Have you ever begun a exercising with a particular weight goal or body type in mind? At first you start to see all these results. Your clothes may be fitting differently and your body becoming more defined. You are pleased with the results and love the way your body is changing. You may have even bought new clothes to show off you new look, and then IT happens.

Gradually you aren't seeing the results that you first saw. Next thing you know your have become discouraged and want to quit, but DON'T!!! You just experienced a plateau. A plateau is when the body adjusts to the stresses applied to it so that the required tasks become easier. On your way to a plateau you may begin to see improvements in your body because of the transition it is making.

The reason you stop seeing results is because your body has adjusted and is no longer challenged to do the same activities that once were hard. How do you get out of a plateau you ask? Well, the first thing you must do is challenge the body again. You need to add more stress, whether it is by increasing your cardio or whatever. You need to challenge the body, because it is this challenge that actually yields results.

The F.I.T.T. Principle is one that can help you stop plateau and continue with your progress.

FREQUENCY- Exercise at least 3x/week. Exercising (cardio) more than 5 times may not greatly improve your level of fitness if you are doing the same thing every day. Your results greatly depend on the amount of effort you put in. With resistance training you can alternate different body parts different days of the week.

INTENSITY- When doing cardio, the body needs to be in its target heart rate zone in order to achieve fat burning. You need to do cardio at least 20 minute to change the body's energy source from carbohydrates, to the stored fat that you have.

If your heart rate isn't in this range then you need to either bring up the speed or resistance. For strength training, if the body isn't being challenged or overloaded you will not see substantial results. This overloading is what gives you those arms of steel, and those beach-body abs.

How to calculate maximum heart rate: 220 - age = Maximum Heart Rate Low Fitness Person would train at 50% to 70% of 180 beats per minute which is 90 to 126. They should keep their heart rate between 90 and 126 beats per minute for the required time of the exercise.

A Higher Fitness Person would train at 70% to 90% of 180 beats per minute which is 126 to 162. They should keep their heart rate between 126 to 162 beats per minute for the required time of the exercise. Use a heart rate monitor. For resistance training sometimes it isn't necessary to do 3- 5 sets of an exercise.

When muscle failure is reached, you can move on to the next exercise. You are basically working out for that moment when you have to struggle to get that last repetition. Lifting weight below this intensity is inefficient.