Guidelines for reducing workout-to-workout weight increases

[plevien]

Can anyone share some guidelines on when to reduce the workout-to-workout weight increase. What would be a typical series, i.e. jumps of 10-5-3-2-1 (lbs.)?

Are decreases taken only after a reset that does not spur further progress? Or, is there some other reliable indicator? Are the increases ever reduced to proactively avoid a stall?

Any guidance would be appreciated. Apologies if this is covered in the second edition of Practical Programming. Thanks.

[tescott]

the idea is that you reduce the loading increase to proactively prevent a stall. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules. I guess its an art. Sometimes I've done it when things started getting really tough for a few workouts in a row, and I could 'feel' a stall coming on.

My experience as I moved from 2.5kg increases to 1-1.5kg and then to 0.5-1kg increases on the bench and press was that I would do so after I failed an attempt once. I got it the next time, then lowered my increase in weight. This was unless of course I attributed the failure to other factors such as sleep or food deprivation.

[IWillLiveFreeOrDie]

When you finish a workout, and think to yourself that you are going to have a really hard time going up 5 pounds on the next workout, then it is time to take a smaller jump.

You are going to know when it is time.

[gzt]

And it's really not worth it to jump smaller than 5# on the squat. For the press and bench press, it's easier to start microloading than to find out you should've microloaded because you got stuck after your 5# increase. Don't get greedy.

[Dastardly]

Theres some good info about this on the wikia:

http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wi...nd_Progressing

[plevien]

Thanks for the replies. I will reduce the increases to avoid a time-consuming stall. Obviously, a novice does not know his abilities well and the workouts are supposed to be challenging. So, this involves some judgment, but can easily be done.

[plevien]

Just to close out this thread...

This topic was addressed in the Incremental Increases article in the Resources area:

"It is rare to find an untrained individual capable of squatting their own bodyweight on the bar for five. The second workout for either of these guys might take a 20 lb. jump, maybe, but the next five to ten workouts will be 10 lbs. After this the 10 lb. increase will get very hard, and last workout of the 10 lb. jumps will be heavy to the point of near-failure; this will likely be the trainee’s first experience with a weight that presents an actual challenge to his ability to lift. The jumps after this will be 5 lb."

http://startingstrength.com/articles...s_rippetoe.pdf

[simonsky]

amen