I am far from being the world premier PL but I am learning what works, what doesn’t and how to listen to my body. I am RAW lifter that uses knee wraps and belt and wrist wraps on bench.
I thought I would open for discussion, analysis in order for others to maybe learn and also give some feedback to Jim Wendler for his contribution
- FOR ME, as I progress through the small increases in weight I am finally at a point where in the past I would be doing singles for ME and now I am doing reps of 3 to 5 with the same weight. The hardest part for me in this case is the Mental aspect.
Pyschologically, I really have to push past this barrier, especially on the 3rd set. It is not the weight but me battling myself and telling myself this weight is not heavy and I can do more than 1 rep…Something I was not prepared for so I pass on to others be prepared to hit that point IF YOU STICK WITH THE PROGRAM
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As I get up in weight, I find myself having to space the training interval out longer from traditional 3X’s per week(7 Days) to as much as 10 days in order to recover. As I listen to my body, I am making higher gains in the first 2 sets of the prescribe rep-set scheme than the 3rd but I am still making gains (slow but a 5Lb increase is still progress).
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The hardest part so far is how much to increase for the next cycle. I have been hitting the rep-set scheme for the first two sets but the 3rd set I tend to fall short by a rep or 2. Maybe, smaller increments…Don’t know but I will adjust weekly.
That’s all I have. I train solo and I wish I had a training partner but oh well.
Open for others if want to chime in.
1- just got to get your mind right man, dont limit yourself to what your strength used to be, convince yourself that there is no limit to how strong you will become and this weight is just another stepping stone, because it is
2-as far as recovery, are you stretching, foam rolling, warming up properly, etc? If you are, u may want to look into ice bath or contrast showers or upping ^that stuff, also may want to look at your accessory work, maybe your doing too much and thats what is hindering your recovery
3- Im a little confused by this one, are you increasing it 5 and 10 pounds each cycle? If so, are u having problems with it being too high of an increase? If so, maybe try making it 2.5 and 5, or possibly your stalling and its time for a reset
[quote]SergeantQ wrote:
3) The hardest part so far is how much to increase for the next cycle. I have been hitting the rep-set scheme for the first two sets but the 3rd set I tend to fall short by a rep or 2. Maybe, smaller increments…Don’t know but I will adjust weekly.
[/quote]
I too am having trouble understanding what you mean and hope you will clarify. When you say “the 3rd set I tend to fall short by a rep or 2” do you mean “on the final working set of the 3rd week of a cycle, that is, the set of 1+”? If so, I assume that you are not falling 2 reps short of getting 1 rep, so is it that you are falling a rep or two below prior cycles?
If I understood you correctly, and you are still getting 3-4 reps in the 1+ set, I think you are fine and can just keep going until eventually you do not get the prescribed reps (or struggle too much to get them), but moving to smaller increments would not be a bad idea either.