Why Am I Not Getting Stronger?

You’re turning up to your sessions every week, following the programme and putting the work in. But sometimes you're wondering why you don't feel like you're getting any stronger. It’s something we hear from members from time to time, particularly once they’ve been training for a while. When you first start strength-training, progress can come surprisingly quickly. Exercises become more familiar, weights start going up and movements that once felt difficult suddenly feel much easier. But eventually those big jumps become smaller and that doesn't necessarily mean your training has stopped working.

As you get stronger, progress naturally becomes slower and you have to work a little harder for those improvements. One of the first things to look at is the weight you're actually lifting. It's very easy to find a set of dumbbells or a weight on the bar that feels comfortable and gradually make it your default. You know you can lift it, you know you'll complete all your repetitions and it becomes the weight you automatically reach for each week. But if you want to get stronger, at some point we need to ask your body to do something it hasn't done before. That might mean adding a small amount of weight or completing another repetition - and we're not talking huge jumps. Those small increases made consistently over time are what eventually add up to significant improvements in strength. If you finish your final set feeling like you could comfortably have completed another ten repetitions, it might simply be time to challenge yourself a little more.

Consistency is another big part of the equation. One brilliant session every couple of weeks isn't going to produce the same results as regular training over a longer period. You don't need to live in the gym to get stronger- for most people, it's about putting together weeks and months of consistent training rather than having occasional bursts where you exercise every day. There will always be holidays, busy weeks, illnesses and times when training has to take a back seat (which is completely normal). What matters is what you do most of the time. If you train twice a week, try to make those two sessions as consistent as possible. If you train three times, brilliant. Consistency will always beat an occasional perfect week. It's also worth thinking about how you're performing your exercises, simply getting through the repetitions isn't the goal - getting something from them is. It's easy to start rushing when you're tired or when you've performed an exercise hundreds of times before. But moving a weight quickly just to get the set finished can mean sacrificing control, range of movement and technique. And sometimes the answer isn't picking up a heavier dumbbell, it's slowing down the movement, controlling the weight, using the range of movement you're capable of and concentrating on performing every repetition well. You might suddenly discover that the weight you've been using feels considerably heavier.

Then there's everything that happens when you leave the gym. Your training session might last an hour, but your body has another 23 hours to follow. Sleep, nutrition, stress and recovery all influence your ability to perform and get stronger. You don't need to organise your entire life around training, but consistently sleeping poorly, not eating enough of the right foods or never allowing yourself time to recover can eventually affect your progress. Training provides the challenge and recovery gives your body the opportunity to adapt to it. Both matter.

And finally, be careful who you're comparing yourself to. It's incredibly easy to look across the gym and see someone lifting a heavier dumbbell, putting more weight on the bar or progressing faster than you are - chances are you're comparing two completely different people. They might have been strength training for five years. They may have a completely different training history, bodyweight, age or injury history. They might simply be naturally stronger in that particular movement. Their 20kg isn't your 20kg. The person worth comparing yourself with is you. And remember that strength isn't always measured by the number written on the dumbbell.

Perhaps you can now perform an exercise through a greater range of movement
Maybe your balance has improved
Perhaps you can control a movement that you previously struggled with
Or maybe something outside the gym – carrying the shopping, climbing the stairs, gardening or picking something up from the floor simply feels easier than it used to.
Those things count too.

So if you've felt like your progress has slowed recently, don't assume you're doing something wrong. Take a look at how consistently you're training, whether you're genuinely challenging yourself, the quality of your repetitions and how well you're recovering outside the gym. And instead of looking at the person training next to you, take a moment to look back at where you started. You might be considerably stronger than you think.