Adventure athletes thrive at the edge. Many of us love to spend time at the very threshold of our ability, and in turn, have a deep appreciation for the progress that comes with time and experience.
For most of us, however, there comes a time when progress slows significantly (or even stops). Despite our best efforts, we become stuck at a certain level, and no amount of time or training seems to get us unstuck. Consistent time and effort yield no measurable progress. This is the essence of the performance plateau.
You might visualize a performance plateau like this:
Performance plateaus can be frustrating and discouraging. Conventional training methods tell us to spend more time, train harder, and get stronger to overcome the plateau (and even then, we are told to expect marginal progress at best).
Those of us who have tried these conventional methods know how much it sucks when you commit to getting stronger and training harder and still see no progress. We feel helpless and hopeless, and begin to make excuses about why we aren’t improving – aging, bad genes, lack of time, life getting in the way…
But I sincerely believe YOU CAN GET BETTER – without endlessly grunting in the gym, and without bailing on your objective for yet another season. With proper identification of the problem and little bit of strategy, improvement happens surprisingly fast.
So here it is: the 3 reasons adventure athletes plateau – and more importantly – what to do about it!
Reason 1: You need fitness
This is by far the most commonly prescribed fix to a performance plateau. But be wary - if you have plateaued in your sport, do not assume that lack of fitness is the culprit (instead, first check out Reasons 2 & 3 below).
With that said, there is a time and place for fitness training. It is likely you will benefit from good old-fashioned fitness training if: “doing your sport” is the only exercise you get, other athletes performing at your level are considerably stronger/faster/fitter than you, or your doctor has recommended you lose weight.
What to do about it: If your performance plateau is caused by a need for increased fitness, consider building a simple exercise plan with tried-and-true exercises that slowly progress in intensity and load. Squats, sprints, pull-ups and basic stretches will do wonders. In addition, consider integrating one or two sport-specific exercises into your routine (e.g., finger & forearm training for climbers and martial artists). If you are truly in need of a fitness boost, it is very likely that your body will need time to adapt to exercise, so be patient with yourself.
Reason 2: You need better movement and awareness
Take a look at a few of the professional adventure athletes you admire most. Are their muscles substantially bigger than your standard gym rat? Can they contort their bodies into positions that your gymnast friend couldn’t dream of achieving?
I’m willing to bet your answer to the above questions is no. Sure, most of the world’s elite athletes are fit and flexible. But they are not elite athletes because they are fit and flexible – they are elite because they use their fitness and flexibility in functional, precise, coordinated, and creative ways. A few athletes make it to the top by compensating in other areas – strength, grit, determination, luck – but the ones who go down in history often look like any other reasonably fit person.
If you are frequently injured, have “bad posture,” or sometimes have trouble getting your body to do what your mind tells it to, your performance plateau is likely related to a need for better movement awareness. Furthermore, if balancing with your eyes closed sounds hard, standing on tiptoes gives you wobbles, or if you have never spent time with mind-body practices (like yoga, martial arts, or the Feldenkrais method) you will benefit greatly from taking time to work on your movement skills.
What to do about it: Begin with simple tests to determine your baseline awareness. When lying down, are you aware of which body points contact the ground, or do some areas feel “fuzzy”? Can you slowly contract and relax one glute (butt) muscle at a time, or is the motion jerky and ratcheted? Awareness drills like these can eventually be progressed into balance challenges like standing leg swings with the eyes closed and dynamic coordination drills.
Reason 3: You need a mindset makeover
I often see athletes with highly functional mental health in their day-to-day life struggle to manage their mind during athletic performance. If you find that fear replaces focus, hesitation replaces caution, and self-doubt replaces self-confidence during the most critical moments of execution, you have probably plateaued because of your mindset. These behaviors are not only counterproductive, but dangerous. How many times have you tumbled, crashed, or fallen because you hesitated to fully commit to your actions?
If you struggle to believe yourself when you say, “I can do it,” or “I am ready,” you need to work on your mindset. If you know you are physically and technically capable of executing, but can’t bring yourself to actually do it, it’s time for a mindset makeover.
What to do about it: Aim to practice your desired mental state with consistency and intention (much like you would practice anything else!). When it comes time to perform, our brains default to the mindset we have practiced the most. If we have practiced positive self-talk and acceptance, imagined the feeling of success, and cultivated confidence and resilience, we can rely on that mindset to carry us through the performance.
Other considerations
It takes more than a few steps back and a lot of honesty to fully pinpoint the cause of a performance plateau. Often there is more than one culprit, and the categories above (fitness, movement, and mindset) have a tendency to overlap.
Adventure sports also present unique challenges that are not considered in other sports. The concept of progress itself is much more difficult to define, and that alone can make it hard to determine if we have overcome our plateau (it may even lead us to question whether or not the plateau concept applies to us at all…).
Ultimately, performance plateaus encourage us to be curious, introspective, and honest. In this way, plateaus themselves are inherently valuable to our progress and success. Viewed in this light, performance plateaus aren't so bad after all...right...??
