Lack of progress, help

[yangwenbin]

Mr Rippetoe,

I've started the program five weeks ago now.I' m a complete novice at this sport. I'm 35 years old, 5'7'', 143 lbs when I started. The first two weeks, my lifts progressed slowly at a rate of 5 pounds by training session. I ate 6000kCal a day during these two weeks. Then, being stuck in every exercise with fairly light weights(Squat:200lbs, deadlift:255lbs, bench:110lbs), I decided to increase my calories intake to 8000KCal. But my lifts only progressed by 5 pounds in the last three weeks...I gained a lot of weight, quickly, 26lbs, maybe 22 real pounds without the digesting food... But strength gain is still realy slow. I thought maybe I wasn't training hard enough, but each reps let me struggle and my last reps go to failure or are executed with bad form, so the weights may not be too light for me.I also stopped any other sport when I started, to give my body as much rest as possible. So, what should I do? Lowering the weight? Eating more?( I feel I can't eat much more!). Thanks for your advice.

[Mark Rippetoe]

No, you can't take your calories to 10,000/day. Since everybody else makes progress on this program, something is wrong with your programming and/or your technique, or you have ovarian cancer. I can't tell from here.

[Chango99]

That is a really high calorie intake for someone starting at 143lbs 5'7". I know eat more is tossed around here a lot but 26lbs in about a month is a lot. I gained weight fast and that was at a rate of 5lbs a month @ 3500 ~ cals/day.

[JimM]

Perhaps WHAT those calories consists of is the culprit?

[Rezart Erindi]

Mr Rippetoe,

I've started the program five weeks ago now.I' m a complete novice at this sport. I'm 35 years old, 5'7'', 143 lbs when I started. The first two weeks, my lifts progressed slowly at a rate of 5 pounds by training session. I ate 6000kCal a day during these two weeks. Then, being stuck in every exercise with fairly light weights(Squat:200lbs, deadlift:255lbs, bench:110lbs), I decided to increase my calories intake to 8000KCal. But my lifts only progressed by 5 pounds in the last three weeks...I gained a lot of weight, quickly, 26lbs, maybe 22 real pounds without the digesting food... But strength gain is still realy slow. I thought maybe I wasn't training hard enough, but each reps let me struggle and my last reps go to failure or are executed with bad form, so the weights may not be too light for me.I also stopped any other sport when I started, to give my body as much rest as possible. So, what should I do? Lowering the weight? Eating more?( I feel I can't eat much more!). Thanks for your advice.

I doubt you are really eating 8000 cals (believe, that's a whole lot of food), and people in general (especially skinny people) tend to overestimate the amount of food they eat. Could you post what you actually ate yesterday?

[morbidlyfat]

You're deadlifting 178% of your bodyweight after five weeks. That's darn close to an intermediate level. Same with your squat.

You're doing just fine. Keep doing what you're doing; it's obviously working.

[SanjayNait]

Are you sleeping enough? I'm fairly new at this, but I know that in the weeks I don't sleep enough, lifting comes to me much harder.

Sometimes the problem is mental as well. I don't think I could deadlift if I had to listen to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album while doing so.

There may be a problem if you're lifting with others. If you're lifting alone, perhaps you need others yelling at you to encourage you to finish a set properly. If you're lifting with buddies, many at times, instead of encouraging you the right way, buddies do horribly distracting things or get impatient and try to assist you in the lift before their help is actually needed.

You need to picture yourself a demon when you lift. Almost every serious strength trainee I know is a very friendly chap face to face and I think it's because they make it a point to expunge all their sins into a barbell.

[yangwenbin]

No, you can't take your calories to 10,000/day. Since everybody else makes progress on this program, something is wrong with your programming and/or your technique, or you have ovarian cancer. I can't tell from here.

I'm a male, can't have ovarian cancer and I think (hope) I don't have any other form of cancer...
I read again the programming chapter. It may be because I don't rest enough. I usually wait 3 minutes between sets, the gym is not heated and I feel waiting more will cool down my body too much...
I got confused about this matter, since you wrote "Rank novices are not typically strong enough to fatigue themselves very much, and they can
go fairly quickly, just a minute or two, between sets, since they are not lifting much weight anyway."
But further in the chapter it's written we should rest as long as necessary to complete all the 3x5 reps... I'll try to rest more between sets.

[yangwenbin]

That is a really high calorie intake for someone starting at 143lbs 5'7". I know eat more is tossed around here a lot but 26lbs in about a month is a lot. I gained weight fast and that was at a rate of 5lbs a month @ 3500 ~ cals/day.

I understood through Mr Rippetoe's "clarification" about calories intakes that not enough food will lead to failure, that's why I tried to eat seriously...Since I had no idea how much calories I should have taken to support effectively my training, I choose to start with the highest he recommended.

[yangwenbin]

Perhaps WHAT those calories consists of is the culprit?

Until I got my milk, meat, eggs...and meet my calorie goal,does it really matter ?