Rest between sets? Microloading? The First Three Questions | Mark Rippetoe
6 foot male, 235 lbs. 39 yo.
My squat was sky rocketing. I completed 385 lbs. for 3 sets of 5 and i remember saying to myself, that 405 lbs. will be very attainable. My next session, i missed the final rep on my third set of 390 lbs. No problem, I'll give it a go on Monday. I went 4-3-3 on monday and it felt HEAVY. Form broke down, just sloppy. Weight was pushing me around. I deloaded, as this was my first fail, 350 felt much heavier than i thought. My other lifts are progressing, but they are all on deload. I feel beat up. Not sleepy, but just not that strength that i have felt throughout the program. Even when I'm not training. My diet is plentiful, and has been, as this has been the main reason my lifts have really moved up. My sleep is sufficient and some. the only thing i can think of, is my stress has been elevated at work. Just hectic and a lot of, too many, decisions. Can low level stress like this, have this much of an impact on training? Or am i just beat up, and need to push through.
current lifts
bench press 240 3x5, stalled at 237.5 a few weeks back.
Press 160 3x5 stalled at 167.5 a few weeks back
Dead 400 1x5 stalled at 415 a few weeks back
Squat 350 3x5, stalled at 390 just the other day
Rest between sets? Microloading? The First Three Questions | Mark Rippetoe
Like a "you don't want to even load the bar and go through the hassle of the whole deal" kind of feeling?
Don't underestimate what job stress can do to you. I dealt with it for most of last year, on top of a new child and a new house. The work stuff carried over to everything. It is entirely possible; from experience I'd argue "yes," but will defer to others.
Have you added a light day on Wednesdays? How often are you pulling? Looks like you are still doing the vanilla novice set and rep schemes. You've done really good work; might just need a little tweak to get you back on track.
5-8 minutes depending on how I'm feeling, as far as rest. Micro loading upper lifts 2.5 lb jumps. I can probably drop to 1.25 pound increments, but upper lifts have been going well, not sure i need to drop to 1.25 yet. I pretty much have the 3 questions covered, I'm just more surprised at how I'm feeling in general, and on the deload weight with squats. Just feels heavy, and i honestly feel like I've lost coordination. I have no explosiveness.
Thanks for the reply, and encouragement. I do 20 percent drop off from previous 3x5 on squats every Wednesday. I pull 2x5 @80 percent of previous 1x5 on Monday, and Fridays I PR 1x5. Rows and chins on Wednesday. This was programmed by Wolf weeks back when we identified some upper back strength issues hurting my upper lifts. My DL numbers have shot up since doing this.