you can check. And so the solution to that problem is to track your shit or to get back to the behaviors that you were implementing at the level you were implementing them when you were seeing that success and start there. Number four, you are taking too many of the wrong supplements. And this is kind of a behavioral thing that ties into number three. But I find when people hit a plateau, instead of looking at the big rock behaviors like, how's my training? Am I following a plan? Am I training hard? Is my nutrition on point?

Am I tracking my macros, my calories? Am I doing the right things there? Am I getting enough sleep, getting enough movement? They go right to the supplements. And they go, you know what I need to do? I'm not even going to examine my behavior, which more than likely has changed and is the cause of my results slowing down. I am going to add some fucking nitrous to

the mix. I'm going to try to do everything I can to just level up here and add as many supplements to the mix as possible. And nine times out of 10, adding more supplements to the mix is not the solution to hitting a weight loss plateau, a performance plateau, or even a muscle gain plateau. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media.

Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode.

If you're not taking things like creatine, vitamin D, multivitamin, fish oil, sure. Adding those really effective, well-studied, kind of universally beneficial. I use that term with a big asterisk next to it, universally beneficial being for healthy adults, of course, I'm not a doctor. But if you're not using those, adding those to the mix might help, right? But things like testosterone boosters, fat burners, BCAAs, nutrient partitioners, essential amino acids, you know, you name it. There's so many different supplements out there marketed as being able to increase performance, being able to

increase fat loss. They don't, they really don't make a big difference. And so if your solution to I've hit a wall is to add a bunch of unproven supplements to the mix, all you're doing is spending money on shit that's going to keep you in that plateau. You're almost waiting for, you know, you're hoping that if I just throw money at the problem, even though these things aren't really effective, it's going to be the difference maker when in fact it's probably going to boil down to not what supplements are you going to add to the mix, but what of the, what behaviors are you going to add back into the mix or what behaviors are you going to tighten up? And so the solution to that is don't be over relying on supplements. Stick to what works, stick to the tried and true, right? There's free guide

on core coaching method. What my favorite supplements are. You can check that out. The show notes are in the actual podcast. They're actually linked in the podcast show notes, but I generally for clients recommend creatine protein powder to help hit your protein. You don't need to take it every day. It's there to help you hit your protein fish oil, multivitamin. You can add a greens powder and you can go from there, but there are no fat loss supplements that will break you out of a plateau. If your behaviors around eating and training suck, there are no supplements that will help you gain muscle markedly that aren't things like SARMs, pro-hormones, steroids, et cetera. If your training is ass and your nutrition is ass and your sleep is ass, right? Like if you're just totally punting the behaviors, like, ah, I'll just figure it out or

I'll cover it up with supplements. I don't need more sleep. I need more fucking caffeine. Oh my God, you're totally missing the forest for the trees. And I see this stuff all the time. And that's why these things are kind of ordered in this way. So moving on to the number five reason people hit plateaus. And this has a big, big, big tie into performance, muscle gain, and fat loss goals. So this one is universal, like across the board. It doesn't lean any one way or the other. And that is not taking your recovery seriously. Let's first talk about fat loss. If you're in a calorie deficit, that's a stressor, right? If you're in a calorie deficit trying to lose fat, that is a stressor. So if you're not making additional considerations for recovery, meaning sleeping more,

taking time to recover post-workout and get into a parasympathetic state, drinking enough water, getting adequate protein, maybe timing your nutrition better because that is more important when calories are at a premium. Not only can you expect fat loss to stall, but you can expect your performance to dip. If your performance and hypertrophy or muscle gain are your number one goals, recovery is huge because even though you might not be in a calorie deficit and calories might not be at such a premium, you are literally looking to push your body and damage your tissue or push your body to new performance heights that it hasn't yet been. And the way in which you actually accrue the changes, whether that's changes in muscularity or changes in performance is by applying these stressors in the gym and then recovering. It's a stress adaptation cycle.

You stress the organism, you stress the tissue, you stress what you're asking of the body, and then you recover and you adapt. And the body goes, I have what I need to repair and recover and actually potentiate and accrue the gains that we're after so that the next time this motherfucker asks me to do this shit, I can handle it. And man, oh man, is it important to recover the longer that you have been training, right? When you're new, you can get away with a lot. You can make a lot of gains with poor sleep. You can make a lot of gains with improper training. You can make a lot of gains when your nutrition isn't dialed. But like I said in the very beginning, if you have been training for at least, let's say, a year to 18 months, you've got to start taking your recovery seriously because we all reach a

point of diminishing marginal returns where you have to tighten up your focus in the gym. You have to tighten up your focus with food and you have to tighten up your focus with your recovery. It's easier to maintain your gains the longer you've been training. And that's awesome, but it's harder to potentiate and kind of inspire new gains without taking recovery very, very seriously. So the solution there, take your sleep into consideration. Look for seven to nine hours every single night. Take days off. You don't have to train seven days a week. Very rarely is the solution to a plateau for an intermediate to advanced weightlifter training more. It's usually training harder, training with better execution and technique, following a real

program. What a lot of people do is they go, oh, I'm not seeing results at four times a week. Let's go five. I'm not seeing results at five. Let's go six. I'm not seeing results at four times a week. Let's go five. I'm not seeing results at five. Let's go six. I'm not seeing results at six. Let's go seven. That's not the answer. The answer is doubling down on the program, doubling down on the execution, training closer to failure, taking your nutrition super seriously, making sure you're giving your body exactly what it needs and recovering. Most people, I find their training volume is good to go. It's very rare that I meet with somebody and they're like, yeah, I'm nailing my nutrition. I'm nailing my sleep. I'm nailing my recovery, but I'm not seeing any gains. And I go, oh, well, how many days a week are you

training? They go, oh, three. I go, okay, well, let's just try bumping it up to four. You know, that's a lot less common than what I described previously. People burning the candle at both ends, not taking their recovery seriously, not taking their nutrition seriously, not taking their training very seriously, but they're doing a lot of training. They're just like, I'll just throw more training time. I'll go to the gym and I'll go through the motions six, seven days a week. You know, I'll do the sloggy cardio. I'll slog through it because that's my habit. That's my neuroses coming out, but I'm not going to have even the juice to take, you know, to actually put my best foot forward with these

things. I'll just throw more money at supplements and more time at working out. And that is not a very good solution to hitting a plateau. Okay. Number six, you start and stop and you don't stick with things. Does this sound like you? Okay. I'm going to paint a picture. I'm going to try so-and-so influencers new program. I did it for three weeks. I didn't like it. So I went to this other influencers new program and I did it for like four or five weeks and then I stopped doing it. And now I'm going to do this influencers new program, or I'm going to try this beach body or this herbal life. Like a people hop around, they try a million different things and they never stick with them. And I tell clients

often a bad program that you stick to is probably better than a good program that you don't. And so if you're going to start stuff, you got to finish it. And look, it's okay to pivot away from something that's clearly ineffective or clearly dangerous or stupid. Like if somebody came to me and was like, Hey, I'm doing fucking Herbalife and F45 and it's just horrible and I feel like crap and I'm not eating any carbs and I'm living on protein shakes and fat burning supplements. I'd be like, yeah, don't finish that plan. Let's just get you the fuck away from that. But if you actually have like decent programs and you have decent calibration of where your nutrition should be and you have a decent idea of just how much sleep you should get, and you're plain not sticking to it, that's a big-ass problem,

right? So the solution to this, just starting and stopping and not sticking with things, is to make commitments to finish what you're going to start. So if you say it's female physique, one of my programs, 12 weeks, and you're at week six, and you're like, I'm kind of getting bored of this, which is normal. This happens to anybody who does any six and you're like, I'm kind of getting bored of this, which is normal. This happens to anybody who does any program. You're like, I'm used to these movements. I know, you know, that the shine of this being brand new and I meet me recently having purchased it is wearing off like that's, that's when you have to double down. That's when you go all in. That's when you go, okay, this is where most people quit, right? But I know it's important to finish what I start. I know that these programs

are designed so that I finish them so that by the end of it, I've accrued a bunch of progress. They're not designed to be quit in the first couple of weeks or the first couple of months. And so that's really, really important to acknowledge is that if all you ever do is start and stop, you don't stick to things, you can't expect much. Number six, stop with the starting and stopping the solution. Finish what you start. Lastly, guys, number seven, stop trying to do programs that work for friends, for influencers, for family members, and start doing things that work well for you. I know a bunch of people who follow a ton of different influencers in the fitness space, and their program is

basically exercises that they find in their swipe workouts, meal ideas or eating strategies that they see from watching their Instagram stories or YouTube videos, and none of it is really sensible for their body, their goals, their lifestyle, their situation. It's just collecting a bunch of random shit from the internet that looks good and throwing it into one just gross ball of crap. And the reason that I think doing things that work for other people at random orders or in random orders or in these weird amalgamations of like, oh, I do so-and-so's this and I try to follow an eating plan like this person and I take the supplements that are recommended by this person. You're getting so much different input that may in fact be actually really good, but it's still not tailored for your body and your goals.

And so the solution to this is start with you, start with your situation, start with your goals, and build a program from the ground up. That's why online coaching is really effective compared to something like even a really well-made program. Because even the best program that is made for a specific population with a specific goal, it's still not nearly as good

as a custom program built for a specific person with a specific goal, right? Meaning if you go to me, hey, I want to build my glutes and I want to build my hamstrings and I go, hey, do female physique. And they go, ah, but wait, see, check it out. I have a nerve root irritation between L5 and S1 and hinging really bothers my back. Well, the deadlifts and the Romanian deadlifts and even some of the leg pressing and squatting and female physique might be really hard. Now, can you still train those muscles? Hell yes. You just have to tailor the program to your goals, to your needs and to your situation. And so simply doing what you see other people doing is not really the best approach for you and your body.

So the solution here, look at your lifestyle, right? Look at your goals and go, okay, with all of the things I have, maybe I have work, maybe I have kids, maybe I have school, maybe I have, you know, religious commitments. Maybe I have, you know, community commitments. How many times a week can I get to the gym to work on my goals? And if the answer is three, that's going to be a very different looking program than if the answer is five or six. And so a lot of times what I see is, oh, okay, well, what'd you train today? Oh, I went to the gym and I trained shoulders and arms. Oh, nice. How many days a week are you training? Oh, two or three. Okay, hold on. If you're training two or three days a week, you shouldn't have a shoulder and arm day. You should probably just have total body days or upper lower days because your ability to actually apply resistance training stimulus to

the body is reduced drastically when you can only go two or three times. So you need to apply that stimulus much more globally than you do locally, right? Like if I had like, oh, I trained three days a week, one's chest, one's back and one's legs. I'm only hitting each one of those muscle groups once. I'm not even hitting my arms and my shoulders, right? Like I'd probably be better off doing three total body days. I'd get three times a week frequency per muscle group. You get the point. Your program should be built around your schedule, should be built around your lifestyle, should be built around what you can actually recover from. Of course, the same thing is true of your nutrition. Holy crap, right? I'm not going to follow somebody else's diet who looks good and

says, I'm plant-based. That's how I get thicky thick. Okay. Well, what if I, for example, hate eating a ton of vegetables? Is that a really practical nutritional strategy for me? Can I truly be quote unquote plant-based? Nothing wrong with plant-based, but if I just try to emulate what I see or flip it on its head, let's say keto or carnivore, that dude's fucking jacked. I'm going to follow carnivore Carl's plan, but I really hate eating a lot of meat and I really enjoy having plants in my diet. Well, that ain't going to work. So you've got to build the plan from the ground up for your situation and stop copying people on the internet because even though you can borrow from them and learn from them, I certainly have done this a lot. I've learned a lot

of movements from a lot of people. Those things are just pieces of the program. They're not the entirety of the program. So guys, again, just to wrap things up, going over the seven main causes of plateaus, and I'm going to kind of include the solutions here. The number one cause is showing up to the gym without a plan and just guessing and doing what you like. The solution, follow a program that includes things you enjoy built around your body, but also challenges you to train the muscle groups and movements and the things that you know you need to train to make progress. Because a lot of us are going to leave things on the table that would be helping us make the most progress because we don't like doing them and they're uncomfortable. Number two,

you're not training hard, you're not executing well. And so my solution here is don't worry about the program, right? Don't worry. I guess when you get to the gym, have that all sorted out so you can apply the bulk of your focus to training hard, training close to failure with good technique, right? Not everybody needs to train close to failure, but training with good technique and intent, being mindful. What is this exercise trying to target or what is the goal here? And making sure that I'm executing in accordance with that. Number three, people just don't take their nutrition seriously.

That is the biggest linchpin here. Whether your goal is muscle gain or your goal is fat loss, if you're not taking your nutrition seriously, you're not going to perform well in the gym. You're not going to recover well from the gym. You're probably not going to be in a calorie deficit, which is required for fat loss, right? So take your nutrition very seriously. Number one cause of a fat loss plateau for sure is just getting bored and lazy with the nutritional strategies that help you be successful early on. There are metabolic adaptations that occur and there are certainly things that you can do to address those, but for most people, I find it's just a behavior change that comes along due to boredom and being a little bit burnt out on the kind of intricacies and ins and outs of dieting. Number four,

over-reliance on supplements. The solution, of course, being stick to what works, rely on your training and your nutrition, taking less supplements, but higher quality supplements at the right time is way, way better. Number five, you're not taking your recovery seriously. Whether your goals are fat loss or muscle gain, or even performance, things like sleep, taking the right rest days, making sure you're hydrated, supplementing with things that can enhance recovery is really, really important because like I've said a million times on this podcast, you only make the gains you can recover from. Number six, you start things and you don't finish them. The solution, of course, being very simple here, follow through on your commitments. This is your body. This is your goals, or these are your

goals. You know, these are things that matter to you. And in the micro, in the day to day, there's always going to be shit that pops up and will be acutely more important than your goals. Like, oh, I really want to do this. I really want to do that. Keep your goals front of mind. Follow through with the commitments that you set for yourself. that work for other people. You follow plans that are built for other people or you follow blindly what other people are doing instead of doing what is best for you, your situation and your lifestyle. So guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, it would mean the world to me

if you shared it. If you're struggling with a plateau, there's likely a lot more people out there just like you who could use this advice, who could use these tips. These are evidence-based, tried and true things. I'm not selling you any shiesty supplements or anything shitty like that. I'm just giving you the cut and dry truth. So sharing this really helps other people stay on the right path, stay away from the charlatans because we know they're

out there. And if you find a creator like myself or some of my contemporaries that you like and you like the information out there, the best way you can help us and help us get our messages out is just simply by organic word of mouth, sharing, sharing stuff like this to your Instagram story, sharing it with friends, sharing it with gym members, all that stuff has helped. And every single one of you guys that is listening or subscribed has done such an awesome job. If you haven't yet hit that subscribe button, do me a favor, leave me a five-star rating and written review. If you're listening on iTunes, that is like the gold standard of this stuff. And I'm actually going to start highlighting reviews and doing giveaways here in the near future. So get your reviews in now, all of that stuff is going to be eligible.

Talking more about that in subsequent episodes. I'm really, really excited. So thanks again so much for listening. You guys can find me on Instagram at Danny Matringa. You can find my coaching products at corecoachingmethod.com, whether you want macro consultations, programming consultations, or full-blown online coaching with nutritional and customized programming,

as well as programs built for general and specific goals. All of it's on there, all your fitness needs over at corecoachingmethod.com. And you can support the show by heading over there and purchasing your supplements or your electrolytes or whatever through our partners. So thanks again for listening and I'll catch you guys very soon.