Why Athletes Can't Get Stronger – And How to Fix It.
Strength training is a journey, not a quick sprint. Yet, many athletes find themselves stuck, unable to push past a plateau. While the common reasons often revolve around diet, recovery, and programming, there’s a deeper issue at play—movement mastery. Research shows that as athletes refine their movements, they become more efficient, reducing metabolic energy costs and muscle activation. While this is great for endurance and economy of motion, it can also mean that over time, your body learns to complete tasks with less effort, limiting strength development.
If you’re not getting stronger, the problem may not be that you’re weak—it may be that you’ve become too efficient. To break through, you need to shake things up. Here’s how:
1. Change Your Strength Sport – Try Something New
One of the most overlooked methods for increasing strength is to completely shift the way you train. If you’re a powerlifter, consider dabbling in strongman. If you’re a strongman, why not give Olympic weightlifting a try? And before you ask—no, don’t do CrossFit. (Unless you want to, of course, but that’s a different conversation.)
Each strength discipline taxes the body in unique ways. Powerlifters focus on absolute strength in three lifts, but strongman introduces awkward loads, odd implements, and endurance-based challenges that expose weaknesses in static strength. Olympic weightlifting, on the other hand, requires explosiveness and precision, helping power athletes develop superior rate of force development. By switching things up, you challenge your nervous system in ways that your primary discipline doesn’t, forcing new adaptations and ultimately making you stronger.
Why This Works:
New motor learning: Your body has to relearn movements, preventing excessive efficiency.
Increased neural drive: New exercises activate underutilized muscles and movement patterns.
Breaks monotony: Mentally, shifting disciplines can reinvigorate your passion for training.
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2. Train in Seasons – Periodize Your Strength Development
Another major issue in strength plateaus comes from training the same way all year round. Many athletes only train for maximum strength, neglecting phases of hypertrophy and power development. The solution? Train in seasons.
A structured approach to strength development should look something like this:
Hypertrophy Phase (8-12 weeks): Focus on higher reps (6-12) with moderate loads to build muscle mass. More muscle provides the foundation for greater force production.
Strength Phase (6-8 weeks): Lower reps (3-6) with heavier weights to train maximal force output.
Power Phase (4-6 weeks): Low reps (1-3) but explosive movements, focusing on speed and force development.
By rotating through these phases, you prevent movement efficiency from capping your strength potential. Each phase builds on the previous one, ensuring continuous adaptation and preventing stagnation.
Why This Works:
Prevents adaptation plateaus: Shifting between hypertrophy, strength, and power keeps your body guessing.
Reduces overuse injuries: Training one way year-round increases injury risk. Periodization balances training stress.
Enhances peak performance: Timing strength gains for competition ensures you’re strongest when it matters most.
3. Stop Program Hopping – Stay Patient
The modern athlete’s biggest weakness isn’t their lack of strength—it’s their impatience. We live in a world of instant gratification, where progress is expected immediately. But strength doesn’t work like that. You need to commit to a program for at least 8 weeks before evaluating its effectiveness.
Many lifters jump from program to program, never giving themselves the time to adapt. If you switch from a 5x5 program to a conjugate system after three weeks, you never give your body a chance to make real progress. Instead, you’re constantly in a state of transition, never reaching peak performance.
Why This Works:
Allows progressive overload: Strength gains come from consistently applying increasing resistance over time.
Gives your nervous system time to adapt: Strength is as much neurological as it is muscular. Neural adaptations take time.
Eliminates distractions: Sticking to a plan prevents you from second-guessing your progress and chasing trends.
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The Bottom Line: Get Out of Your Own Way
If you’ve hit a strength plateau, chances are you’ve become too good at what you do. Your body has found ways to complete movements efficiently, reducing energy expenditure and making you less strong in the process. To break through, follow these three steps:
Try a new strength sport—powerlifters should experiment with strongman or Olympic lifting to introduce novel stimuli.
Train in seasons—rotate between hypertrophy, strength, and power phases to prevent stagnation.
Stick to a program for at least 8 weeks—stop hopping between programs and give your body time to adapt.
Strength is built over time. The best thing you can do? Be patient, stay consistent, and always be willing to challenge your body in new ways. Now get out there and lift something heavy!