Bodyweight on the bar barrier

[Kyle Schuant]

Training people, I have found that many get to somewhere around squatting their bodyweight on the bar, and chicken out after that, giving up strength training. Is this common?

If I can get people to the level of actually doing barbell squats on a regular basis at all - which is not common, though not as difficult as some of my fellow trainers like to make out - I can usually get them to progress to squatting with something around their bodyweight on their back in a couple of months at most. As we start going past that number it's very common for the person to "get sick", to say "my back hurts", for them to simply miss training sessions without explanation, and so on.

As I see it, bodyweight on the bar is when it starts to actually feel heavy, it's when you really have to have good form and brace well and so on. You definitely cannot any longer fuck around. So they get scared. They back off, make excuses, give up.

Since I started at the Y in late July last year, I have seen this happen with perhaps 30 different people, some my clients, some simply gym members I helped out.

Is it just me? I figure if anyone can tell us if it's common, it's you, Rip.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This is the behavior of the general public that buys a gym membership. I had not noticed that it was related to a bodyweight squat, probably because I am jaded -- I am surprised when anybody sticks with it. I can't see that it would correlate with bodyweight anyway, since smaller guys are stronger pound-for-pound that big guys. But this may be the case for bodyweights in the 200 lb. range.

[mstrofbass]

For me there's always been certain weights for each exercise where the weight feels much heavier than the previous increment, and I never really "get used to it". It always feels much heavier. It may be purely psychological, but it's definitely there. Perhaps your trainees hit that point, and gets afraid that the weight is going to feel like it's getting exponentially more difficult.

[Gunnhild Bruno]

Maybe they're sick or injured.

Sounds like the point at which one needs to start paying extra attention to eating and sleeping, otherwise things start to break down. Not something that most people are willing to do. The young would rather go out late, drink too much, and give up sleep to make time for fun. The ambitious would rather work hard and play hard rather than get 9 hours sleep. People with families never seem to sleep or eat right. And then, of course, everyone is deathly afraid of eating enough to get stronger because it also can make them fatter.

For many people, it's not just the going to the gym and working out that is the problem. It's the lifestyle changes they need to make to support continuing progress.

[Frankie]

Kyle, I have not been training long and am on my third reset due to all the things you posted, once I get to a +110%(ish) bodyweight back squat, I tend to hurt my back, hips, knees and get severely sick.
From my point of view, and as you have implied, it's probably just the trainee coming to the end of novice phase, the program and gravity simply become far less tolerant or less forgiving of shortcomings - form, diet, rest - you know, the things you want to underestimate when you start out.
I know novice/intermediate isn't dictated by poundages, but that bodyweight range seems to be some kind of broad magic barrier, I think I recall the Stronglifts program using it as a signifier thats it's time for Intermediate programming.

[valan]

Adding a few cents as a Trainee.

I weigh 205 and just squatted 235 this last week. A few weeks ago when I broke BW on the squat, psychologically it seemed like a very big deal. I also started getting some back pain and other things were bothering me. I found a local SS-qualified coach (Alex Cibiri - excellent coach I might add! ) and fixed my silly squat issues and boosted my confidence. Now I feel much better progressing. For me, it took a little bit of time to get used to the weight because it really is "not fucking around any more" in the simplest sense. For me as an untrained person, moving more than my body weight was intimidating. Now when I finish my last rep, I have the biggest grin on my face because I'm now stronger than I used to be. Guys at the gym ask me if my back hurts when I squat but won't listen when i tell them what I'm doing or where I learned it from.

I'm going nuts thinking how awesome it will be to get to 315 (3 big wheels!). I'm sure I'll feel the same about 405 once I get to 315.

I'm still weak, but working on fixing that problem too.

Thanks for the program Coach Rip.

[This Old Man]

Bodyweight squat and bench press were huge barriers for me. I started out weak and old at a bodyweight of 175 lbs, and 175 was where I failed first on both lifts.

I was stupid, though, and still trying to make 10 lb. jumps on the squat and 5 on the bench. Resetting and switching to 5 and 2.5 lb. jumps solved the problem, but I was also *really* pissed off and determined not to fail at that point.

First-time bodyweight squat hurt, a lot, at least for me. The sessions leading up to it were all a fight, and I suffered grievously from muscle soreness and tendonitis. Once I got over that hump, though, further progress was easy by comparison.

[cpbellavia]

That's because 300 lbs is always going to be 300 lbs, believe or not. Whatever your "threshold", it will always still feel pretty heavy and suddenly require more strength. That's the beauty of getting stronger. The weights don't get lighter...they don't feel less heavy...you can just lift heavier.

[Troy-SBCF]

Hmm, and interesting theory. Maybe my success with the program was because I started my linear progression at 5lbs above bodyweight, and thus skipping my theoretical mental limit?

[ChuckBell]

I was always excited about closing in on my BW squat. Finally at 200 lbs. I did 1 rep of 205 and was feeling great about it. Next time out I did 200 x 3, x 2, x 2 and was disappointed that I couldn't get 5 reps. I felt wiped out. I deloaded to 185 next time and 1 set of 5 felt like 205. The next workout, after doing 1 rep of 185 I felt exhausted. I figured I had overtrained and failed to recover, so I moved to TM and am working my way back to BW again, but now it looms ahead like a psychological barrier. The change surprises me. I'm no less determined to get to it and press beyond it, but even though I've "broken" the BW barrier before, it still seems formidable to me.