Technique had to be corrected, the total reps had to be reduced, and he had to be encouraged to eat more protein. He came in and advanced as a fairly typical case. He was stuck at a 245lb squat after multiple resets (reducing the weight and ramping back up).
When Scott emailed me four months ago, he had been doing Stronglifts 5x5. Even if they had coaching in the past, technique drifts over time which is why all trainees should have a coach (or at least video tape their lifts). I've never seen someone come in for help with flawless technique. It also gives me time to fix their technique before the weight gets heavy again. This dissipates any accumulated volume that is plaguing the trainee. At the same time, the number of total reps is not so low that the stress is insufficient to drive progressĢ) I reset (decrease) the weight on their lifts This helps because the total reps is more appropriate for a novice's current ability to recover from stress. When a lifter who has been stalling on Stronglifts comes to me, I apply two changes.ġ) I switch them to the Starting Strength noivce progression - Starting Strength is similar to Stronglifts except that it uses 3x5 instead of 5x5 for the squat, press, and bench. This is not overtraining, but rather too much stress for the trainee to recover from.įortunately, there is an easy solution. This is readily apparent in the way the trainee talks about their training: The main cause of this is the inability to recovery from the stress imposed on the trainee by the 25 heavy reps.
I have not ever heard of someone (in real life) making progress on Stronglifts longer than three months unless they started at extremely-artificially low weights. Stronglifts plateaus in one to three months. These workouts alternate for three workouts per week and adding weight each workout. If you are unfamiliar with Stronglifts 5x5, the idea is to squat 5x5 (five sets of five reps), bench 5x5, barbell row 5x5 on the first session, then squat 5x5, press 5x5, and deadlift 1x5 on the second workout two days later.