Bench plateau

[Jacksonville442]

I’m 22 years old, female, about 5’1” and 140 lb. I’ve been lifting for almost 3 years with varying results. Right now I’m on a Practical Programming-inspired program that a friend worked out for me. He’s an aspiring coach and a total Rippetoe disciple; he’s the one who directed me to this forum.

Anyway, the problem is my bench has been plateaued for months. My best sets are 245lb for 2 and 255 for 1. For the last month or so, I’ve been reattempting 245 for intensity day but I can never get more than 1 set of 2. Typically it goes like this: get one set of 2, fail the second, then do 3 more sets of 1. For volume day, I do 6 sets of 3 (so far I’ve done triples at 215 lb and 217.5 lb). I used to do 5x5 for volume day (205-215 lb), but we figured that was leaving me too fatigued; I began to fail workouts I had completed previously, so I started doing triples instead.

My program is like this: volume bench Monday, 3x5 shoulder press Wednesday, intensity bench Friday. My friend recommends that I add in very light dips on Wednesday. His theory is that I am not being stressed enough, so adaptation is not occurring. Is he correct? Could this help?

My friend tells me the problem could also be that I stopped squatting heavy, and my legs are now too weak to keep up with my bench. My best squat set was 365x2 about 9 months ago, but soon afterward I developed some kind of SI joint dysfunction. After several months of pain, I took 6 or 8 weeks off from squatting any more than 225. I’m just lately trying to get back into squatting heavy again. My best recent set was 300lb for 3x5 but it seems to have caused my back pain to flare up again so I took another 2 weeks off. I never took deadlifting very seriously, but since my injury I have stopped altogether.

I’ve also been doing a seated press instead of standing, because I feel that it puts less strain on my lower back (I have a tendency to arch very hard when I do a standing press). Not sure how useful this bit of information is but my friend told me to include it.

I have been maintaining weight. I would much rather avoid bulking for now. I am not lean at all (25-30% bf) so I hope that I can squeeze out a bit more progress at this weight. Eventually, I am willing to bulk very slowly.

For the last couple of days I have been trying to eat 170g of protein every day instead of 140g; I have yet to see if this is helpful.

I have been sleeping well, and I do not drink or take drugs.

[ethanvolcano24]

Squatting can definitely impact long term progress, but I don't think it would cause a major plateau. Since you've started consuming more protein, how have things changed?