When you exercise on a regular basis, your body makes structural improvements. Your heart, muscles, bones, and tendons all get stronger. This is how we "get in shape" over time. Exercise...adaptation...repeat.

After you do a certain exercise at the same intensity several times, your body will adapt to it so that the next time you do that exercise, it doesn't feel as difficult. Unfortunately, now that the challenge is gone, this also means that the body has no reason to make further improvements. Now it just needs to maintain what it has.

Many people find that in the first few months of engaging in regular exercise, they make large improvements in strength, endurance, and generally feeling better. But after a while they notice that their progress has leveled off. We call this reaching a plateau.

This usually happens because as their fitness levels increased, they did not keep increasing the intensity of their workout. Eventually, the workout reached a point where it no longer challenged their recently-improved physical abilities.

You've probably figured out by now that the simple solution to this problem is to once again give the body a reason to adapt by exercising at a greater intensity. A gradual and systematic progression of intensity over time will encourage your body to continue to make positive adaptations.

Here are some way that you can progress your workouts for cardiovascular training and strength training:

Cardiovascular Training - this involves anything that gets the heart rate up for an extended period of time, like walking, biking, or swimming. You would choose one from the list below:

• Add time - 2-5 minutes at the same speed you've been doing
• Increase your speed (treadmill)
• Increase your rpm's (elliptical, rower, bike)
• Increase your incline (treadmill)
• Increase your resistance level (elliptical, rower, bike)

Strength Training - this involves moving your muscles against resistance provided by dumbbells, rubber bands, or weight machines. You would choose one from the list below:

• Increase weight by the smallest amount possible
• Increase the number of reps
• Do one more set
• Add another exercise
• Rest for a shorter duration between sets
• Do the motion at a slower tempo

Guidelines

It is important to understand that you want to progress in very small increments to give the body time to adapt. Think about making baby steps about once every week or two for each exercise you do. Remember, you should only increase one metric at a time for each exercise:

Cardio Example: You've been doing the stationary bike for 35 minutes at level 4 around 70 rpm's. Next week, do 38 minutes at the same level and rpm's. Or try the same time and rpm's, but do level 5 part of the time. Or do 35 minutes at level 4 with the rpm's around 80.

Strength Example: You've been doing arm curls with 4 pound dumbbells for 2 sets of 10 reps. Try 5 pound 2 sets of 10. Or do 4 pounds with 3 sets of 10. Or try 4 pounds with 2 sets of 12.

Notice that I only increased one thing at a time. Progressing too fast increases your chances of injury:

Cardio Example: You've been doing the stationary bike for 35 minutes at level 4 around 70 rpm's. Then next week you do 40 minutes at level 5 around 80 rpm's.

Strength Example: You've been doing arm curls with 4 pound dumbbells for 2 sets of 10 reps. Then next week you do 6 pound dumbbells for 3 sets of 15.

So how do you know if you're progressing too fast? Pay attention to your body. How does it feel? If you start to notice nagging aches and pains in your back, knees, elbows, shoulders, hips, or shins, it may be because you're progressing faster than your body is adapting.

Just be patient. Increase one metric for each exercise every week or two. It may seem like you're not making progress, but those small steps really add up over time.