I have been doing SS for almost 3 weeks now, and I have been able to increase the weight on each lift by 5 pounds per workout. However, I just had my first workout where I failed to do all 3x5. How should I start progressing now? Some of my other lifts are close to failing, because I can feel it.
Can someone explain how I should be trying to progress? (i.e. every other workout, do same weight next time, etc.) I would like to know what to do when you cannot increase the weight every workout, if you guys could explain this for the squat and then the other lifts, since im supposed to squat every workout.
Also, how can you tell if your going to parallel on the squat? It’s hard for me to judge, and im worried that im not going far enough down on the last reps. I can feel my glutes working though, so does that mean im going far enough down?
The point of SS is to make progress on every workout. If you stall for more than one or two workouts, your nutrition and rest are both solid, and you can’t make sub 5lb increases do to equipment restrictions then cut your weight back and begin progress fresh.
Ask a more experienced lifter to verify your form.
Try to do the same weight again in your next workout. If you hit it, great, if not, back off and do a deload week. Really, you should probably deload in another week or so anyways, that will help you keep progressing. If that doesn’t fix the problem, try eating more.
If your hips are lower then your knees, you’re below parallel. Try doing some bodyweight squats in front of a mirror so you can see how low you get and get a feel for it, and it shouldn’t be hard to figure out whether you’re breaking parallel.
On a side note, you might want to try doing some mobility work if you’re worried about squat depth, or if you plan on lifting injury free for any real length of time. Foam rolling wouldn’t hurt either, and you might find that adding those two things in on a regular basis improves your lift numbers as well.
[quote]ninjaboy wrote:
Try to do the same weight again in your next workout. If you hit it, great, if not, back off and do a deload week. Really, you should probably deload in another week or so anyways, that will help you keep progressing. If that doesn’t fix the problem, try eating more. quote]
I hate to ask this, but how much weight do you do during a deload week, and how do you know when its time to deload. Do I deload only for the lifts that are stalling, or do I deload all my lifts?
Plan your deloads. With something like SS, I wouldn’t go more then 4-5 weeks without one. I normally shoot for 75% of my working weight, although if I was moving heavier weights and had a higher training age, I would reduce that further. Personally, I would deload all my lifts, but that’s just me.
However, coming out of the deload, I would use slightly less weight on my stalled lifts then before the deload, but go back to full weight with the ones that weren’t stalled. I’m sure someone with a little bit more time under the bar could give you some better feedback.
[quote]ninjaboy wrote:
Plan your deloads. With something like SS, I wouldn’t go more then 4-5 weeks without one. I normally shoot for 75% of my working weight, although if I was moving heavier weights and had a higher training age, I would reduce that further. Personally, I would deload all my lifts, but that’s just me.
However, coming out of the deload, I would use slightly less weight on my stalled lifts then before the deload, but go back to full weight with the ones that weren’t stalled. I’m sure someone with a little bit more time under the bar could give you some better feedback. [/quote]
So, a deload week is a week where you do less amount of weight then you can for the whole week? Then you jump back up to setting PR’s the week after that?
Pretty much. The point of a deload week is to allow your body a chance to recover and re-build before you subject it to high levels of stress. This helps with recovery, increases performance, and helps prevent over training.