A few days ago I arrived home from a 10 day vacation on the other site of the country. While I spent plenty of time swimming I didn’t dedicated any energy towards strength training because I felt it would give my body a nice rest. In the past I’ve come back better then ever, but over the past couple of days I’ve been struggling.
I’m in a muscle building rut.
I struggled doing even one squat with proper technique, and have only completed one set of pull ups, and it completely knocked the life out of me (even though I only did 10), forcing me to end the training then and there.
Obviously, the break hurt me way more than I expected, but I haven’t given up hope, and, seeing as life can get out of control at times, it’s worth knowing the question to the question: how do you get out of a muscle building rut? How do I break through that wall that’s stopping you from moving forward?
- Start slow. The first exercise I decided to do was dumbbell squats. Not the smartest decision as I’d only done a couple of sets of these before I’d been on vacation, and they’d absolutely killed me back then (but I could at least do them). Would’ve been much better to have started with floor presses or even just the farmer’s walk, to get back into the swing of things.
- Ease the pressure. Ignore the previous benchmarks to yourself and simply try to do 2-3 really solid reps, no matter what the exercise. The point isn’t to build muscle at this point, but to get you comfortable with the movements. Aim lower to make it easier to accommodate for being in a rut.
- Accept it. It’s tempting to deny that you’re in a rut, but that leads to nowhere good (and fast). When you’ve accepted that you’re in a rut you’re brought into the real world, and in the real world you can make real decisions to make real progress. When you’re trying to convince yourself that everything is fine you miss the opportunities to make that statement true.
- Don’t train to failure. Most of the time it’s not a good idea to train to failure anyways, but the point deserves re-iterating in this context. If you push yourself too hard when you’re not feeling particularly motivated or strong it’s just going to make you apathetic towards your pursuit of strength and size. It’s more important to do something than to push yourself beyond your limits.
- Re-inspire yourself. Ask yourself: why am I building muscle? Why is this so important to me? Remember what got you started in this game and what has kept you going all this time. Ruts always end. The only danger is that you give up before you have the chance to return to your former glory.
As an ectomorph there are many times where you’ll feel like you’re in a rut; it’s the nature of the beast. Our skinny frames take a while to show any signs of muscle development and our long arms make many simple exercises (like push ups) and even difficult ones (like pull ups) much more difficult. But stick with it. Never give in.
