5 Potential Reasons Why You Aren’t Feeling the Results From Your Strength Workouts.
Not Feeling the Results from Your Strength Workouts?
This can be so frustrating! You know strength training is great for you! You give it shot by adding some sessions to your routine - you use some machines at the gym, or you find some workouts on YouTube, or maybe you’ve tried some workouts you’ve found on the gram or Pinterest!
Great job!
But after a few workouts, maybe a few weeks or even a month or 2, you’re bored. And worse, you’re frustrated because you don’t feel like you’re getting stronger.
And then the motivation to keep going flashes away.
I totally get it. I was there too. And I thought only fancy and flashy workouts would get me what I was seeking.
But, now after learning and working with many clients and Straight Up Strong members I have identified some common reasons folks struggle to progress with their strength routine and some strategies to help.
Not challenging ourselves. If we just go through the motions and aren’t progressively stressing our muscles over time, the movements will become easier (yay!) but if we don’t up the anté, this easy will feel boring and blah and un-motivating at some point. Rule of thumb: the last 1-2 reps of your set should feel challenging but doable with safe form. If using the RPE guide, your last few reps should be about a 7-8. Feeling challenged, while uncomfortable at times, helps to keep us engaged - and staying engaged keeps us consistent. Consistency and progressive overload gets us results!
Not having a plan: walking into a room and picking up the weights or choosing some machines is a great start! Yay! But trying to decide on which exercise to do and when and even how can be so overwhelming and at some point, following randomized workouts from social media will leave you wanting - because a program is what ties the workouts together, like a map.
Not Eating Enough: Many folks, especially women, believe that reducing calories, especially from carbs, will help them get their goals faster. But when we are training strength, and when in combination with cardio, our bodies NEED nourishment . Prioritize protein. Eat your carbohydrates. When we are not eating enough, our workouts will suffer, truly. We’ll be tired, less energized, more likely to plateau. There’s nothing motivating to keep up with a plan if our workouts feel like crap! Also, when we strength train, we are creating tiny tears in our muscles. When they heal, they get stronger and bigger. When we don’t consume enough protein, our muscles will struggle to build. And when we don’t have enough carbohydrates for energy, we may actually catabolize our muscles because our body needs energy. Our bodies are wicked smart and will do anything to keep us alive.
Suffering from shiny object syndrome - We’re humans. We are attracted to flashy and shiny and the next, newest best thing. But if we don’t give ourselves sufficient time to practice and implement a plan / program consistently we’re missing an opportunity to reap the rewards of that program. Give yourself at least 3 months of consistency with a program before jumping to the next thing.
Throwing in the towel too soon- similar to number 4, we are programmed to want instant results. When we don’t get them, we bounce to the next thing. But throwing in the towel on a program or strength training overall is going to leave you back at point A. Give yourself those 3 months minimum to really consistently follow that strength program before you throw in that towel!
Want to dig deeper into any of these five potential reasons you might be struggling to progress with your strength workouts? Let me know in the comments or email me at coach@straightupstrong.com! And be sure to join the Strong Sunday weekly email with fitness, nutrition and wellness tips from Coach Tina and myself!
In Love and Strength,
Coach Michelle
PS: Want to try the programming and live small group strength sessions of Straight Up Strong? We’d love to have you join us for you first month at a special rate!
