When 20/20 Doesn't Work Anymore

Usually people join the gym and do 20 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of machines, 3-times per week. They never change their routine. If you’re lucky, this will work for you. The main problem is that if you are consistent you’ll hit a plateau after two months. If you no longer lose weight, you’ll likely get frustrated and quit.

Here’s what you should do after the two months of 20/20:

You’ll need to increase the weight lifting workout. It’s quicker to do some basic exercises that involve a lot of muscles rather than using 15 different machines. If you did bench press, squats, and pull ups you would be finished in 45 minutes. If you don’t like free weights, you can do machines but try to use machines that work more than one muscle. Weight lifting should be done the day before endurance exercise.

The following day you should do a light resistance endurance workout. Every calls this “cardio.” Use something like an exercise bike, treadmill, swimming etc. You want to do something that will get your heart going without a lot of strain on your joints. In other words, running on concrete would be restricted. In this workout, you want to exercise up to one hour at a consistent pace.

Research has shown that physiologically, the weight lifting can tear muscle fibers and the cardio can help flush blood through the muscles resulting in less soreness for you. By organizing your workout in this fashion, you’ll get greater strength gains and less soreness. If you did an endurance day first and the weight training on the second day, the muscles would be too fatigued to gain maximum benefit.

The third day of this cycle would be a rest day. Remember that we started out with a 3-day a week exercise program. Now you are graduating to a 4-day a week. Day 4-5 would be the same as day 1 and day 2. You would do weight training the first day, and endurance exercise the following day. Even though before you were exercising more frequently with weights and cardio (3x/week) you were only spending a total of one hour each per week. That’s why you hit a plateau. By adopting this two day cycle with a rest day in between, you are now doing weights two hours per week and endurance two hours per week.

You will find that this system will give you the benefits of continuing progress.