5th Cycle, Trouble Getting Prescribed Reps for Some Lifts

I’ve been doing the 531 original program it’s been simple and effective and I’ve had great results. Every week I’ve hit more than the prescribed reps and I’ve broken PR’s every week taking the Deloads every fourth week.

Now I’m on my fifth cycle and I’ve noticed that I’m having a tough time hitting a PR for reps on some of my lifts. For example I overhead press 190 14 times couple of cycles ago when it was my 90%. But this time around it was my 85% to start off a new cycle and I only did nine reps. Could have been the previous five rep sets got heavier than previous Cycles?

My deadlift on the other hand continues to go up and I just feel like do you have to reset if you’re just getting the prescribed reps or just a little bit over? I’m looking ahead to the OnePlus weeks and I’m pretty positive I can hit the 1 + sets without any problem. Just curious if anyone else faced this. Thanks

How many rep PRs have you missed so far?

Last week 3. It was the first week of my fifth cycle. Bench I tied my previous PR and miss the 13th rep which would have been a rep PR, overhead press I did 9 my previous PR was 14 so I fail to break a PR on that and squat I only did one rep over the prescribed reps but I think I could have pushed it I just wasn’t feeling it that day and the deadlift I crushed it I did three reps over the five recommended and I felt like I could have done more.

I went in there tonight and set a bench rep PR so maybe I was just off a couple of days last week.

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Many people have to reduce the weight jumps for the overhead press. Particularly as you become more advanced and progress slows. 190 for 14 is damn strong so and because of that you can put more stress on your body during a workout than when you first started the program. Stan Efferding would probably ask you if you’re sleeping and eating enough. If your calories haven’t increase since you started then that could be an issue.

Personally I find Overhead press hard if I’m still generally gassed from a hard squat day because I find it difficult to stay tight. Which is key to pressing.

I assume you’ve read the book which answers this very question.