starting strength gym
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 16

Thread: Am I grinding too early?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Posts
    2,631

    Default Am I grinding too early?

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
    • starting strength seminar jume 2024
    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    Been on the Novice program a little more than a month. Everything has gotten really grindy (form breakdowns like one side coming up unevenly compared to the other, things like that), even though none of the weights have gone up much, aside from the squat. From what I've read, this doesn't seem to be right. The squat, unlike the other lifts, I started very conservatively with because I had no experience with it. The others, even though I had to make some tweaks to the form, I was much more confident with and so just started with numbers a somewhat lower than what I'd done in the past, to work back up to it. However, they haven't advanced very much. For example, I'd been able to do work sets with 160 on bench press before this current run, without even dropping the increments from 5 pounds. My bench workout yesterday, on the other hand, had me working with 157.5, up from 155, and the last rep of the last set was a trembling mess where one arm struggled to lift its end more than the other.

    What I am debating doing is a fresh restart of the program, using the exact process outlined in the blue book to determine starting weight, because I am concerned I hit what the book describes as my "sticking point" earlier than I should have for the program to work as intended. I am curious what others think, should I try this approach or should I just keep trying to push through the grind?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,557

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Posts
    2,631

    Default

    I've read that and gone over those questions several times. Rest between sets has been increasing as needed. Press/Bench have been incremented using specially bought 1.25 plates, squat and deadlift have been getting raised at a rate of 5 a session. Recently pushed caloric intake over the 4000 line. My weight has been going up pretty steadily, not so much the weight on the bar. What's weird is that when I got that 160 on the bench when I first dipped my foot into this program before I had a bit of a lay-up, my diet was actually significantly less than what I'm getting now, both in protein and calories. And that was only a few months back.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,557

    Default

    Age/height/weight? What is your actual rest between sets?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Posts
    2,631

    Default

    34/6'2"/hovering around 240 (hard to peg down an "empty" point to weigh on since I've been eating so much stuff, but weight is definitely going up). I do 5 minutes rest minimum, after the warm ups before the work sets. Depending on how each work set goes I crank up the rest time. Usually gets to about 8 minutes, at least on the squats. I also do that before the deadlift work set. Should I be doing more than that? There's a factoid floating around out there that says 8 minutes should recover all the ATP that I've seen in a few places. Is that just another piece of "information" that is best disregarded?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,557

    Default

    Try 12 minutes and see what happens.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2017
    Location
    Uk
    Posts
    1,468

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    Try 12 minutes and see what happens.
    Listen to Rip - I'm now at 14 minutes for lifts and it worked wonders. If I need 20 minutes, that's what I'm going to take.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Posts
    2,631

    Default

    Will do. Coincidentally, I tried 8 minutes rest between all sets when I did my lifts yesterday, even after the final warm-up. Squat went much smoother. Still hard, but I wasn't running into the form issues.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Location
    Baltimore, md
    Posts
    1,022

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Nockian View Post
    Listen to Rip - I'm now at 14 minutes for lifts and it worked wonders. If I need 20 minutes, that's what I'm going to take.
    holy crap, don't you work/ have a life - 14 minute rests ??

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,557

    Default

    starting strength coach development program
    By all means, old man, hurry. Time is all that matters.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •