We all strive for greatness every day. We work hard; we sacrifice ourselves, we move towards our goals on the bench press, on the 1-mile run, always attempting our next personal best. When we reach our goals, life becomes great.

But sometimes, we get stuck on an obstacle we can’t surpass. You know the scenario: you’ve been hitting the gym regularly, you’re eating properly, you’re working your ass off every day, but your goal stays out of reach. You’re in a stagnation. As if you are missing a final ingredient, or a perfect recipe, you are one inch short to break that record. Going through this situation over and over for an extensive period of time can be frustrating.

Here are seven things to remember to overcome stagnation and reach your fitness goals:

1. Your Reason “Why?”

When stagnation comes into your life (and it will, everybody experiences stagnation at some point), you have to remember your reason. What made you get into exercising in the first place? Why did you start the healthy habits, and what have you accomplished since? When you see your path as one full of ups and downs, but on a steady rise, you’ll remember that you surpassed your initial goals a long time ago. Remember your reason often when you feel down, it will help you overcome stagnation.

2. Look at the Big Picture

You’re stagnating, and you want to change that badly. It’s frustrating and challenging, but take a look at the situation from a different point of view. If you’re dealing with stagnation, that means you reached a high level of performance. The more challenging it is to overcome the stagnation point, the higher you’ll be in the food chain. Think about that for a second. You’ll realise how great you are and this feeling will get you the strength and enthusiasm to overcome stagnation.

3. Motivation

There are simply days when we don’t want to get out of bed. It’s natural, and it happens to everyone. Motivation cannot be at its peak all the time. But the good thing is that you can work on your motivation. Have a look at our motivational speech and change the way you think, the way you look at motivation. The mere fact you’re on this website, tells us one thing – you’re working on yourself, and you’re capable of being better. Overcoming stagnation can be hard, but it is not impossible.

4. Your Routine

From this point on, we have selected four actionable things you should remember. Feel free to incorporate our advice into your workout, keeping in mind your preferences. Start off with your routine; maybe you’re deep into the comfort zone, your muscles are used to your routine so you’re not stimulating them enough. Simply put – your muscles expect chest and biceps workout on Monday, legs on Wednesday, etc.

Consider changing things: the schedule, the order of exercises, the exercises themselves, or the way you’re performing them. Overcoming stagnation requires changes and looking for solutions from a different angle.

5. Stimulation of the Muscles

The problem behind your stagnation might be in the way you’re stimulating your muscles. That involves warming up, preparing yourself for the particular exercise, and the way you’re performing it. The warm up is important as much as the training itself as you can’t hit the weights cold. When you’re training, visualise your muscle fibres and feel the way they are contracting and extending. While lifting the weights, tighten your muscles as much as possible to stimulate them even more.

6. Recovery

If you’re training hard and investing time in making a change and reaching new and different limits but you’re still hitting the invisible wall of stagnation, your problem might be on the other side. Are you getting enough sleep? Do you invest time to do some foam rolling or to massage your tired muscles? Recovery is critical when overcoming stagnation as numerous people start breaking their records when they start paying attention to the work-rest ratio in their lives.

7. Your Nutrition Plan

What we eat affects our results and our level of fitness the most. Besides recovery, the nutrition is among the biggest factors when facing stagnation in fitness. When you have a balanced nutrition plan your body will get the optimal amounts of nutrients which will boost your performance. If you change your meal plan, you might overcome stagnation easier than you think.