Thomas' training log

[Sierraalpine]

Been doing SS for 6+/- weeks. Had been doing Stronglifts, stalled and thought it was time to do Madcow and did not progress. Scaled back to begin SS and have already gone past my PR 5 rep max.

This most recent workout was the first one I have completely stalled on. I'm attributing it to lack of sleep and food and hoping it was an anomaly.

12/15/15:
Squat 240# 3x3
Press 100# 3x3
Deadlift 250# 1x5

Another thing: I used to be able to bench 180-190 for 3-5 reps with relative ease, but have had trouble going past 160# on all programs. My 1RM right now is 195# where it was 225# 6 years ago. Progressions on all other lifts have been good, but I'm still stalling on bench press. Any tips?

[brkriete]

How old are you? How big are you? By what increments are you increasing your weights? Why are you doing 3 reps instead of 5? Are you gaining or losing weight?

[Sierraalpine]

28 yrs old/160#. Tough to gain weight because I hike 3-5miles/day for my job and am on my feet all day. Overall I've been gaining weight. Had been stuck at 140#-145# for years and finally ate a ton and squatted a lot to pick up 15#.

Increasing bench 5# per workout.

3 reps were because I failed my sets yesterday. Goal is always 5.

[Agilic]

How tall? You very well may need to be consuming a lot more calories than you currently are, especially to account for a physically demanding job.

[Sierraalpine]

5'9". This still doesn't account for why my bench has dropped off though. Before I graduated college (and lost access to free weights for several years) I weighed 145#, could incline 195#, and bench 225#.

[Agilic]

My comment was in reponse to you stating that your job makes it tough to gain weight. At 5'9" 160, you are borderline a candidate for GOMAD depending on your goals.

When you were benching those amounts, how often were you benching for what kind of volume and were you squatting/deadlifting?

Either way, I wouldn't sweat it. As long as you train hard and eat properly you will be fine.

[Agilic]

Also, how big of jumps are you taking and how long are you resting between sets?

[brkriete]

I asked about the 3x3 because I was surprised all your exercises failed at the same time and in the same way - if I only get 3 reps on the first set there's no way I'm getting 3 on the third set while conversely if I get 5 on the first set but just barely I'm probably going to go 5,4,3 or 5,2,2, or something like that. Seems weird that you'd get 3x3 on squat AND press.

Part of the explanation is that you're older than you were in college and spending all day on your feet isn't doing anything for your bench.

See about getting a set of microplates (1.25 lbs) and start increasing your bench by 2.5 lbs instead of 5 lbs a workout. I bet you get another month or two of progression out of that alone which will put you back in line with your previous bests. You'll also probably need to start microloading your press soon as well. And yeah a reasonable weight gain would probably help with recovery and progress.