Stuck in a Plateau

Ok so I’ve been training for about 3 months now, generally using 5 sets of five, and have seen pretty good progress on all my lifts. However, for the past 2 weeks, I have been stuck on 140 for the bench press. Usually, I have been adding about 5 pounds a week. All my other lifts have been progressing. Is their anything I can do diferntly to continue to progress? Or should I just be patient.

Strength doesn’t always progress linearly e.g. week to week. It can come in spurts…growth spurts. So being patient is always a good idea tho in the meantime you should still endeavour to progressively overload in some form or another.

e.g. You could take off 20-25lbs off and hit sets of 6 or 7 and build back up. By the time you’re at 140 again you’ll be bigger and stronger.

Make sure you’re eating enough to grow.

Improve your form by watching vids on YouTube

When you start stalling out a lot then it’s probably time to change programs

Looking at that I’ll assume you are fairly light or tall for your weight. Would I be correct? If so gain some weight and strength will go up

Abs > Strength. Stay skinny. Set records in the 123s.

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Well I’m only about 5 ft 6 and last time I weighed myself I was about 122.
I assume I have gained weight since then because I’ve gotten stronger, have
gotten comments on how I’m “filling out” and have been eating roughly 3000
calories a day ( give or take a couple hundred depending on the day.

That’s a lot of calories. Be wary of bulking too fast. You can only put in so much muscle. If you your rate of weight gain is greater than this the excess will be fat which will have to be cut off later and in the mean time will be unfavourable for body composition/sexiness.

Is your weight on the scales trending upward over time? How fast e.g. 1 pound per week or more?

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Micro-load with some teeny weeny plates or ankle weights etc.

I have no Idea how much I weigh. I’m still fairly lean though and have
visible abs. I probably should have mentioned I’m 16 too

Kid ,two weeks is not what I call a Plateau

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Relax man. You have your whole life ahead of you.

Besides, in high school, most of the kids in the weight room were getting stapled with 135. Seems like everybody just assumed they could bench 250 for no reason at all.

I don’t mean don’t keep working at it, but don’t get crazy about a little bump in the road.

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Are you doing your rows and chinups too?

I would suggest being patient first, but if you are still stalling, you can start ramping your sets, if you already aren’t. For example, ramp to 4x5 until you stall, then ramp to 3x5, until a stall, 2x5 and finally working up to one top set of 5. Stick with each a couple of weeks, before you decide to drop a set. When, you stall on the 1x5, add 5-10lbs to your last achievable 5x5 and repeat the process.

Yeah you need to learn patience and perseverance etc

Anyway, another option -up the weight 10lbs and then stay there until can hit 25 reps…

New here. Need some help with my plateau. I am a 44 male, currently 195 and 16%. But honestly about 2 years ago I was 175 and 11%. Slowly I have been gaining with minimal changes to my workouts or menu. Currently work out 5 days a week, 20-30 mins of cardio, 60-90 min weights. I have been mixing up standard 3x10, heavy days, timed circuit, HIIT, and I am stuck. I eat around 2500 calories, with 200g of protein being the goal. Very clean. The weekends I might have things like bacon or pancakes but still within my calories. I am stuck and getting very frustrated.

Might help, if you would let people in on what your goals actually are… if any.

Stuck at 195 and 16% but I want my 175 and 11% back. And nothing I seem to do makes a difference. Not sure if this is an over 40 thing finally hitting or if it’s something where my body has gotten too use to what I have been doing. But maintenance isn’t even working anymore. I want my 175 11% back.

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Honestly IMO…your body probably has adapted to what your doing since you mentioned you have done minimal changes for the past two years, But honestly thats hard to say without looking into what your actually doing in more detail.

“Hey guys, I have been doing the same thing over and over for years and nothing’s changed. What should I do?”

Something different.

Don’t be crazy now.

Read pretty much any 5 articles on the tnation part of the site and go through a bunch of these as well especially the proper articles not just “tips”…Fat Loss Training - T NATION