What happens when novices don't increase their weight every time?

[jeffnc]

I've read Starting Strength, but might have forgotten or missed some detail. I have The Barbell Prescription on order, and thus haven't read it. So apologies if I'm missing this....
but it's not clear what would happen if a novice such as myself doesn't "do the program". I've actually been doing this for months now, but really in fits and starts so to speak. Read to start ramping it up, so I suppose my question is this: if I haven't been upping my weight with each session, have I just been stalling progress or actually doing "damage" that is going to take some new action to overcome? (I see the term "getting stuck" bandied about, e.g. - I would certainly hope I'm at too light a weight for that to be happening....)

[Mark Rippetoe]

Is it not obvious that if your training weights do not increase you are not getting stronger, and thus not training? Like everybody else at your YMCA? What "damage" could this possibly cause -- to you but not to everybody else at your YMCA? Ovarian cancer? Amenorrhea?

[jeffnc]

Is it not obvious that if your training weights do not increase you are not getting stronger, and thus not training?

To most of the amateur athletes I know, no - that is not obvious. And not to me until recently either. But now, yes, since I have read the book. Many people would believe (maybe understandably so) that if you do any amount of work repeatedly, you are going to get stronger. A la Arnold Schwarzeneggar: "The children are taken into slavery and then chained to a large mill, the Wheel of Pain. Conan survives into adulthood, building his muscles after years of pushing the heavy grindstone." Right or wrong, this is what most people believe, so in general I would have to say that the general public does not believe that the weight/resistance needs to increase to get stronger.

However that's not the question.

What "damage" could this possibly cause -- to you but not to everybody else at your YMCA? Ovarian cancer? Amenorrhea?

I was hoping since I mentioned "getting stuck" that it would be clear I was not talking about actual physical damage to my body.

To be more clear - is there anything wrong with not increasing your weight each time, other than the fact that you will not be getting stronger at the rate at which you might? An analogy might be: I coach soccer. If someone practices the wrong thing, it's worse than not practicing at all, because then they have habits that take that much longer to overcome. Is there anything similar that might happen vis a vis the body's physiological response that might actually make using more weight harder when it happens in the future? I have no reason to think that it might, and therefore am not sure what could go wrong, I'm just asking.

[ChrisRozon]

When someone's doing an exercise wrong, telling them not only to stop adding weight but to significantly deload and fix the problem is pretty standard around here....

[Mark Rippetoe]

As you have observed, most people do not make progress, and the only damage done is the wasted time. But your analogy presents an opportunity to rehash this point: Training and Practice are quite different things.

The State of Strength & Conditioning Coaching | Mark Rippetoe

[Adam Skillin]

To be more clear - is there anything wrong with not increasing your weight each time, other than the fact that you will not be getting stronger at the rate at which you might? An analogy might be: I coach soccer. If someone practices the wrong thing, it's worse than not practicing at all, because then they have habits that take that much longer to overcome. Is there anything similar that might happen vis a vis the body's physiological response that might actually make using more weight harder when it happens in the future? I have no reason to think that it might, and therefore am not sure what could go wrong, I'm just asking.

Aside from the fact that you're wasting time and youth, repeating the same weight won't negatively impact your ability to get strong in the future. It just won't help you get any stronger than you already are, since you're lifting weights you are already adapted to. When you resume actually training (adding weight to the bar), you will continue becoming stronger, since you'll actually be producing the stimulus that is necessary in order to do so.

[jeffnc]

Let's see if I can make that more clear with a specific example. Same athlete, same weekly schedule, all else being equal. Workouts go like:

Program A: 100 lbs, 110 lbs, 120 lbs, 130 lbs, 140 lbs, 150 lbs (end of week 2)

Program B: 100 lbs, 100 lbs, 100 lbs, 100 lbs (Point 1), 110 lbs, 120 lbs, 130 lbs, 140 lbs, 150 lbs (end of week 3)

Other than the fact that Program B takes an extra week, is there anything that's going to go wrong with Program B? Does the body have any trouble adjusting to the extra 10 lbs at Point 1 as compared to Program A? I would think that clearly, doing the extra 100 lb workouts is better than completely skipping them, since presumably it keeps your body from going backward. But could there possibly anything in that schedule that slows you down from increasing when you want to? (I don't think there would be, I'm just asking).

[Toasterleavings]

To most of the amateur athletes I know, no - that is not obvious. And not to me until recently either. But now, yes, since I have read the book. Many people would believe (maybe understandably so) that if you do any amount of work repeatedly, you are going to get stronger. A la Arnold Schwarzeneggar: "The children are taken into slavery and then chained to a large mill, the Wheel of Pain. Conan survives into adulthood, building his muscles after years of pushing the heavy grindstone." Right or wrong, this is what most people believe, so in general I would have to say that the general public does not believe that the weight/resistance needs to increase to get stronger.

The wheel of pain did provide a style of progressive resistance. When kid-conan was chained to wheel there were around ~20/24 'trainees' already doing the program. A few years later there were under 16. Time passed and there were fewer than 10. Finally big C is the sole trainee still left in the gym. Perhaps he ate the other kids; perhaps the other kids were all adopted out to nice homes; perhaps they just weren't all that keen on wheels; it's not really dealt with, and I guess pretty tangential. Anyway, so he went from a 1/25th contribution to the effort required to push the big ass pointless wheel (pardon me for assuming all 'trainees' were of relatively equal capacity and were all exerting effort at a reasonable % of max effort) to pushing the wheel entirely by himself. I would be mildly happy if I increased my squat by ~2400%, even if it was from my squat 1RM as a ten year old and took maybe 10 years to achieve (20kg? -> 500kg yes thanks!). I'd argue by the time he leaves the wheel it's pretty easy for him, so he'd just be maintaining by that point. Anyway I'm not sure there's any other valid child rearing method that results in such strength gains. Writing an e-book about it. Go down well with the paleo crowd.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Program A: 100 lbs, 110 lbs, 120 lbs, 130 lbs, 140 lbs, 150 lbs (end of week 2)

Program B: 100 lbs, 100 lbs, 100 lbs, 100 lbs (Point 1), 110 lbs, 120 lbs, 130 lbs, 140 lbs, 150 lbs (end of week 3)

Other than the fact that Program B takes an extra week, is there anything that's going to go wrong with Program B? Does the body have any trouble adjusting to the extra 10 lbs at Point 1 as compared to Program A? I would think that clearly, doing the extra 100 lb workouts is better than completely skipping them, since presumably it keeps your body from going backward. But could there possibly anything in that schedule that slows you down from increasing when you want to? (I don't think there would be, I'm just asking).

Practical Programming for Strength Training | The Aasgaard Company

Did you read the article?

[tfranc]

Let's see if I can make that more clear with a specific example. Same athlete, same weekly schedule, all else being equal. Workouts go like:

Program A: 100 lbs, 110 lbs, 120 lbs, 130 lbs, 140 lbs, 150 lbs (end of week 2)

Program B: 100 lbs, 100 lbs, 100 lbs, 100 lbs (Point 1), 110 lbs, 120 lbs, 130 lbs, 140 lbs, 150 lbs (end of week 3)

Other than the fact that Program B takes an extra week, is there anything that's going to go wrong with Program B? Does the body have any trouble adjusting to the extra 10 lbs at Point 1 as compared to Program A? I would think that clearly, doing the extra 100 lb workouts is better than completely skipping them, since presumably it keeps your body from going backward. But could there possibly anything in that schedule that slows you down from increasing when you want to? (I don't think there would be, I'm just asking).

What would be the purpose of program B? Why would you want to waste time by working out with the same weight over and over again?

In my experience as a novice, repeating weights just makes you more tired, and when you're more tired, it catches up and you can't squat as much. A couple times I thought I was playing it safe by repeating certain poundages once I got into the 200's on squats for days where I didn't feel as recovered as I would have liked. What I learned is that while the 2nd session may feel lighter... and only barely, slightly lighter... it just makes you tired and ultimately you miss an opportunity to use that energy to make your squat go up 5 lbs. Plus, everybody has bad and good days in the gym.

Here's another thing to keep in mind: If you want 135 to feel light, the only way you do that is to get your squat up to 225. 315 feels light when you can squat 500.