Light day hassle

[Senguun]

Hi guys, when one stalls on the squat, what sequence does he follow to get unstuck, assuming he has taken care of the three questions? In PPST3 it is said that you can add a light day after a backoff period, but it is unclear to me if that means that one must add a light day immediately after resetting or progress three times a week before considering a light day (after resetting).

If it's the latter, when is a light day appropriate?

[wsmoran]

Light day would be on your middle day, commonly Wednesday. Continue to ride that out until you can no longer make progress. Once that's done look up Matt Reynolds recent 2-part article on Minimum Effective Dose for a great way to transition into intermediate programming, whether you take the Texas Method route or the Heavy/Light/Medium route, instead of just jumping straight into the new program.

[wsmoran]

Actually, now would be a good time to look up those two articles anyway.

[Senguun]

Hi wsmoran, thanks for taking your time! I understand that one must milk out his gains on a light day, but should it be implemented before or after a reset? E.g run out LP w/o resetting then add light day, or run out LP, reset then add a light day?

[Michael Grantham]

Ideally, the light day would be added just before the stall. However, most folks that are working alone are a poor judge of when they're going to stall and will add it too early and waste time.
Because of that, it's probably better for most folks to add the light day after the stall and reset.

[Michael Wolf]

Ideally, the light day would be added just before the stall. However, most folks that are working alone are a poor judge of when they're going to stall and will add it too early and waste time.
Because of that, it's probably better for most folks to add the light day after the stall and reset.

This. If you add the light day a week or two early, it's no big deal, but most - probably 80-90% of people - think things are getting "really hard" before they've even begin to involuntarily slow down. And so would implement the light day way too early. So don't trust your own judgement and wait till you stall, then add the light day back in when the weights on your ramp-back up are pretty close to where you stalled.

[Senguun]

Thanks for taking your time Wolf & Grantham. You've both reassured me that I need to man up and get my LP squat up. Much appreciated.

[Senguun]

While I'm at it... should one ramp back up with 5 pound increments or with 10 pound increments on the squat?

[Michael Wolf]

If you did a bigger re-set, you ramp back up with bigger increments, also till it gets closer to your failure point.

i.e. if you failed at 300, reset to 240 and the first week do 240, 255, 270. The next week do 280, 235 (adding in the light day here, at ~80% of your real work weight), 290. Then 300, 240, 305 and up in 5 lb increments from there.

[Senguun]

Gotcha... do you approach a 10% reset the same way you'd approach a 20% reset?