New on SS (kinda) looking for a general comment

[Baltazar]

I'm following SS program but replaced power cleans with bent over rows. Ther rest si pretty much like SS. PC out and rows were chosen as the gym owner would not like me doing them. I don't have any other options to lift in a real gym but since the occasional clinging of deadlifts doesent bother him much i stick to this gym till i find an alternative.

Anyway,
Started a good month ago and so far there was a nice linear progression and stalled a bit on some exercises.
Starting stats:
Age 35, 190cm 88,6Kg (14%bf)
Started just a tiny bit conservative.
SQUAT: 60Kg
PRESS: 40Kg
DL: 50Kg
BPRESS: 60Kg
Pendlay row: 40Kg

After 1 month or so:
91Kg (unknown bodyfat +2% it seems)
SQUAT: 78Kg and struggling (deloaded once)
PRESS: 57Kg getting harder but i can feel there will be quite some progression left
DL: 95Kg (still going strong on these)
BPRESS: 80Kg (deloaded once)
Pendlay row: 65Kg getting harder and harder

The lifts are getting really really hard (not all) nowadays and i do not know if that is to be expected. I used to do 2min rest between sets and now employ 3 or a tad more. Tried 5min but did not make any difference apart boring me a bit.
Benchpress is stuck at 80Kg at 5,4,4

Eating habits are quite good as i was formerly eating like a BB would do.
Clean, high protein, some carbs (on training days way more) healthy fats, fibers and so on. About 200g+ quality protein per day. Estimating caloric intake around 3000+ daily. Otherwise running a pretty sedentary job and very very little other phisical activity to speak of so calories needed are less than the average joe.
Squats are by far the weaker point. These are hard as hell. The rest is pretty demanding but goes up.
I feel pretty good otherwise but on training days i have troubles getting enough sleep. I wake in the middle of the night and usually get away with 6-7h intermittent sleep, occasionally i do my 8h+ straight.

It seems everyone squats for 2+ times more than i do if i compare with general other lifts. What do i do wrong? My legs have improved drastically over the last months and grew like mushrooms after rain but i have to microload recently around 1,5Kg per session or i get stuck immediately. Often doing 5,5,4 in my sets.

Anyone experiencing heavy troubles with squat at such puny numbers?
Tried eating like there is no tomorrow (keeping it rather clean as normally possible) for a full week but made very little difference apart getting fatter faster (not overly bothered with that if i keep within 18-20%, can always diet later easily if i need to). So i reverted back to a really clean diet with no significant difference.

I do weighted dips of 2 sets, warmup and weighted 2 sets
I do chins also... 2 sets of 6,6 and going slowly up in repetitions.

I find it rather weird to stall on squat so early.?!?
Any advices you might be willing to share?
Thanks!

[Corrie]

How did you select your starting weights? It seems odd to start with your squat higher than your DL, and would make sense that you'd stall on the squat first when starting with those numbers.

[Carlos Daniel]

You need to eat more and rest more between sets, there's no way around it.

[MikeC1]

It's important to develop good habits early on in your lifting technique, to get the best effect and response from the exercises. It would help if you post some videos of your lifts.

Other than that, keep giving it more time, after just starting out, it may take more than a month before you start to see steady predictable progress. That's probably because of the different rates of adaptation of different muscle groups, and the slower (smaller) ones will just need more time to catch up. So just be patient with your squat, it's okay to repeat a workout a few times until it feels strong. If you're going into a workout still beat up from the previous workout, try using a light day, 80 or 90% of the normal weight. Try not to do that more than 2 workouts in a row though.

You'll need to rest longer than 3 minutes. If 5 is too long, try 4.

RDLs would be a much more useful replacement for cleans than rows.

[veryhrm]

1 month is still very early. As long as your form is good, just keep at it. If anything, your other lifts seem to have progressed more quickly than most who have posted here. Also, PCs are neat, you should add them if possible. Watch Rip's vid about iron plates and maybe show it to the gym owner. At least w/ lightish weights (say below 150 for someone your size) they are not hazardous looking at all and it'll be a good while before you get to that.

[FatButWeak]

Based on your use of kilograms, I'm assuming you are European. Based on your use of proper English, I'm going to assume you are from Britain. Both of these items are problematic with regard to your recovery. The water in Britain is notorious for being full of estrogenic compounds. This is the result up oral contraceptive widespread oral contraceptive use by the female British population. This means that you are getting more thank you with the proper dose of estrogen in your daily intake. This will negatively affect your recovery. Furthermore, your use of the terms "clean" the describing your diet and "healthy" or "good" thoughts dissimilarly problematic. What you mean by healthy fats? I hope you do not mean garbage fats such as canola oil. Make sure that you're eating plenty of good British beef, along with butter and other naturally occurring fats and oils. Olive oil is good for this purpose, as is coconut. Proper natural fats support an increase at Nachant the body's natural testosterone production. Use of garbage oils such as corn, soybean, canola and other "socially approved" healthy "healthy" oils will suppress testosterone and negatively affect your recovery. finally, look into performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids. I believe they are legal or semi legal in your nation. If true, the judicious use of performance-enhancing drugs can aid your recovery. I recommend an intelligent inquiry into the value and validity of testosterone supplementation, steroids, and other pharmaceuticals that can help you recover.

[Carlos Daniel]

I don't think it's nice to recommend to anyone that they should consider steroids. It's not a question of legality, it's a question of health and messing with your hormonal system. It's also a question of knowing how to train properly and eat well before even considering pharmacological assistance.

[FatButWeak]

True. But if he has to overcome estrogenic water..., test may be just the medicine for the ill.

Not my first choice for a recommendation, really (see my comment re beef and naturally occuring fats) but something I might consider if I lived in a toxic environment causing my body's own natural hormones to be out of whack.

See the film "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" for an entertaining and balanced discussion of the steroid debate.

[Carlos Daniel]

True. But if he has to overcome estrogenic water..., test may be just the medicine for the ill.

Not my first choice for a recommendation, really (see my comment re beef and naturally occuring fats) but something I might consider if I lived in a toxic environment causing my body's own natural hormones to be out of whack.

See the film "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" for an entertaining and balanced discussion of the steroid debate.

I really, really doubt your claims of estrogenic water in England. Unless you can provide a reliable source.

You think I haven't seen that movie? []

[spiderman]

Based on your use of kilograms, I'm assuming you are European. Based on your use of proper English, I'm going to assume you are from Britain. Both of these items are problematic with regard to your recovery. The water in Britain is notorious for being full of estrogenic compounds. This is the result up oral contraceptive widespread oral contraceptive use by the female British population. This means that you are getting more thank you with the proper dose of estrogen in your daily intake.

I'm going to assume you are using a phone that is correcting your typos because those last two sentences don't mean much. They might be funny but they don't make sense.