Unlikely. You didn’t stop any kind of pressing for long enough to detrain.
A good rule of thumb is to ignore fluctuations in how much you can move in training. Many factors are involved, and unless you have an injury it can be very hard to pinpoint exactly what is causing a drop. [quote=“cstan097, post:121, topic:259604”]
but I’m wondering if there is ever a good time to do it. Should I wait till I have been lifting for x amount of time should I just find a competition and go for it
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Just go for it. Powerlifting isn’t strength training so training for a meet is a different process. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you’ll know whether it’s for you or not.
Watching out for it isn’t super tricky. You’ll notice when it’s there.
Grip is often a good indicator: if you find your grip is weaker than usual, chances are your fatigue levels are pretty high. Reps you can do for a given weight will drop too. A given weight will also feel heavier. Those last two are absolutely not indicators of a loss of strength. Fatigue masks strength.
Managing fatigue is simpler. You deload regularly. You don’t do more than the program requires. You don’t go heavier simply because you feel good. You also eat and sleep as much as possible.
Whether the seventh week deload is enough, I don’t know. I know I need to deload every fourth or fifth week at most, and that is without increasing my training max either. I suspect Jim’s first idea of deloading every fourth week is much better. That would be keeping your load at around 50 per cent during deload and ditching accessories and assistance too.
Everybody is different, but I’ve noticed OHP is by far the hardest hit lift when I take a break from it. I can miss one or two OHP sessions and the first time back is like Fischer price my first OHP.
Squat
5 x 220 lb
5 x 250 lb
5 x 280 lb
5 x 10x 220 lb
Superset
Pullups
4 sets x 5 reps x BW +15 lb
4 x BW +15 lb
Pushups
5 x 20
Cramp city on the squats. They were tough and I was on the edge of failure for sets 3 to 5. Found my groove on set 4 and 5 which made it better but still almost failed on the last rep of set 5. Pullups were off today. Was a little heavier this morning at 224 so that could have been why. I enjoyed the challenge but I am honestly glad that the weights are going to be lighter for two weeks haha.
So the top set on squats felt pretty heavy. Posting a video. I should be able to get 6 to 8 with this weight and bar speed looked good but it didn’t feel like I had any more in me.
Story time kiddos. So a man has plans to do a bench workout on Tuesday but he wife/training partner says they should wait because if is in the low 30s outside and she isn’t too keen on working out in below freezing weather. The weather app says it should be warmer on Wednesday, so what’s the harm in pushing it back. Whatever.so “Karen”, he says (her name isn’t Karen but he likes to call her that in situations like these, it’s an inside joke)," you have the best ideas, we will work out tomorrow." Come Wednesday it is in the mid 20s. Go figure. This story was going to be about how I was going to have to push bench till Saturday, but she just told me to get bundled up we are going work out so that’s awesome. I love my wife.
Bulgarian split squats
15 x BW+ 20 lb
10 x BW+ 20 lb
Barbell curls
15 x 45 lb
10 x 45 lb
8 x 45 lb
Edit: Great session today. Bar speed slowed down on bench in the middle sets but picked back up for the last few so I must have found my groove. Also I couldnt be sure if I had done 7 or 8 singles, so I did one more for good measure. Next week is going to be tough I am sure, but everything seems to be progressing nicely. I am considering whether or not I am going to try to run this for two cycles back to back. I am just wondering how effective it will be. I guess if something is working though then don’t mess with it.
I didn’t feel like 155 lb was getting any easier on rows but I want ahead and moved up anyways. Wasn’t too bad. Still kept strict form. Maybe wasn’t as parallel as I usually am.
