Ok that’s is what I have been doing. I typically go up in weight when I can get another rep or two with the current weight.
I try to be open minded as possible. I understand there are way more people who know more than me and have been doing this longer than I have. To dismiss their experience is ignorance. I am concerned with getting strong, not preserving my ego. Any time I feel big headed I just have to look at Arnold at the 74 Mr. Olympia, and I’m pretty humbled after that.
I rarely use anything but 45’s and 25’s. Every now and then I’ll use 10’s if I have a specific max I’m trying to hit, or I’m training a number I’ll see in competition. But for regular training purposes, and most rep work, I find trying to make linear progress through the use of micro-plates to be tedious and generally unproductive.
jpuckett: as others have said, your expectations for progress are not realistic. I’m actually very impressed that it took you 7 months to hit a weight that you couldn’t improve on after a few days. For reference, I hit a 620 lbs deadlift in April or May of 2016, have not stopped training, and to this point I have not done anything heavier than that. I’m not sure I could do 600 right now. Welcome to weightlifting. The land of stalling on everything eventually. Gains are slow, and often completely stagnant for long periods of time. Be patient. Eat well. Rest well. Lift often. And trust the process.
You’re strong as hell so you can get away with using just 45’s and 25’s. For someone that is much weaker or just beginning, lets say they only had access to 45’s and 25’s as well. How would you tell them to progress? Would you just go for a ton more reps before jumping up 50lbs?
For example with squats lets say our person can do 135lbs for 5x5. Would you say going from 5x5 to 5x10 with 135 before jumping up to 185 is ideal? I’m just curious how you would approach this for a much weaker person, because I agree sometimes I think using all those 2.5’s, 5’s, 10’s just become a pain in the ass.
For a month I tried using only 45’s, 25’s and 10’s. The one thing it DID teach me was NOT to be scared to take big jumps in weight. Definitely made me learn that one of the keys to successful lifting is not to be scared of the weight.
People get stuck on the idea that low reps are the only way to build maximal strength, and this simply is not the case. I LOVE the idea of working your ass off with 135, getting to the point where it feels like a toy, and then making a 50 lbs jump. I think that’s perfect.
The only people I would not suggest this sort of thing to would be people who can’t do 5x5 at 135 or more on a particular exercise. If you’re lifting less than this, then by all means, use lighter plates! Like if I’m working with a girl who has a 1 rep max overhead press of 80 lbs, I’m not gonna tell her to use an empty bar until she can do 5 sets of 10. That would defy common sense. And at the strength level you’re talking about, and even for myself, I’m not talking about removing the smaller plates COMPLETELY from training. It’s just a general way of looking at things.
My press has plateaued quite frequently. It happens.
1: A week is not enough time to worry about it
2: Do 5/3/1 when you totally stall on Starting Strength
3. Learn the deadlift. It’s the easiest lift. Rippetoe and others have videos about how to deadlift in 5 steps. He also has videos for the other lifts which you may want to look into as it sounds like you’ve been learning from unqualified people.
A bit off topic but how do feel about this paragraph from Help a Friend Get Stronger:
Get the book Starting Strength. Learn basic form - how to squat, press, bench press and deadlift. Follow Mark’s recommendations for learning the lifts. Mark is a friend of mine. Mark is also the best resource anyone has on beginners learning how to do the lifts and do them correctly. Do this for 3 months. Don’t change your diet. Don’t add in anything. Don’t take out anything. Just do this. Besides the lifting, I want everyone to do the Agile 8 EVERY SINGLE day. Doesn’t matter when you do it, just do it. In summary: get the book Starting Strength, do Agile 8. (Total investment $9.99 kindle or $24 hard copy.)
Poor Mark Rippetoe. He does suffer ever so much when people misread him. I mean, it’s not like the instructions could be any clearer or less ambiguous. I feel so sorry for him I’ve stopped using the term ‘shoulder press’.