End of novice progression for the press?

[Cargotruck]

Hey, I've encountered a problem with the press. I finally managed to progress to 1 plate on both sides at a bodyweight of 176lb after deloading at 115lb once and microloading since 90lb. I managed to hit the 132lb (60kg) for 5, 4, 3, and the last rep of every set was a true grinder, as were pretty much all my last reps since around 120lbs. Next workout with 132lb, I only got 2 and 1, then gave up and did a couple back offs with 80% of that. Now four days later, after resetting back to 115lb, one set of five felt tougher on the last two reps than I would've preferred, so I ended my presses there for the day.

I haven't regressed like this on any other lift so far, and it seems weird on presses since they're relatively light, yet my previous 4-5 press workouts were really balls to wall grinders so perhaps that has something to do with it. Regardless, my actual questions:

1) Should I deload more considerably next workout, and if so, how?
2) With 132lb being exactly 3/4 of my current bodyweight, should I even expect my novice progression to take me much further than that for 3x5 on the press? I am and have been gaining an average of 1½ pounds per week consistently for the last 2½ months and getting an average of 8.5-9 hours of sleep a night (I track these things almost obsessively). Still, this is only my second deload on the press. Time to change programming or try once more?

Thanks in advance.

[Clay Simczyk]

Age, sex, height?

[Cargotruck]

Age, sex, height?

25, male, 5'11.

[Royce Nichols]

Gain weight

[Royce Nichols]

And check out Andy Baker’s forum. he has good stuff on programming

[Cargotruck]

Gain weight

I will and I am at 1½ lb per week. I read Jordan suggest gaining 3-4 pounds every 2 weeks, though it was pointed out as a minimum, for a 150 lb 5'8 guy in another topic from this year, and his "To Be a Beast" article suggests eating around 3800 calories in the advanced novice phase with the example being a 180 lb 5'10 guy which is very close to my current state.

I have no problem gaining weight, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to go up at any higher pace than this just to get bigger absolute numbers.

Also I've been searching the forums including Andy Baker's section, but unfortunately didn't find a scenario similar to what I laid out.

[Adam Franklin]

Check out the adv novice section of Practical Programming for techniques to extend your LP on all the lifts. And, as always, get your form checked and answer the "first 3 questions" before making NLP programming changes.

First, are you doing the press 2.0? If not, you should learn it! That should let you progress further.

If you are already doing the 2.0, I would recommend switching to 5 sets of 3 across, and progress from there. Eventually, this will stop working and you can try a scheme where you do a top set of 5, followed by two back off sets at roughly 10% less, and try to PR that top set each session. Eventually, your press will have to move to an intermediate-type program like HLM, probably before your squat and deadlift stall.

Hope this helps.

[Cargotruck]

Check out the adv novice section of Practical Programming for techniques to extend your LP on all the lifts. And, as always, get your form checked and answer the "first 3 questions" before making NLP programming changes.

First, are you doing the press 2.0? If not, you should learn it! That should let you progress further.

If you are already doing the 2.0, I would recommend switching to 5 sets of 3 across, and progress from there. Eventually, this will stop working and you can try a scheme where you do a top set of 5, followed by two back off sets at roughly 10% less, and try to PR that top set each session. Eventually, your press will have to move to an intermediate-type program like HLM, probably before your squat and deadlift stall.

Hope this helps.

I did the 2.0 until 120 pounds, then switched to using a bounce at the bottom without any pause. For some reason I came to think that would let me handle more weight, but I didn't notice any considerable difference one way or another. I'll switch back to the 2.0 technique now and try to perfect it.

I've actually read of the 5x3 and the top set + two back off sets methods, but haven't implemented them on anything yet. Would you recommend the 5x3 now as I've reset the weight by 10%, or only once I get back up to a weight where I start missing reps?

[Adam Franklin]

I would stick with fahves for now because you are changing your technique. Once you fail, switch to triples and progress from there.

[blues]

Thanks to the OP for posting this and to Adam Franklin for his advice. Though I'm four decades older than the OP, I'm roughly the same size and I'm rapidly approaching the same situation on the press while still in LP.