If you have reached a halt in your weight loss despite continuing exercise or have noticed that your muscles have stopped growing despite continued training, you have reached your workout plateau. The body is naturally programmed to become immune to the stresses of exercise, adapting to repetitive training and stopping the progress of weight loss, strength and endurance. Fortunately, at boot camp we avoid those problems.

Now it is usually recommended that you change up your routine every 4-6 weeks, especially if you are someone who is working out on your own at the gym or at home. This is also why most “dance” classes in a gym will do the same routine for multiple weeks and then change it up. By the way, if you are doing one of this “dance” classes and you find that you know every move, even when the instructor isn’t there, leave.

Back to the issue of changing up your workouts. Now at boot camp we never repeat a workout. In over 3 years, I have never done the same workout twice, which in effect keeps the muscles guessing and the body to continue to see results. However, to change things up and to make sure that no(body) goes and starts to slow down, we enter hell week.

Hell Week is just another phrase for, you have no idea what is about to happen to you, but be ready to sweat worse then before. There is a simple calculation for this, but rather then go into that, let’s talk about intensity.

If you want to lose fat at a rapid pace, you do need to push hard at things like intervals, circuits and HIIT. The problem is knowing how hard should you push. Figuring out the ideal workout intensity for things like interval training is almost an art. Besides diet, proper intensity in your fat loss workouts is what makes the difference between looking good and looking your best.

Tags | boot camp, fat loss, fitness tips, hell week, Nutrition, plateau, training, workout