Missing Reps

[Mark D]

Coach Rip,
In a recent SS Radio video on Youtube you discuss how to dump a squat, and whether you ought to give yourself permission to miss a rep. Under what circumstances in training (as opposed to competition) would it be acceptable to skip a rep? Suppose, for the sake of supposing, you're doing squats and you could feel your form slipping on rep 4, should you rack it after rep 4, or descend into the hole and, if the form breakdown worsens on rep 5 lower the bar to the safeties? I assume that in training you wouldn't push a rep thru a serious form breakdown and risk injury, correct?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Depends on your spotter situation. If you feel an injury occur, rack the bar or give it to the spotters. If you feel your form slipping, try to fix it on the next rep. If you complete the rep with very bad form, stay at that weight next workout. If you actually miss the rep, spotters take it or you set it down. If you bail because you feel as though the form is bad, you have decided that you'd rather not challenge your ability. Slippery slope, etc.

[Jared Nessland]

Coach Rip,
In a recent SS Radio video on Youtube you discuss how to dump a squat, and whether you ought to give yourself permission to miss a rep. Under what circumstances in training (as opposed to competition) would it be acceptable to skip a rep? Suppose, for the sake of supposing, you're doing squats and you could feel your form slipping on rep 4, should you rack it after rep 4, or descend into the hole and, if the form breakdown worsens on rep 5 lower the bar to the safeties? I assume that in training you wouldn't push a rep thru a serious form breakdown and risk injury, correct?

Another reason why a common theme on these forums is "get a coach." Unless you are an experienced lifter, you don't get to make that decision.

[Nockian]

Depends on your spotter situation. If you feel an injury occur, rack the bar or give it to the spotters. If you feel your form slipping, try to fix it on the next rep. If you complete the rep with very bad form, stay at that weight next workout. If you actually miss the rep, spotters take it or you set it down. If you bail because you feel as though the form is bad, you have decided that you'd rather not challenge your ability. Slippery slope, etc.

I'm using 4x3; 4x4; 4x5 progression programme (Bench) using the same weight on HLM.
I had bad form on each of the 4th reps of the 4x4 and on the next session, subsequently failed the last rep of the 4x5 (properly failed the spotter had to help). I was wondering if I should hold the reps at 4x4 for a second week before retrying the 4x5, or to reduce the weight slightly ?

[m_sporkboy]

Given how much bad squatting I saw when I used to work out at a YMCA, and how few of those people (i.e. none) squatted themselves into a wheelchair, I kinda feel like the human body is a pretty resilient machine and humans should really not worry about proper form quite so much.

I mean, form is important, but 95% of the time people when rack the bar because form was bad, or keep the weight at 165 for three weeks to work on form, or otherwise obsess about it, they're making a mistake, right?

Olympic weight lifting is 5000 times safer than soccer, and nobody takes a week off to work on their ball-chasing form.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Finally, we see the new idea that technique is really irrelevant posted here. Collect your bonus!! While it certainly makes online coaching much easier, it also always leads to half-squats and shoulder injuries, and stalled progress as the Four Criteria fall away into irrelevancy as well. Proper form should not be worried about by people who are primarily interested in abs, but should absolutely be paid attention to by people who are actually training for strength.

[Ivan Stepic]

but should absolutely be paid attention to by people who are actually training for strength.

I think this is the main issue. The default context should be training for strength. If the context is fucking around, then sure, don't pay attention to technique.