Has your iron-pumping routine hit a plateau? Does it seem that your guns have stopped growing? It's not unusual to see your progress slow down as your resistance training routine grows stale. The body is an adaptive machine, and as it grows comfortable with a certain set of movements, those exercises begin to lose their effectiveness. Additionally, as you grow bored with doing the same handful of exercises week after week, your drive to push your body to the limit can wither away as well. Shake things up by trying out a few of the rut busting tips below.

Take Sides

Train one side of your body followed by the other. You may be surprised by how challenging it is to work a single arm or leg independently of the other. Your muscles now have work differently to hold that limb steady than they do when you are holding the same piece of equipment with both arms. When you try these movements for the first time, you'll feel a little bit awkward, which is actually a good thing when it comes to increasing your strength and coordination. As you struggle, you'll automatically be more focused on each repetition. This kind of training may also help you to overcome your tendency to cheat. All of us compensate for our weaknesses and you may not even be aware that you are doing it. Training one arm or leg independently of the other means that you can't use the opposite limb to take up the slack for your weaker side.

Get Off Balance

Try doing your basic upper body workout all while standing on one leg or the other. You can also purchase a rubber disk at your local sporting goods store that will create the same effect. Feeling off balance as you train will force entirely new muscles to spring into action to keep your body stabilized. Your leg muscles will have to work to harder to hold your body upright, your abdominals will have to put in overtime to keep you centered, and it will become almost impossible for you to zone out. You'll have no choice but to stay focused on each movement. I dare you to try this type of training and not break a sweat. It can get intense. One of my personal favorites is doing push-ups with my hands on the balance ball.

Get the Hell out of Dodge

Boredom with the gym itself can be enough to keep you from putting in the time you need to reach your goals. Find new places to get pumped. Climb the stairs at the beach, do pull-ups in the park, fight the waves improve your balance, and strengthen your back building a brick fence in your backyard. Your body doesn't know where it's working out and it doesn't care. Don't let your brain get in the way of your getting ripped.

Snap to It

Your workout is one of the few times in the day when you get to be alone; doing something that makes you happy. I get it, but has it occurred to you that the slump it your progress may have to do with the fact that you're just moving too darn slow? It is good to let your muscles recover between sets, but sometimes shortening that rest can give your body the surprise it needs to start changing again. Try doing slightly shorter sets with very short rests periods between them. This kind of training creates "cumulative fatigue" which is ideal for building muscle size. If your goal is to tone without adding size, then you may want to just change up your routine every once in awhile with this style of training.

Iron Out Your Issues

Using dumbbells and weight machines is a great way to increase resistance quickly and easily, but your body may have gotten a little too good at doing the movements you've chosen. Try a new challenge by ditching the equipment altogether. Try doing exercises that depend on your own body weight for resistance. These moves would include push-ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, dips, leg raises, crunches and more. Don't think you can get as good a workout without the weights? Try it, and then we'll talk!

Don't be so Mechanical

The fancy machines at the gym are the best way to ensure proper form with minimal thought, but what are they taking away in the process? Switching from machines to free weights forces your muscles to exert a lot more control in order to perform each movement. You'll have to be careful to make sure you are using the correct form, or else you could risk rendering the exercises ineffective or even hurting yourself. Despite this risk, moving toward free weights can be an excellent way of intensifying and rejuvenating a less-than-fresh routine.

Work Like an Egyptian

Rather than performing every set with the same amount of weight, try pyramiding your resistance level up or down. Trainers and athletes have been touting this technique for decades, and they don't seem to be stopping any time soon. Changing the amount of resistance can often be a more effective way of pushing your muscles to exhaustion. The book Fit for Life gives an excellent and detail description of how to execute this technique. Since the introduction of these methods, fitness experts have been debating which technique is more effective, adding weight for each set or removing it. Interestingly recent studies suggest that they are both effective, but they both offer different benefits. The DeLorme method, which adds weight, seems to be best for gaining strength, while Oxford method, which removes weight, may be best for gaining muscle mass.

Work Harder Doing Less

Many experts in the field feel that true muscle growth only occurs when the muscle has reach complete fatigue. With this in mind, instead of focusing on completing three sets of ten repetitions, focus on trying to reach a 10. In other words, increase your resistance level a little and keep repeating the motion until you absolutely can't do another rep. If this takes fifteen reps, do them, but increase the resistance for your next set. Even if you can only finish six reps at that weight, as long as you're at total exhaustion, you've accomplished your goal. Working this way is the perfect trick for breaking out of your comfort zone.

Multi-task

Instead of doing exercises designed to work a single muscle group, mix it up with some movements that incorporate several muscle groups at once. Try doing bicep curls while you perform your lunges, or do a squat into a military press. You'll be shocked by how much harder you'll be working when you're challenging your body to do several muscle operations at once. Fitness magazines are a great source for more examples of exercises like these.

Stop Moving Altogether

Have you been skimping on your workout because you're short on time? Try shaking things up with an isometric workout. Isometrics involve pushing against an immovable object or using your own body weight for resistance. For example, you might sit a static squat position against a wall and use your leg muscles to hold your body in place, or you might raise a pair of dumbbells to the side and hold them there for 10 seconds at a time. This kind of static training workout can completed very quickly, since each set is only about 10 to 30 seconds long. Isometrics are effective because they work your muscle at a maximum contraction, but their disadvantage is that they only train the muscle in a very specific spot.

Never let yourself fall into a rut. If you let yourself and your body get bored of your workout, you're risking the chance that you may give up on working out altogether. Keep things fresh to keep yourself interested, and change up your workout technique to continuously shock and surprise your body into shape.