Question from a novice

[TKeele]

Greetings to all of you! My name is Trent. I started the program the middle of May this year and have had what I'd consider to be tremendous results in spite of some challenges. Ive experienced the truth of barbell training and have seen its benefits existentially as well as all others. I started at roughly 230 ish pounds at 6'2 with minimal barbell or strength training experience. I tinkered around in crossfit for a couple of months before I realized that what I really wanted to do was the barbell work without all of the other nonsense.( 100 burped, wallballs and other silly bullshit.) Shortly after I encountered SS. I started with ORM's as follows

DL - 365
BP- 165
OHP - 110
Squat- 250

Since I began I have raised them to the following

DL -475
BP-215
OHP-165
Squat- 375

I went through a period where I backed off a little to resolve form deterioration in the squat. For about 3 weeks following pulling a 405 deadlift for the first time I became quite zealous and determined to reach 500 asap. Each time I'd come in and do a max pull before my work set and was able to go as high as 475. It seemed like I was never unable to rip the bar from the floor. About a week after that I began to experience difficulty in the deadlift. I remember one evening struggling to pull 425 from the ground. I was able to work up to 415 for my set of 5 reps and have stalled there. The pull from the floor has become so slow that In contemplating whether I should drop down and regain momentum. My jumps have been 10 pounds in squats, and 5 pounds in everything else until recently switching everything over to 5 pound jumps to maintain increase without form deterioration for the sake of more weight.

The presses are not progressing as quickly as the other two, which I expected. I'm confused as to why the apparent sudden regression has occurred in the deadlift. It appeared I'd break 500 for a max pull within that week and that has yet to occur.

My question is as follows, does anything stand out as obvious based on the information? Any ideas as to how to regain momentum? I eat a substantial amount of food(eggs, whey, milk, chicken, beef, peanut butter, fruit and veggies, etc about 4000 calories a day, get roughly 8-9 hours of sleep most nights, and have restrained my need to gain quickly in favor of consistent progress.

Thanks

[Mark Rippetoe]

It's probably your programming. Have you considered: http://startingstrengthonlinecoaching.com/

[TKeele]

Thanks for the response, Rip. Forgive my lack of saavy, what do you mean by programming? So far I've been doing the 5x3 as prescribed in SS and it's worked so well it almost feels like cheating. You eat the food, you do the work, you gain the strength. So I assume I must have done something wrong somewhere or I've reached the point where I won't go much further without changing it altogether.

I was also wondering if the overt enthusiasm leading me to try a PR lift every session might have been too aggressive. I don't know whether there's substance to it, but I've heard of people regressing after overtraining a lift.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Where did you get the program?

[TKeele]

I've used the the Starting Strength app and have been reading the book.

[Alchemist]

Each time I'd come in and do a max pull before my work set

YNDTP. Right Rip?

[Mark Rippetoe]

This is why I asked where he'd gotten the program. Doing it Your Own Way has proven to be unproductive, because there is surprisingly little variation in the basic functioning of the stress/recovery/adaptation cycle. That's why the program is written the way it is. DTFP.

[TommyGun]

TK, there are a lot of things here. They are questioning you so that you can ask yourself what you may be missing, and to sort of test your knowl edge of the program. And by program I mean the novice linear progression as described in the SS book. But if you are stalling it is possible you have exhausted your novice gains on a linear progression. Then comes the tough part, transitioning to an advanced novice program and an intermediate program, both of which requires different programming. You may want to get and read Practical Programming for that.

Also, search the articles for an article by Rip about not doing the program (I am not implying you are not, but it asks the right questions).

Finally, trying your one rep max frequently like you are is often counterproductive and may interfere with your recovery.

[GrizzlyAdam]

Trying your one rep max at all is not doing the program.

[TKeele]

I hadn't considered that doing a max pull would interfere at all. So what I'm taking from this is I was not adhering strictly to the linear progression. Got it. I've reread The First Three Questions every so often and have stuck to the the workouts as prescribed in the app but In total honesty there have been a number of occasions I'd jump 15 pounds because I was feeling strong. I guess in my mind I was not considering that to be interfering with doing the program. Would you recommend resetting to a specific point or carrying on from this juncture to get back on track?