Sometimes, you just don’t wanna be at the gym.  Not because you don’t feel up to a good session, or because you’re tired—but simply because there someplace you’d rather be.  This Saturday, I had that feeling times ten.

Leaning against the windowsill, I looked out at the cloudless sky and sighed with more drama than was probably necessary.

“Too fine a day to be inside,” I said to no one in particular.  Cocking my head back, I cast a sideward glance at the pull-up rack.  Another dramatic sigh.  Trapped inside for a workout, and on the bloody Vernal Equinox of all days.

A pull-up bar next to a window on a sunny day does not make for a great workout

Physique transformation is a hell of a process, and it’s really not a straight path.  I’ve recently been discussing fat loss plateaus quite a bit, but as anyone who has ever tried to put on some muscle can tell you, progress can stall in either direction.

A lot of the time, you hear about guys who simply “can’t” get any bigger despite their best efforts—full body plateaus, really.  Most of the time, this is an issue with diet more than training; these guys are often not eating enough.

Slightly less talked about but certainly more insidious are single body part plateaus—where someone is experiencing pretty decent progress overall, but one muscle group seems to have stalled out like the ’84 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra I drove in high school.  (Hey, don’t laugh; that car had personality.  It may not have air conditioning or a working radio…or a functional passenger side seatbelt, but it sure as hell had personality.)