I felt out of practice or something today

[sbhikes]

I'm very new to weight lifting at all. I've been following the Starting Strength program with 5lb jumps (I'm female and 47 years old) and doing deadlifts each session and no power cleans. I've been making slow and steady progress. Frequently I will have to repeat the same weight as last session on one of the lifts because last time I couldn't complete all the reps, but I always do better than the last time so far.

At first, before I decided to follow something closer to the Starting Strength program, I was doing bench press and overhead press every time. Now I'm alternating them. So this was the first time I went to do bench press with a stretch of 5 days in between.

Last time I did 65lbsx2x5, 65x1x4
This time I did 65lbsx1x3, 60x2x5

I got worse. I felt out of practice or something.

Do you think I should go back to doing bench press every time so that my body doesn't lose the strength I've struggled to develop? Or is a set-back like this pretty normal? Just a bad day?

[Gene61]

Hi Diane, I've been following your log. Two things: You did have a bad day on your last workout as you reported in your log so maybe its that. However, you have been hovering at around 65lbs for your bench for 3 weeks. You might consider a deload to 55lbs and then eek up at 2.5lb increments. My wife has lots of trouble with the bench press at about the same weight as you are using, so we have been microloading her up very slowly. Its working. I also think it may be a bad idea to start doing them every workout. Going back and forth between press and bench press is in the program for a reason. According to Rip it balances the work on the shoulders and keeps them healthy. Good luck and keep up the great work.

[sbhikes]

Thank you. I think maybe I should just move a lot slower. Rather than try to go up ever time maybe I should just try to go up in weight every week. I left work early yesterday and took a nap for an hour. Then I went to bed early and slept like a log. Today I feel quite sore. I don't know if it's the lifting weights being stressful in itself, or I caught a bug or adding "finishers" to try to get my metabolism to move some of this fat, but I couldn't handle it, I guess.

[Charlie Davies]

I have problems like this too sbhikes, probably everyone does. It's a constant guessing game, what went wrong?

Pick a theory, make a correction, and see what happens over the next few workouts. If you change one thing at a time and wait a few workouts to see what happens, you can gradually figure out what programming works for you. For example, I've figured out that my presses stall unless I'm gaining weight.

My current experiment is: smaller steps in weight (but still more each workout), and slightly reduced volume (light squats and no lower-body pulls on Tuesday). In a week or two I'll know if it works...

[veryhrm]

5 lbs jumps on the bench (or press) at your strength level is pretty high. At 60 lbs you're talking about almost 10% jump. That's like a guy who's squatting 200 going to 215 the next workout. For an 18yo guy it works because only a rank novice is going to be at that strength level (thus he can make pretty big jumps). For someone with some training under their belt, 8% jumps from workout to workout isn't according to the spirit of the SS workouts.

And yes, SS is enough to get you sore by itself (though it doesn't always) and adding finishers can make you sore (and it's NDTP, but you're allowed) and yes some days just are bad.

(a notational opinion: for "65lbsx2x5, 65x1x4" it's shorter, and i'd argue easier to convey what happened, to write 65x5,5,4 )

Oh and when i've done exercises less often, i find that adding some more light warm-up sets than helps with the motion. Like just with the bar even... It actually says that in the book, to add more wu sets with just the bar if you need them, but i was skeptical for quite a while until i tried it.

In this case it would only apply if you have some light bar. An extra set or two of 45lbs is prob not good on an exercise w/ 65lbs work sets.

[hamburgerfan]

Sounds like the strength was there, but the first set was just fucked up for some reason.

[sbhikes]

The 45 bar feels really light on bench press. What I don't get on bench press is I'll go for the work weight and the first rep I'm like, no problem. This is easy. Then suddenly boom, I can't complete a rep. No warning, no idea it was going to suddenly be so hard. Same thing happens on overhead press. Doesn't happen on squats. I know those are going to be hard the minute I put the weight on my back.

[Rob Israel]

The 45 bar feels really light on bench press. What I don't get on bench press is I'll go for the work weight and the first rep I'm like, no problem. This is easy. Then suddenly boom, I can't complete a rep. No warning, no idea it was going to suddenly be so hard. Same thing happens on overhead press. Doesn't happen on squats. I know those are going to be hard the minute I put the weight on my back.

i train with a lot of women and this is very common, especially for upper body strength.

To be clear: this is definitely not from "forgetting" the lift or lack of practice. You should definitely continue to alternate the press and the bench.

This could be due to:

• fault in the technique (either on that particular rep or in general)
• lack of strength endurance
• lack of recovery

For anyone (male or female) in their 40's (like us) your first concern should always be recovery. We just don't have the "juice" of a 20-something and that juice makes progress fast and easy. This is one reason why alternating the lifts is a good idea. It's rare that a press day will really interfere with a bench day unless you did total max effort or a ton of volume.

My suggestion is to either move up more slowly (get .5 pound plates and start doing 1-2 pound jumps) or move to intermediate programming where you increase weight every week, not every session.

I would definitely recommend buying Practical Programming 2 (by Rip)-- it has a great primer on recovery and adaptation which is 100% gold for this kind of problem and for transitioning to intermediate programming.

[hamburgerfan]

There was a thread a while ago about lower reps maybe being better for women. Maybe you could try 4x4 or 5x3? I've never seen it done personally, but it might be worth a try and it's unlikely to ruin your progress.

[Rob Israel]

There was a thread a while ago about lower reps maybe being better for women. Maybe you could try 4x4 or 5x3? I've never seen it done personally, but it might be worth a try and it's unlikely to ruin your progress.

Good point. I'm still unsure how well that actually works above more traditional intermediate programming though. I've seen 3x3, doubles, singles and such for women, but I think without a solid program structure (as opposed to just a rep scheme) I'd be a little skeptical. But-- it may be worth a shot if you can lay out a 6-8 week plan for it.