Had some horrible squat and deadlift sessions after doing well for about 9 months and no resetting. I decided to reset with 10% less. Then that 1st week back on the new cycle I was missing the required reps again. Now wondering if I should reset another 10% down.
Jim has suggested that you do 5 cycles and then go back 3.
You’re probably either 1) tired, or 2) you peaked.
I peaked last year… It was pretty demotivating repeatedly going into the gym and failing lifts I made easily a month or two before. In the end I wound up dropping my lower body TM’s down 100lbs each and upper body TM’s down 50lbs each. It may seem excessive, but it’s re-motivating when you start destroying old rep-PRs and it gives your body time to heal and recover while moving the lighter weights.
The sub-maximal effort thing works… You don’t need to be at or near your maximum to keep making progress while on this program.
I agree, when you stop being a little bitch about having to take a few steps back, that’s when you know you are serious about things and are no longer driven by your ego but by your passion.
I make the best gains when I hit 10-12, 6-8, 4-6 on 5, 3 and 5/3/1s week respectively. 5/3 resets in that range is the ticket.
If I may add,
the 75/85 volume work worked great for me when I was in this situation. It is pretty different and kick started me again. Like Jim says, it’s sub-max training at its finest.
I agree with the above, i felt the best when i could hit a couple reps more than the required on the + sets. Training at or near your max will beat you up after a little while, once you reset its almost refreshing to have lighter loads for a while.
Thanks it sounds like I peaked out. I was not able to make 420x5 deadlift but about a month earlier I did 465x11. But the wierd thing is my bench is still making fantastic progress. I have bumped down 20% on my sq/dl and I will just build up slowly again I’m sure in a year will peak past where I was.