starting strength gym
Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Am I faking a stall here?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    38

    Default Am I faking a stall here?

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
    • starting strength seminar jume 2024
    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    These days, I am often having to do the same weight for two sessions. Often on the last set my style is not good, unbalanced, leaning forward or whatever. I am pretty strict with my record keeping so if I feel a rep was not perfect it doesn't get included as a complete rep.

    Therefore, my records look like this these days: (all in kg)

    5 x 90 | 5 x 90 | 4 x 90
    5 x 90 | 5 x 90 | 5 x 90
    5 x 95 | 5 x 95 | 5 x 95
    5 x 97.5 | 4 x 97.5 | 4 x 97.5
    5 x 97.5 | 5 x 97.5 | 5 x 97.5
    5 x 100 | 4 x 100 | 5 x 100
    5 x 100 | 5 x 100 | 5 x 100

    Usually when you see a "4" I have done a rep, but I am not happy with the style.

    Here's a video of me squatting 112.5kg (248lbs).

    • Any thoughts about my progression?
    • Is this still linear?
    • Am I right to not up my weight (and concentrate on getting the form right)?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Posts
    359

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jimmy9pints View Post
    Looks good to me.
    • Any thoughts about my progression?
    • Is this still linear?
    • Am I right to not up my weight (and concentrate on getting the form right)?
    IIRC if you're unable to complete 3x5 in three sessions, that's a stall. You seem to be adding weight every other session so you're still good.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    PDX, OR, USA
    Posts
    3,525

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jimmy9pints View Post
    I am pretty strict with my record keeping so if I feel a rep was not perfect it doesn't get included as a complete rep.
    [*]Any thoughts about my progression? [*]Is this still linear?[*]Am I right to not up my weight (and concentrate on getting the form right)?[/LIST]
    A rep is a rep, iffy technique or not. This game is supposed to be hard, and it's been said plenty of times that when things get heavy, form tends to break down. It's not really indicative of failure, so much as it is that you're pushing yourself. Unless all your reps are bad, you don't really need to repeat the weight, and anyway, if all your reps are bad, you're probably about to stall for real. So all you're really doing is slowing your progression unnecessarily, but I suspect you know this. Ultimately, if you wanna be anal about how you record your reps, and you are fine with a slower progression, go for it. Doesn't affect anyone but you anyway.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    38

    Default form over progression

    Quote Originally Posted by Ian Kovtunovich View Post
    A rep is a rep, iffy technique or not. This game is supposed to be hard, and it's been said plenty of times that when things get heavy, form tends to break down. It's not really indicative of failure, so much as it is that you're pushing yourself. Unless all your reps are bad, you don't really need to repeat the weight, and anyway, if all your reps are bad, you're probably about to stall for real. So all you're really doing is slowing your progression unnecessarily, but I suspect you know this. Ultimately, if you wanna be anal about how you record your reps, and you are fine with a slower progression, go for it. Doesn't affect anyone but you anyway.
    Thanks both for your replies!!

    The reason for this slow progression is that I am trying to put maintenance of technique over progression in weight.

    That's because when I was down near 1X body weight I was adding weight too quickly and technique really started to suffer and failures (actually dropping the weight) happened a few times. People criticised my technique in the gym and I thought I might hurt myself carrying on like that. Weights were too heavy for me to handle and technique was sloppy. Had to deload and build back up.

    I am now ~30kg past that point, but I just didn't want that to happen again.

    I'll try harder to stick to the linear progression according to your advice though. Cheers.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    St. Thomas, Ontario
    Posts
    4,277

    Default

    Quality reps are important (for safety and even loading for proper progress), but be very careful about getting into a deload cycle. Too many people seem to take weight off the bar in hopes that that will fix their form when all they really need to do is FIX THE FORM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •