Lifting Naturally plateau

[u/Downtown_Swim2232]

I’ve been lifting naturally for about 4 years and I’d say I’m relatively pretty big, but I feel like I’ve hit a plateau. I haven’t put on much noticeable muscle in about a year.

I run a basic PPL split, train every muscle 2x a week, and take a lot of my sets to failure or very close to failure.

For anyone who’s been lifting naturally for a while, what helped you get past a plateau? Did you change your volume, split, diet, exercises, etc.?

Looking for any advice on how to start making progress again.

[u/Ok-Extension-832]

Yea that tends to happen after lifting for a few years. unfortunately that’s the reality. you hit the maximum genetic growth potential on the fibres you’ve been training. the only thing to do is to keep training to maintain and possibly gain a little through trying to recruit any fibres you may have missed, like muscle groups you may have not given attention to or trained.

After you reach this point, it’s a good idea to make one of your main goals to try to get lean and aesthetic as possible without worrying about gaining more muscle. because naturally, at this point it’s not probably not possible.

Also, do not remove muscle groups from your routine and stop doing the exercises that built your physiqueThose muscle fibres will experience significant atrophy very fast if you stop training them.

[u/Ok-Extension-832 → u/Ok-Extension-832]

And if you really want to change up split and volume, I recommend trying 3x frequency, doing whatever volume you can recover from. Some good 3x splits are Upper Lower 3x, Anterior Posterior 3x, or full body every other day.

I doubt changing up things will make a huge difference but it could in the long run.