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Thread: Should I push bodyweight up harder after completely stalling?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
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    Post Should I push bodyweight up harder after completely stalling?

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    I have been doing weight training for around 2 years now but never actually did a proper beginner LP. After reading both books, I started doing SS in July of 2020, at 70kg bodyweight and 181cm height with a 100kg x 5 squat, 135kg x 5 deadlift, 90kg x 5 bench and 50kg x 5 OHP. Despite having to bike to the gym, which took all the energy out of me because it was about an hour uphill (the 40ºC+ weather in my country also did not help), in around 3 months i got to 170kg x 5 squat and 195kg x 5 deadlift. My bench and my ohp did not go up as much (110kg x 5 and 65kg x 5 respectively) but this was entirely due to form issues. At this point in late September I was around 83kg bodyweight. The Starting Strength program is incredible and I had never expected to gain strength so quickly.

    By this point, my program was:

    Monday: Squat (heavy): 1 set 5 reps, Bench/ohp (alternating): 3 sets 5 reps, Chinups: 3 sets 15 reps
    Wednesday: Squat (light): 3 sets 5 reps, Bench/ohp (alternating): 3 sets 5 reps, Deadlift: 1 set 5 reps
    Friday: Squat (heavy): 1 set 5 reps, Bench/ohp (alternating): 3 sets 5 reps, Rows: 3 sets 5 reps

    I know this is not the correct program, but considering how I was already exhausted from the bike trip before even touching the barbell, I had to drop to 1 heavy squat set.

    I moved to a different city to attend to uni and could now train at a great "oldschool" style gym, with rusty weights, great barbells and some extremely strong lifters. Despite that, and no longer needing to do a 1hr bike ride before training, my lifts completely stalled and did not improve at all between September and January (when gyms closed again in my country). As a matter of fact, they got worse over time, and by the end my squat and deadlift had gone down 10kg. My bodyweight also didn't change during this period.

    Gyms reopened a week ago and I'm currently at 82kg bw with my lifts rapidly increasing: squat at 135kg x 5, deadlift at 155kg x 5, bench at 95kg x 5 and ohp at 55kg x 5.

    The question I have is, when I most likely end up stalling around the same strength as before at 80-odd kg, should I push calories higher, and attempt to reach 90-100kg bodyweight? I was eating 4200 calories at 83kg. Again, I'm 181cm so this might seem skinny. However, I feel like having stalled so hard and even regressed might mean I should just move onto an intermediate program when that happens again. Also, since I no longer need to do cardio to reach the gym, I'm doing the program entirely by the book, without changing the squats to 1 set only.

  2. #2
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    Why are you planning on stalling out when it has not happened yet, and when your recovery conditions have improved?

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    Why are you planning on stalling out when it has not happened yet, and when your recovery conditions have improved?
    You're right, it is quite moronic to be planning on when I'll stall out. Since I'm in the same conditions as I was in that time stretch from September to January, I felt like it would most likely end the same way.

    To make this into a more useful question, I'll rephrase it into just "Should I push bodyweight up harder". Since I'm currently eating 4200 cal as before, it's probably safe to presume my bodyweight will stop increasing around the 85kg mark, I can't see why it wouldn't if I'm in the same conditions. So, would it be smart to continue adding food? I forgot to mention but I'm an 18 year old.

    Strength is certainly more important to me than "having abs" or looking lean, but I'm not sure as to what bodyweight number I should aim for. It would also feel like I didn't fully reap my beginner strength gains if I limited myself to staying around 85kg. I want to maximize LP but with my past stats at the end of LP being already relatively high, I don't know if adding 30kg bodyweight would actually push them up much higher.

  4. #4
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    All these bizarre assumptions...

  5. #5
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    It’s fashionable these days to over complicate things. Don’t fall victim to that.

  6. #6
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    It may sound like I am over complicating things, but I just wish to know what bodyweight I should aim for. I'll go through the process and if my weight stalls at a number that I feel like isn't high, I'll ask again at a later time whether or not I should increase my calories.

    I don't want to assume that adding 20-30kg bodyweight will make me much stronger than I am now so that's why I posted to know if I should try it.

    Thanks for the "reality check", I tend to plan out how my training and progress will go and it's a bad habit I've got to break out of. Better to just do the program one day and 2.5kg at a time.

  7. #7
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    Mar 2019
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elture View Post
    You're right, it is quite moronic to be planning on when I'll stall out. Since I'm in the same conditions as I was in that time stretch from September to January, I felt like it would most likely end the same way.

    To make this into a more useful question, I'll rephrase it into just "Should I push bodyweight up harder". Since I'm currently eating 4200 cal as before, it's probably safe to presume my bodyweight will stop increasing around the 85kg mark, I can't see why it wouldn't if I'm in the same conditions. So, would it be smart to continue adding food? I forgot to mention but I'm an 18 year old.

    Strength is certainly more important to me than "having abs" or looking lean, but I'm not sure as to what bodyweight number I should aim for. It would also feel like I didn't fully reap my beginner strength gains if I limited myself to staying around 85kg. I want to maximize LP but with my past stats at the end of LP being already relatively high, I don't know if adding 30kg bodyweight would actually push them up much higher.
    Young man, why are you aiming for a bodyweight? Aim to get as strong as you can right now, while conditions are optimal.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soule View Post
    Young man, why are you aiming for a bodyweight? Aim to get as strong as you can right now, while conditions are optimal.
    I'm not aiming for a bodyweight but since strength is my goal, my question is if I should continue to add more and more food in order to continue to get stronger.

  9. #9
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    Add enough food to recover from your training and make the numbers go up. Your bodyweight will sort itself out.

  10. #10
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    Feb 2020
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    starting strength coach development program
    Thanks for the help coach. I'll take the program one workout at a time and eat enough to continue getting stronger.

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