Why You’re Not Getting Fitter: The Truth About Plateaus

if you're someone who is coming from the 30s into 40s and complaining like, what I did.

before used to work and now it's not and I'm so weak and I'm so slow. You might be in plateau

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Every athlete, no matter their sport or experience level, eventually hits some kind of plateau. Those frustrating stretches where progress stalls and performance just seems stuck.

In today's episode, we're digging into what really causes plateaus, how to recognize when you're in one, and most importantly, the strategies everyday athletes can use to break through and keep moving forward. So what exactly is a training plateau and how do we know we're in one versus just having a few off days?

I think a plateau is probably a stagnation in something you're trying to move on the performance end. And I'll just put my hand up and say, I'm in a plateau at the moment. Those who are long time followers of the podcast know that my aim this year was to try to increase my, or just to hold onto my VO2 max. And it's just like...

I know, I don't even know how valid it is, but it's the Garmin VO2Max marker and whatnot that we all, that those who have the Garmin device will sort of see there's this, there's a predictive algorithm that's based on your heart rate and your power output. And of course we have this in Athletica too with your critical power. So when that's, key power markers or pace markers are not going up anymore and maybe go tracking the other way, such as yours truly.

then we, yeah, it's kind of, think that's a plateau. yeah, so just, I'm in one.

Okay, let's poke some holes in that one. Are you really though? How is your regular mountain ride? How is that going? Are you getting slower?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then with my devices, because I'm always doing that same ride, they're getting insight into where things are sort of at. And yes, that is just kind of, it's come down a little bit in terms of the power that I'm pushing relative to the heart rate that I'm performing at. And of course, you know, I'm getting older now. So I'm at this, I'm definitely feeling like I'm plateauing. So why is that?

Okay, well,

I would rather, I would, okay, I believe you now that I would rather take that than a Garmin device. I've been skeptical or critical about Garmin devices for a long time, but I would totally like you have your perfect little test field test laboratory that you're doing. So I would rather believe that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, you know what I need to do, and I'm gonna try to do this before I take off, is I'm gonna try to do a, honestly, a 20 minute all out on that hill is perfect, and that will reset. That'll be the final thing. Then we'll actually know ⁓ the result of this year and this project, right? So I'm gonna do that. So don't actually know how far off I am, but currently right now, I'm definitely, we're reading 51, remember?

I'm 54 and the goal is to keep 54 or 55 this year. so I've kind of, I haven't failed miserably, but it's down a little bit relative to where I was hoping it would be. So it got as high as 52 and I couldn't get it higher than that. But we'll hold complete judgment until later this week. so 20 minutes all out, as Andrea would tell us, that also tends to reset your...

Yeah.

cycling power profile or your running pace profile or your rowing pace profile. that's a key one for our critical power marker and specifically your threshold, our equivalent of FTP if you follow that. That's sort of how you, know, that's a good marker. That critical power is a good marker of where things are sitting at, at least specific to, well, almost across the board. I won't say necessarily Ironman.

type distances or ultra type distances. Paul, I know you just did a big gravel race, but I mean, you your critical power wouldn't be another important marker that you'll want to look at as you continue to build on that for next year. Paul, maybe talk about your recent performance.

Yeah. So we did the gravel nationals in the, U S it was in, La Crescent, Minnesota. probably one of the most beautiful gravel races I've done 74 miles of nothing, but these long gravel dirt road hills. great course. did not feel great. I felt, you fatigued, because perhaps I have hit a plateau as well. And I was trying to train myself out of it. and you know, that, I don't think that went well. but.

It was a great day on the bike. And, you know, I was reflecting on, the idea that I, you know, we got rained on right at the start and it was kind of this low cloud, it's hanging in the Hills. it was one of those days where I didn't mind getting dropped right off the bat in the first climb, because I had a chance to look around. was one of those days where you wanted to stop and take pictures along the way. cause it was so beautiful. I was like, all right, this is a great day. I feel like crap.

But I'm going to keep going because I get to experience this whole thing. now that you're talking, Paul, I'm wondering whether I did exactly that. I was in a plateau and tried to train myself out of it. So maybe I went too hard. Is that our plateau is kind of an inevitable part of the training process? Should I have expected one after a long build?

Thanks.

I think it like anything it depends we let's let's be honest. We are getting older So there's potential relationships there, you know, don't know MJ. What do you think? You're you're doing, you know, your marathon adventure, right? You've put it you put it out there on your sub stack and everything you're going for 50 marathons before you're 50. So how's your how's your

Yes.

goal relative to any evidence of a plateau.

I don't know about plateau, but I have my challenges. if you think about like a plateau, like what is fitness plateau? It's more of a trend line instead of just the one or two bad performances. And how do you measure those performances, right? If you're like Paul, who can crank out the same mountain.

relatively similar conditions. You know when you've had your good performances and then you always, you can expect a PR every day. We talked about that last time, but when is a plateau a plateau? Sometimes we just have bad month. We have work stress. We've been sick and it's lingering. There are so many things that

can play a role where you don't feel your best. And sometimes, yeah, all we need is a little bit more recovery to get out of that plateau. Or maybe, like me, I need to work more. I took it pretty easy this summer and I'm feeling it, so I'm not fit enough. So it's all like...

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Context always.

You know, like, like what are some of the physiological reasons that someone might hit a plateau, like a cardiovascular or muscle adaptation? mean, are there, are there physiological reasons that we might hit a plateau?

Well, absolutely, right? And let's even just imagine the fittest athlete you can possibly imagine, Like Christian Blumenfeld or whoever you want. They're all pretty right at the top of the game. So once you get to that pointy end of your performance, that can be potentially a theoretical plateau, right? Progression is not to infinity, right? We can't, we're not.

or not Superman or Flash or whoever you want, superhero you want to kind of put out there. There are of course all limits, but where is your individual limit is the kind of the question. And are you continuing to have an upward trajectory in your progression? And we can objectively measure progression if you have an accurate wearable device like a power meter or a GPS

device or whatnot. So, I mean, to me, that's what your key, you know, that's your key marker. And then there's age limits on this as well too, right? So if you are, know, MJ and I, we've got our youngins that are coming up, we see how much they hit, you know, we hit them with training load and they adapt so quickly. It's just remarkable. But then that adaptation is not going to be

like forever and whatnot, right? Like it's not gonna be moving as rapidly as these key phases of growth. we know that too well, right? Where we're probably potentially, it feels least to me like I've definitely hit a little bit of a plateau. So yeah, that's, but there's lots of, mean, why does this occur? There can be, you alluded to it with your

your training, like, you know, it's not a simple formula like train more and then get a bigger output, right? Like that's, there is this response to training load and that is a fundamental tenant within the, the HIIT science, work that we put out there, right? We have training load and that's your stress, but then how are you responding to that stress and adapting? Are you adapting because you're sleeping well, eating well, all these various different things.

or is the stress just surmounting and is there a deficiency or a dampening in your body's ability to output external load or power or pace because you're not responding that well to it because of all those different stressors. Of course, you can also look at that and looking at your recovery profile in Athletica, your heart rate variability, your heart rate.

you're sleeping, the consistency of all of that is a really good marker of whether you are still adapting behind the scenes, right? And you will see, like, know, I'm speaking openly where I'm talking a little bit more with Luke Evans these days, right? I'm seeing really nice classic adaptation markers in his data. And that, in other words, his, if you look at your own recovery profile,

you'll have your 60 day moving average, which is the bandwidth that you're under, and that is your normal value. And then you got this rolling seven day average. And sometimes that seven day average in a place where you're not adapting and you are probably, you've plateaued, that will be either stagnant and be right in the middle or more likely it will be falling under the 60 day rolling average. Well, look.

Luke, I'll tell you, it's above that 60 day mark right now, right? So his seven day rolling average is up above the 60 day norm, which suggests that he is adapting to the training that he is doing. And he's sleeping well and feeling well, comments are very positive as well. So these are the things we see in a adapting athlete and in an athlete that

might be plateauing, we're not seeing that. We're seeing the opposite. We're seeing heart rate more likely to, the HRV likely to be depressed relative to the norm. You can see that in your recovery profile. And then the comments, semantic analysis, we had Andrea on telling about that. how, you know, using sad versus joyful comments, a few more sad ones. And these are all sort of, there's a lot behind Athletica that can give insight.

into explaining plateaus, I'll just sort of say, or explaining adaptation. So I've been a little long-winded there, so I'll let you guys steer. I'll steer elsewhere.

Super interesting

because I did trail marathon on Saturday and my HRV didn't do anything. It was basically just the same old, same old seven day average. And I've been kind of like, not too bad, but I didn't feel, I haven't bounced back from it. So that maybe I am in a plateau too. ⁓

Well, that actually,

Yeah?

what you're talking about with both of you are, how do we know the difference between under training, Marjaana where you think you might be, and over training where I might be, and a true plateau? mean, what's the difference between those three?

Mm-hmm.

Well, overtraining is certainly, we've talked about this before with Phil Maffetone where we've got like the unhealthy athlete phenotype and it's back to the thing that I just said in terms of the recovery profile, we tend to see a depressed heart rate variability. That's just one marker, tend to see those negative semantic comments versus a plateau. Again, I think...

What?

You know, we can only, you can only get up there so, so much, right? Like, how high can we, how, how fit can we get? Right. And, back to Luke Evans, this is what he's, he wants to know now, right? He's gone out. He's, you know, listen to that episode. He, he won Ironman Canada using Athletica and now he wonders, wow, you know, might I, might I go professional? Could I actually do that? Well, he's, he's having a look, right? And he's, he's

So it certainly does not look like he's plateaued yet, right? ⁓ So this is, I think, yeah, we, there's a long piece of string on that, on that question and the answer, right? So it's, but yeah, all these things relate to your health, your ability to adapt, your own genetics, your background as an athlete growing up, which we call your epigenetics.

Mm-hmm.

nutrition, sleep, there's so many things, so much context that's in all of this. So sometimes, but I I recognize for the individual that's found this podcast and they are maybe showing evidence in themselves of plateauing, I understand the frustrations and it's up to you, I think really to knock on doors, potentially find experts in the world you can ask to like a coach that has experience in this. And then, you know, the

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different response, right? So if you're, you gotta try something different is what I would think. And that could be anything, training volume, know, a base period. Do you have a solid base in you, right? So that adaptation energy is there and able to meet the build phase, right? Paul, you can even reflect on that yourself. Do you think you had enough base period in your training?

to really lay the foundation for when you hit the build period that you could actually adapt to that. So.

Yeah.

And that's a good question. I think that my base was pretty good. think what I was missing, at least for nationals, was enough recovery after some really hard races that I did. And I think that I was feeling a little fatigued going into a couple of races that I did about a month out in August. And I think that should have been my warning sign that I should have maybe skipped one of those races and not dug as deep.

because I think that I didn't get enough of the build period in. I don't think I did enough of the threshold kind of work to really be able to navigate those hills. But I think that's part of it. It's still me thinking through what my training, I'm thinking about training for next year. And I think I'm going to be doing fewer races and more base, more build.

Good man. Yeah, it's so tempting to do those races, isn't it? Right? Because there's just, oh, can just go do that one. And, you know, they're super fun because they're social and all that sort of stuff. We all love racing, but you're highlighting just like a really important point. And especially if you're experiencing that plateau, right? If you're just going out there you're getting the same result all the time, maybe you have to wind up. If this matters where you want to have that...

If, if.

Thanks

They are. Yeah.

killer performance because that means something to you then then maybe we have to do something a different way. Sorry MJ.

Yeah, I was going to mention this exactly the same thing. A lot of racing requires more recovery. And when you're in the middle of a race season, it's really difficult to take that recovery. So we hurried things back into training. That's what I think personally, many people do wrong. But I wanted to go back to definitions as overtraining versus overreaching. So if we look at

the general adaptation theory is that you do a workout and you load your body, then you need that recovery period to adapt and you get fitter. But the difference between overreaching and over-training is only the recovery time to get back to the base level.

How long does it take for you to get back to base level? So if you're in a plateau, I would think that you're still in the overreaching. And if you don't allow yourself to recover, you dig yourself deeper and deeper without getting back to the base level. And then you're in over training and then you really have to take a long period of recovery.

Yeah, I would agree. would

agree. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I would say that there's, know, Jan Lemur is a researcher that's shown that in some of the work that he has done in France with his PhD. And he showed exactly that, that athletes, triathletes that were, he overreached them for three weeks. And they were, and their performance plateaued in, and, but then when he,

Mm-hmm.

pull the training away, just like we do in a taper, and again, back to taper philosophy, we've spoken about this before too, right? Then all of a sudden, your theoretical, what we call freshness in training peaks, would be called TSB, or training stress balance, theoretically, it kind of rises up, and all of a sudden, your freshness is higher, and then all of a sudden, you can elicit the, or, you

you can basically the fitness that you've gained is all of a sudden exposed. And that, you know, I've talked to my colleague Rod Siegel about this before and it's like, it seems to be so variable. And sometimes it's even longer than we think. And I think back to MJ where she's had these crazy good performances in almost like the three month period after Ironman. So she builds up for Ironman, does a race, goes to Worlds.

in Nice. And then, you know, of course, after, after the Iron Man, you don't do much of anything because you're, you're all, you're just kind of over it. And then all of a sudden there's these personal bests that are, being exposed to us on, on her, on her sessions. We used to, she's doing velocity sessions, 30 30s, and she's just smashing it. It's just like, it's where did these come from? so I know you've, I know you experienced this yourself, MJ.

where you had a breakthrough, but it was not where we expected it to be.

you

Yeah. Yeah. Peaking a little later. Maybe.

So that, but in that case, it's kind of back to what Paul was saying too. Like maybe, you know, maybe we're training too much or too hard or these sorts of things, right? And maybe we need more time to elicit the optimal taper. And maybe that needs to be something that Athletica really works on in its AI in the future, speaking openly and honestly to everyone, because we're having these conversations now. How can we, and especially with the, you know, the database work that Andrea is doing in the backend to, to work on this for everyone. This is a,

Mm-hmm.

It is.

This is something we can probably do and what we should work towards doing in the future.

I would say that training hard for something long distance is different than cranking out 30 30s. I would say I would not expect cranking out massive 30 30 power right before an Iron Man because I think that maybe I'm totally wrong, but I think that long distance training just kind of

⁓ blunt their higher power ability.

Well, it does because it long distance training and we know this from the research. If you are, if you're in it, and this could be what Paul experienced, your parasympathetic system is up here and it's because it's always working to recover you. But what that does is it blunts the ability of the sympathetic fight or flight system to get down there and crank out solid power. So, and this is why you need a good taper in order to make sure that you, you elicit that.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Thank

And that taper is probably individual in all of us. And I think you may have discovered maybe you need a little bit more of a taper than a shorter one, potentially MJ. I don't know. But who

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally,

Mm-hmm.

totally. But also

like going back to the plateau, sometimes we follow a plan and religiously follow the plan until we plateau. And sometimes we just need a different kind of stimuli too, right? Not just mentally, but physically, right? Because we don't adapt to the stimuli anymore.

Thank

Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. mean, can cross training or adding strength or yoga or mobility work, you know, can that break the stagnation for us?

Well, it could,

⁓ you know, it's all in those are all elements of training that might impact the central nervous system. Remember this, you know, central nervous system is critical in all of this, right? Your brain to spinal cord is like, you know, this is the orchestrator of everything or your mind and your desire. That's all, you know, we're like a little

puppeteers right we're we're that's that's kind of and if that mind and central nervous system isn't you know isn't isn't happy and and and working optimally you need something to kind of pull it out there and maybe some of those modalities whether it's strength heavy lifting yoga you know if you're and enhancing things with mobility you know keep training potentially like there's so many different ways to kind of

switch up the stimulus that might help your central nervous system do a better job, cryotherapy, whatever it might be, cold water immersion, it's worth trying. again, we're all N of one experiments. So there's no key rules, but it's worth experimenting on yourself to find out if something fixes you up.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, it sounds almost like a plateau, at least as a signal or could be a signal that we are under or overreached in some way. Like that might be part of the process. know, our HRV might be low, our RPE might be feeling bad, but it's a sign that something else is going on. Am I thinking about that correctly?

You are, I know you think about that. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Like there's some sort of a suppression over the ideal power output that you want to produce, right? And again, Paul, if we reflect on the race that you just had, you just told us about, and you're, you know, you're climbing up those hills while there was some sort of, afferent signal coming back from the rest of your body to tell your mind to just, well, no, we're not quite ready for that power.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're not there.

No, right? Even though you're, even

though maybe you wanted to, right? But it's like, it's just there were the block, the blockers were on, right? And, and yeah, and that happens in all of us. So it's about, you know, ideally, we want to train specifically at that. That's what happens when you are training. And this is again, if we look to Athletica, and specifically the key sets, you're doing pieces of that race to rehearse.

Yeah.

the situation that you're going to be doing, right? And that's why, and that helps to unlock the whole process because you're building resiliency over those, at those exercise intensities and durations. That's how the training process works, ideally. So.

And sometimes, like doing... Sometimes you just know that things are not quite right. You have that feeling. Maybe RBE is high, but maybe your heart rate is just like five, 10 beats higher than what it's normally. Or I guess it can be also suppressed, right? Paul the other way around that it's lower.

Mm-hmm.

Is that what you found? Is that what you found Paul? Was your heart rate was a little bit low? Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely hints like your parasympathetic system was way up here and almost kind of like parasympathetic overreaching is what that sort of hints on. Because again, with a proper taper, should have a, the heart rate should be almost a little bit higher because it's ticking over, right? You're sympathetic.

Heart rate was yeah, tanked. Yeah, it was definitely low.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

system is really driving everything.

Hey, sounds like

we need to insert ⁓ Dr. Steven Seilers, take a day off right here. Take two days off, take a week. No, but let's talk about like, like periodization, right? People don't take season breaks, I've realized. They just go straight into whatever Athletica , is telling them. They make a new, they generate new plan and there's no off season.

I

⁓ We do, exactly.

Yeah.

No, I know, I know.

They just go

straight to base.

I

hate off seasons. It just takes too long to come back. I'm 61 and it's just, I would rather just take a week of easy riding, of easy work and just kind of build slowly back into it. But if I take a week off, feel like I don't feel good coming back.

Bye!

I'm right there.

I know, and I can relate to that. I am right there because I took so many weeks off this summer. I'm struggling, I've gained weight. Everything, like running especially is hard when you gain weight. It just feels like, ⁓ what is this? So I'm right there, but I'm refreshed and mentally ready to put in the work again. And I think...

Yeah.

I'm

You have to do that. Don't take two months off, but take two weeks off. Maybe it actually feels like you're refreshed and ready to go again

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

yeah for sure. And you know, for all the type A individuals that are out there listening to us and it's, we know how hard that is. you know, I coach a phenom young runner and you know, she literally just finished very well in a world championships mountain running this last weekend. And we had a long talk about the fact that she was going to take a whole week off.

Ha ha ha ha ha

by her side and train, yeah, she was gonna train by feel with her family and stuff. And yeah, wasn't easy for her. know, ⁓ because that's the mindset, right? It's like, no, it's actually really important just to not have that, you know, do something whenever you feel exactly zero structure. And that lack of structure is actually a benefit when you resume later on.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

structure.

so.

Are there

mental things that we can do or psychological or motivational things that we can do to, I hesitate to use the word push through because I'm thinking that if we push through, we're going to dig ourselves a bigger hole. But are there, you know, what can we do to kind of keep our brains when we hit a plateau and we hit a potential overreaching, what can we do mentally to get us through that?

Hmm Well, I don't the first thing honestly that comes to mind is is you know the conversation that we just had with with Jared last where you know, it's like Reflecting right the whole reflection process. How was my effort? how was my you know? What what was the positive out of that in terms of the success and you know was there you know, was there any progress kind of that was in it so and you can if you

Usually you should be able to find something in the, in all of that, but, ⁓ it's a reflection process. And, and again, back to, doing like doing the same thing and expecting a, a different, a different result. So you probably need to, we need to change something up, right. it's a lot of context there and everyone's, everyone's got to be responsible for their own process in, in doing something a little different.

think staying in the moment is important. Do the best you can to take care of this moment and don't think too far out when you're reflecting.

Hmm.

Absolutely.

Do you think there's a difference for us as we get older for masters athletes, especially, know, our plateaus more common because we've reached that, you know, maybe we've, maybe we've reached as fit as we're going to get, as you mentioned earlier, do they require different strategies to overcome?

Hmm. I mean, I believe so, like with everything you just said, like I think they're more common when you're older. I'm certainly feeling like I'm in one at the moment. So, and then I think, you we've said it before, but you got to be kind to yourself too, right? Like you can't expect to go up and up and up forever.

Yeah, it's, and so you just gotta still be reflective on big picture, still doing pretty good for our ages, you know, and you listen to the same thing, right? Like, ⁓ do, you know, and back to my old Dave Scott mantra that I use all the time, I learned from him, the man, and it's like, do what you can do right now. Like it's being present at the end of the day. So, you know, what...

doesn't matter where you are and whatnot in this moment in life, what can you do right now? And that might be rest, that might be just to go easy. And that might be the answer, so do that.

Yeah,

totally. I love that you brought in the age question. For a lot of women, it might be different than what Paul mentioned. When women age, we start losing muscle mass and bone mass earlier than men. If we keep doing the same thing, we go for our 10,000 steps and

go for a bike ride and we don't add strength training or any plyo work in there. It's easy to plateau because it's not working for us anymore. We need that muscle mass. We need to take care of our bone mass. So if you're someone who is coming from the 30s into 40s and complaining like, what I did.

Hmm.

before used to work and now it's not and I'm so weak and I'm so slow. You might be in plateau and you might need that strength training and some HIIT work to get to the next level and change things up a little bit.

think that's a really good point, MJ, for sure. But again, that kind of comes back to like the doing the same thing and expecting a different response, right? So yeah, just like you said, you may take a broad look at your current training diet. Is there something that potentially we could change to get a different effect, right? And if you're not getting any strength training in your system, in your regular training diet, like MJ said, that could be a really important thing to add in.

context.

And maybe.

Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going

to hit the gym here right after this, this, this, ⁓ this podcast.

Okay.

I don't know,

but maybe it also applies to men too. If you think about you guys aging, what did you do when you were younger? You were more active and now you're toting your kids to practice and then you sit there and watch them do their practice. So maybe the overall activity level is lower too.

Yeah, we'll find out the tricks you can do to compensate for that, right? So for me, I drive my daughter to swim practice while I'm swimming in the lane beside her now. And I've seen so many times when MJ drives her boys to baseball and then she's off for a run. it's like, how can you be efficient with your time? everyone's got their own context. Be strategic within that.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

No, nice.

Go for a run,

Mm-hmm.

That kind of lines us up here to wrap things up. If we could give everyday athletes one piece of advice for breaking through a plateau, what would it be? What would you say?

Rest through. Take a rest.

Yeah.

Yeah, just a really good thorough reflection on the big picture. And yeah, just really look at all the things you are doing or not doing ultimately. What are you doing a lot of? What are you maybe not doing enough of? And that could include rest, could include strength, could include training, could include sleep.

All these, could include nutrition, all these various different things could be the important piece of the puzzle that you need to slot into your ⁓ training diet in order to get out of that plateau that you might be in.

Hmm. Yeah, for me, it would be paying attention to how you feel and paying attention to HRV as two metrics to really help you guide the reality of your nervous system and how you're feeling and what you're doing. Good. Anything else you want to add about plateaus?

You might need someone to have a look at your training if you're struggling to see the pic picture.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. Don't be afraid to seek out the help of an expert coach.

Thanks for listening today to the Athletes Compass podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science-based training platform, Athletica, and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum. For Mariana Rakai and Dr. Paul Larson, I'm Paul Orlowski, and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast.

Thanks for listening.