Relatively new to lifting and have been doing 225 for 3 sets of 5 reps for about a month or 2 now and cant seem to break the plateau. Anyone experience anything similar and how did you get past it? Keep in mind I’m trying to maintain my current weight of 190 while gaining strength so I’m not trying add a ton of extra calories.
Thanks for any and all input!
(Squat starts at 30 seconds)
Looks like you can do more than 5 reps ez tbh. If you feel you are stalling look to your training and recovery.
For training you could push for more reps per set or do 4 or more sets of 5. Or bump the weight up 5 or 10 lbs and drop the reps and work at that for a while. Conversely you could drop the weight 40-50 lbs and hit higher reps for a while and gradually build back up, hitting rep PRs and by the time you have built back up to heavy weights you should be stronger
Even if there’s no caloric surplus you can improve recovery by sleeping more and this could lead to better adaption to bust thru.
It looks fine. In the future, if you’re going to bother filming, I’d suggest moving the items that block large portions of our ability to view it.
Idk about most people, but for me maintaining and gaining don’t exactly spell quick gains.
I ate like a Russian god for 4 months (2lbs chicken breast a day, lots of oatmeal, sweet potatoes and protein shakes made with whole milk) and gained ~25 pounds, and although I gained a good bit of fat, my pants size never changed so not too much lol. I was a newb and I was eating right and lifting hard and heavy (for me), I was setting PR’s every gym visit for a while. Things slowed waaaaaaay down when diet got a little sketchy, and now that I’m in a caloric deficit, progress via poundage increase has pretty much stopped as well.
Eat REAL food, and enough of it and your lifts will sky rocket. The newb gainz train is real. Feed that mother fu#%£€ the coal it wants!!
After rereading so you have been using 225 for 3 x 5 for two month? At your current level I can see no reason why you haven’t added more weight on the bar even 5lbs. To be honest I would say the issue is more mental than physical.
I agree with bulldog on this one in that we can’t really judge depth and mainly that the stalling seems more mental or programming based and if you want to improve your numbers you need to increase the reps you do at said weight or increase the weight. I will say that what I could see on form it looked pretty solid although I personally try to keep my neck inline with the angle of my back to not cause excessive neck strain but that might not be what’s best for you. I do think that a program that forces you into those other two ranges and focuses on progression would be ideal for you at this stage though, something simple like 5/3/1 for example