Of Noobs, Plateaus, and Routines

BW: 165#
Bench: 240#
Dead: 390#
Squat: 365#

That’s where I’m at, at this point. I’ve had either mild bronchitis or bronchiolitis (yeah, the little kid disease) for the past week, so I didn’t lift out of fear of getting something worse and being out of the game for months. I started as a hundred and forty pound kid unable to squat 250, but I worked my ass off in any way possible to get stronger. I did random shit on a Bowflex for a little while before I found the old Sherdog S&P; switched to Stronglifts 5x5 for almost a year, plateaued BAD; switched to Sheiko, and I’ve seen decent gains off of it until recently, where I think I’ve hit another plateau. I’ve done deloads, before that gets brought up, but the problem isn’t with recovery: it’s with overall strength. I don’t seem to be doing well off the Sheiko programs anymore. I’ve run them for aboutâ?¦thirteen months, or so.

I’m not a “hardgainer” or any of that bullshit, the insane volume and low intensity just aren’t giving me the results I want. It’s been forever since I went up as much as 5# on deads or squats. Bench has actually gone well, but I feel it could be better if I were using more intensity and less volume. I think that the lifting template I’m trying to draw up will let me use higher weights for fewer reps/sets, without running into the linear progression wall I did with Stronglifts. The plateau I hit there was weird - I wasn’t squatting that heavy, but I couldn’t add weight every week and expect to be able to lift it anymore. It was really more of a ravine than a plateau. I got set back from a 315 squat to a 260 squat, and I fought my way back from that by switching to narrower squats versus the wide ones I thought I was supposed to do. I hate to admit it, but I had S4 when I started lifting: Skinnyass Special Snowflake Syndrome. I thought that I could be different for the sake of being different, so I pulled sumo and squatted wide raw. I recently rediscovered that I know not a damn thing, and that if I’m going to get anywhere in this sport, it’s going to be by talking to guys who move a fuckton more weight than I do and listening to what they say.

tl;dr I made a routine based on that 24-50 rep principle from Chad Waterbury and I want strong motherfuckers to give their thoughts.

Day 1:

Bench - 155x5, 185x5, 210 3x3, 185x3, 155x5
Squat - 155x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x2, 305 2x5
Dumbbell Fly - 50 10x3
Decline Situps - 100x3
Chinups - 90 5x5

Day 2:
Deadlifts - 135x5, 225x5, 275x3, 330 1x10
SOHP - find weight; 25 reps
Decline Situps - 100x2
Ab Roll-outs - 10x3
DB Fly - 55 8x3
DB Curls - 50 8x3
(Note - the deadlift weight is low for now because I’m sort-of relearning the conventional stance)

Day 3:
Squat - 155x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x2, 315 2x5
Bench - 135x5, 155x4, 185x3, 205x2, 225 2x5
DB Fly - 50 10x3
Decline Situps - 100x3
Pullups - 90 5x5

Day 4:
Run 2 miles
Power Clean - 100x5, 135x5, 165 4x4
BOR - 135x5, 155x3, 165x1, 185 3x5
SOHP - find weight; 25 reps
Decline Situps - 100x2
Ab Roll-outs - 10x3

Why are you running 2 miles before your day 4 workout? I would think its better to do that either after the workout, or on a seperate day entirely.

Just from a quick look but your warm ups seem to be using too high a weight.

For example:

Squat
155x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x2, 315 2x5

Warm ups should not really be above 50-60% of your max.
The 3 reps and 2 reps should be building you up to your max but the starting 5’s should be sub 60% else you are using energy up before you hit the heavy weights.

For warm ups I do:

2 sets of 5 with just the bar
1 set of 5 with 40%
1 set of 3 with 60%
1 set of 2 with 80%
3 sets of 5 with 100%

(That is 100% of my 5RM not 1RM)

Sometimes I even do:

2 sets of 5 with just the bar
2 set of 5 with 40%
1 set of 3 with 60%
1 set of 2 with 80%
1 set of 1 with 90%
3 sets of 5 with 100%

Depends on how my body is feeling that day and how heavy the weights feel.

Also are you resting enough between sets? Getting enough rest and food? I thought I was eating loads but now I eat even more! lol

[quote]-sie- wrote:
Just from a quick look but your warm ups seem to be using too high a weight.

For example:

Squat
155x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x2, 315 2x5

Warm ups should not really be above 50-60% of your max.
The 3 reps and 2 reps should be building you up to your max but the starting 5’s should be sub 60% else you are using energy up before you hit the heavy weights.

For warm ups I do:

2 sets of 5 with just the bar
1 set of 5 with 40%
1 set of 3 with 60%
1 set of 2 with 80%
3 sets of 5 with 100%

(That is 100% of my 5RM not 1RM)

Sometimes I even do:

2 sets of 5 with just the bar
2 set of 5 with 40%
1 set of 3 with 60%
1 set of 2 with 80%
1 set of 1 with 90%
3 sets of 5 with 100%

Depends on how my body is feeling that day and how heavy the weights feel.

Also are you resting enough between sets? Getting enough rest and food? I thought I was eating loads but now I eat even more! lol[/quote]I rest plenty between sets, haha, about two minutes. As for food, I eat as much as I possibly can, then I go back an hour later and eat more. My college has an all-you-can-eat buffet as their cafeteria.

As for my warmups, thanks for the tip - I’ll edit that after I wake up.

To the other poster, I like to do a little run before I lift on days like that because I feels like it gets everything firing properly. In retrospect, I should move it to the end or a separate day though, just because my cardio is trash right now and I’ll likely be dead at the end of that run.

What are your goals? Strength? Power? Size?

As for Strength you can really rest as long as you need between sets up to 5-6 mins!

Also if you do your cardio before lifting you are already using up your energy stores. Hence nothing lift for lifting…

Notice how the common denomenator for these “new guy program” threads is a shit load of volume/exercises. You can’t be the master of everything. This is all over the place. Maybe your weights are going nowhere because your program is going everywhere. If you want to be bigger, be a bodybuilder. If you want to be stronger, be a powerlifter. Don’t be both because you can’t be both.