Jumpstart! (part 1 of 2)

Ok, so you haven't made any gains worth mentioning for the past few months. That's probably a sign that you need to jumpstart yourself, both physically and mentally. It's easy to get stuck in a comfortable routine - you know what's coming up, and you know that you can handle it. Why disrupt that comfortable state of things? Well, if you want to grow and get stronger, you better!

Basically, stop doing the things you like and start doing the things you hate the most. It won't be fun. And it won't be what you're used to. And that is also why it'll make things happen! Keep in mind that the body adapts itself to the demands being put onto it. If you settle for a re-occurring amount of weight and intensity, why would the body bother to grow any further, once it has reached the point where it can comfortably handle that amount of work? Comfort is your enemy. Shock your body on a regular basis! When you've been training heavy for a while - take a break and go light with extreme reps for a week or two! When you've been doing all squats, do leg extensions! You get the idea.

This all sounds nice and dandy in theory, but how do you make this happen in reality? Fear not, oh ye brave but clueless. I'll give you an example of jumpstart-schedules to get you off the hook. See, I'm not only clever and witty, I'm helpful too. That's why they pay me the big bucks.

Starting point:
Let's assume that you're an intermediate trainer, some experience in the gym, but not a hardcore gymrat. For the past 6 months or so you've used pretty much the same weights, have hardly gained any muscle worth mentioning, and are currently training in 3-split of your body, allowing for a full week of rest between muscle groups. You train moderately heavy, in the 8-12 rep range for the most. You eat fairly well and have a protein drink or two every day. You should be growing like crazy, but for some reason, nothing happens.

Remedy
Your problem spells: "P-L-A-T-E-A-U". You're not stimulating your muscles to growth, you're treading water to maintain what you have!
Let's take on a 6-week jumpstart schedule to get you going again.

Week 1
Here are the bulk of the changes you have to make. First off, look at your training log. Which are the re-occurring exercises week in and week out? Take out the most repetitive ones and put them aside for now. Which are the exercises that you seldom or never does? Is there any other reason than laziness why you seldom does these? (Discomfort in joints and similar problems disqualifies the exercise)

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