Next Logical Progression

Training Powerlifting
1

I’ve been lifting hard for the last 3 months, and I’ve made a lot of progress(I lifted before that but I got injured all winter and then had lacrosse season) I was just doing an upper lower split, squatting once per week, deadlifting once per week, and benching 2x per week along with rows/chinups shoulders etc all in the same workout. I’ve pretty much just been picking a weight that i can do two to four times, doing it until I get six and then upping the weight. My lifts have gone up as follows
Bench - 185x1 to 205x4
Squat - 195x5 to 245x4
Deadlift - 305x1 to 355x1
Chin-ups - BWx2 to BWx6
However, I’ve made zero progress in the last couple of weeks, and I think its because i need to change things up. What do you think that I should do next?

Edit: Just so you know, my assistance lifts consisted of
Upper Body : DB incline bench, chins, rows, military presses, dips, and some curls.
Lower Body : Split Squats, Glute-Hams, Reverse Hypers, Lunges, various ab exercises.

2
3

Isn’t that program just linear progression with focus on Bench, Squats, and Rows, more or less what I’ve been doing for the past 3 months?

4

There ar about a gazillion combinations of x sets for y reps.

Decide what results you want to achieve then lift accordingly.

5

Nobody thinks that I should rotate exercises?

6

You haven’t given anything specific that would indicate that a rotation of exercises would be the thing to do.

Try this- Get a copy of “Get Buffed” by Ian King and read it, then get back to us with a goal and a schedule.

That will give you a comprehensive knowledge of how to manipulate the variables of a lifting schedule, and how to implement them to achieve a goal.

7

[quote]laxccm wrote:
Nobody thinks that I should rotate exercises?[/quote]

with your experience and numbers, NOPE, you do the basics as I see, and stick to them…

maybe switch some assistance work here and there, but there is no clear answer for that what to switch with what… just change bar for the dumbell ad vice versa, change the angle of the incline, stuff like that…

but at your level, even changing anything is not necessary… just put more effort into what you’re already doing, and change the sets/reps a little bit…

everything put together… you dont need RADICAL change at that level, whatever you change will yield results…

shit, even doing the muscle&fitness program hard enough will get you stronger if you’re a begginer… you still have a long way to go…

train harder,
gavra

8

And yeah, forget about “last couple of weeks”… i mean in sentence like my progress stopped in last couple of weeks…

be patient… there will be months without progress in some time, or with very little progress… and it slows down with time…

the sooner you realise it the easier it will go, just without frustration and train hard…

this is more like a tip, cause I see too many people freak out when they dont get PR that they start shaking things up and down, left and right, instead of giving it some time… before you know, they end up all messed up, frustrated what to do, they either quit or lose a lot of time to get back on track…

gavra

9

Change the sets and reps a little bit, it makes a huge difference psychologically and will allow you to maintain a linear progression.

I’m speaking from experience. I was stalling a lot at 3x5 just because I was sick of doing 3x5, so I changed my main lifts to 6x3 and I’m now making progress every workout again.

10

The Texas Method. You�??ll alternate between volume days, recovery days & intensity days on the Texas Method.

Volume: 5 sets of 5 reps with the same weight.
Recovery: 3 sets of 3 reps with the same weight.
Intensity: 1 heavy single, double or triple (1�?1, 1�?2 or 1�?3).
Monday volume, Wednesday recovery, Friday intensity. Always at least one day rest between two workouts. Train on Tu/Th/Sa or Su/Tu/Th if you prefer.

11

I know what my goals are Skyzyks, I’m not sure that’s the problem as they aren’t entirely lifting related; my overall goal is to play division 1 lacrosse in college. Lifting wise, I don’t want to do anything fancy until I can squat and deadlift at least 1.5 to 2 x my bodyweight.

For the record, I just turned 17, Im 6 foot 2, and 205.(Going into junior year of highschool)After I achieve these levels of strength I want to lean out and drop some fat while maintaining this strength, and then focus on my explosive and reactive strength to improve my speed and jumping ability.

In reality I think I might have just overreacted because I hit my first plateau and I’ve always been able to put 10lbs on my lifts per month without much trouble.

Edit:The only reason I was thinking about switching exercises is because I’ve been doing the same exercises for 3 months straight, and thought that if I changed angles or grip or something I would get better results.

12

[quote]derek wrote:
The Texas Method. You�??ll alternate between volume days, recovery days & intensity days on the Texas Method.

Volume: 5 sets of 5 reps with the same weight.
Recovery: 3 sets of 3 reps with the same weight.
Intensity: 1 heavy single, double or triple (1�?1, 1�?2 or 1�?3).
Monday volume, Wednesday recovery, Friday intensity. Always at least one day rest between two workouts. Train on Tu/Th/Sa or Su/Tu/Th if you prefer.

[/quote]

good thing, you can do it in a split like 3x3 or like in CTs Canadian PL Program (since you gave your numbers in 3 main powerlifts, i suppose this is what you want to improve)… with some assistance work added maybe 5 sets of 3/4 of the limit number of reps you can do on given exercise (assistance work being switched weekly or biweekly, not daily)…

which will not wear you out, will keep you fresh for next workout… assistance could be added for lats or triceps, or any given muscle that you consider weaker… not more than 2 assistance exercises per workout and not more than one per muscle/movement… so you can do chins and triceps movement or something like that…

not to heavy exercises… something with more muscle isolation and less stressful for CNS…

try it, I like the way texan method sounds, gotta try it sometime… for the moment I do a lot of movements with a little less sets per movement… trying out a little bit of everything, having fun before I start a real planned program…

gavra

13

[quote]laxccm wrote:
I know what my goals are Skyzyks, I’m not sure that’s the problem as they aren’t entirely lifting related; my overall goal is to play division 1 lacrosse in college. Lifting wise, I don’t want to do anything fancy until I can squat and deadlift at least 1.5 to 2 x my bodyweight.

For the record, I just turned 17, Im 6 foot 2, and 205.(Going into junior year of highschool)After I achieve these levels of strength I want to lean out and drop some fat while maintaining this strength, and then focus on my explosive and reactive strength to improve my speed and jumping ability.

In reality I think I might have just overreacted because I hit my first plateau and I’ve always been able to put 10lbs on my lifts per month without much trouble.

Edit:The only reason I was thinking about switching exercises is because I’ve been doing the same exercises for 3 months straight, and thought that if I changed angles or grip or something I would get better results. [/quote]

if you wanna play sports… good thing that you know you have to get stronger… you have, I can see, set your goals for squat and deadlift… but dont limit yourself on those… cause bigger squat and bigger dead will make you stronger in those and limited number of movements… increasing those lifts doesnt always means getting stronger… sometime improvement comes from other factors than muscle strength…

so, DO MORE MOVEMENTS… GET STRONGER IN ALL OF THEM, and on the way keep track of your squat/dead so you know when you achieved your goals… but dont just try to increase those lifts for the sake of increasing them…

at first I thought you’re training to improve squat/bench/deadliift… so I didnt quite understood what you want…

throw in some front squats, push presses, power cleans… if you do lower/upper split, you can subsitute those sometime with squats/bench/deadlifts for few weeks… or use them together…

do different variations of current exercises, like close grip/stance, extra wide grip/stance etc.

keep track of all the exercises you do, and get better in all of them…

when you hit your target/squat deadlift, you’ll see that you achieved much more than that…

dont chase those numbers for the sake of them… you may end up like the guys I often see… back squatting 200kg, cant front squat half of that… benching 180kg, cant press 80kg in behind the neck press, and stuff like that… they got too movement dependant… they’re good at movements they do, but the moment you change the movement, the strength dissapears…

of course this is not imprtant if you’re a powerlifter, where nobody giives a fuck how much you can front squat… but if you want to be complete developed… do more movements and get better in all of them…

gavra

14

RE: The link derek posted

[quote]laxccm wrote:
Isn’t that program just linear progression with focus on Bench, Squats, and Rows, more or less what I’ve been doing for the past 3 months?[/quote]

Yes, but it’s more structured than picking one weight and doing until you hit six reps. At your stage, I think something more structurally linear would work nicely for you.

15

[quote]laxccm wrote:
I know what my goals are Skyzyks, I’m not sure that’s the problem as they aren’t entirely lifting related; my overall goal is to play division 1 lacrosse in college. Lifting wise, I don’t want to do anything fancy until I can squat and deadlift at least 1.5 to 2 x my bodyweight.

For the record, I just turned 17, Im 6 foot 2, and 205.(Going into junior year of highschool)After I achieve these levels of strength I want to lean out and drop some fat while maintaining this strength, and then focus on my explosive and reactive strength to improve my speed and jumping ability.

In reality I think I might have just overreacted because I hit my first plateau and I’ve always been able to put 10lbs on my lifts per month without much trouble.

Edit:The only reason I was thinking about switching exercises is because I’ve been doing the same exercises for 3 months straight, and thought that if I changed angles or grip or something I would get better results. [/quote]

That is good, but as it was origionaly posted, not very clear.

I’d say that the advice still stands though. You have goals, but still need a comprehensive plan to achieve them.

Increasing your training knowledge at this point would be quite advantageous. It will put you light years ahead of the bench press/frat curl/quarter squatters. It will also enable you to implement and manage your own sport specific/needs based training.

16

Thanks for the advice everyone, Will definitely take advantage of it and post back in future months.