"Exercising" and getting stuck

[lowfreq77]

Mark, You often talk about people in gyms "exercising" vs. "training." I'm not sure why anyone would want to, but hypothetically, say a lifter started the novice progression for a period of time, and before he/she plateau-d, decided to stick with one amount of weight, and kept doing that amount one workout after the other. Of course the adaptation cycle would cease, and the lifter would get no stronger, but would there be any detrimental effect on the lifter deciding to at some point to continue progressing? In other words, does pausing the adaptive cycle for a period of time contribute to the lifter "getting stuck?"

[Mark Rippetoe]

Pausing the adaptive cycle is precisely why the lifter gets stuck. A pause in the adaptive cycle doesn't mean the potential of the cycle is exhausted.

[Scaldrew]

but would there be any detrimental effect on the lifter deciding to at some point to continue progressing?

The detriment would be the lack of progress. It would be voluntarily getting yourself stuck in a rot and let every workout become a slogfest, a bidaily chore you have to just survive. Day in, day out, as if your job wasn't bad enough, being stuck in traffic wasn't bad enough, hearing the same songs on the radio wasn't bad enough. Now you've also turnt your training into a monotonous droning, devoid of all excitement, passion, and achievement. Not adding 5 pounds is the first step, and you gradually take more and more. Well, high bar squats have their place I guess. Well, rack pulls above the knee sure don't look so bad. And benching is a lot easier if you stop just short of your chest. In the end, you'll think about just dropping dead on the couch for a couple hours every day instead. Not like you really get anything out of training anymore. You've felt the same for months, no changes, and you never felt that great to begin with.

And maybe you'll be involved in some accident out on the road. And maybe you'll think well, guess I'll be out of the gym for 3 to 6 months. And when you do get back, you "start slow". You avoid barbell exercises in favour of mobility work and stretching and curls. And you'll always glance at the squat rack from then on, and walk by it in a half circle. Afraid of your own shadow. Afraid to see what you're really made of. Cos after all, if you were destined to be strong, you'd never have needed a linear progression, right? Right?

Yeah. Right.

(Purely hypothetically speaking, of course.)

[lowfreq77]

Thanks Rip! You answered my question in classic Rip style--to the point and with no B.S. Scaldrew, holy crap, dude--lay off the pre-workout drinks, or something! All I wanted to know is if, like Rip said, does a pause in the adaptive cycle contribute to the exhaustion of said cycle. Of course I'm not thinking of doing it--the first sentence in my question was, "not sure why anybody would want to, but..." I was just curious about the psysiology. I appreciate your reply nonetheless, though. Thx!