Weak Lower Back

Point taken. I’ll dial it back down a little. And no, I don’t do any type of cardio warm up. I just stretch and do plenty of warm up sets prior to my first “real” set.

I can’t offer much of anything else regarding your workout routine, but when my newbie gains started to taper off and eventually abate altogether, I realized I wasn’t eating as much as I should have been. It hadn’t occured to me because I was gaining so steadily during my “newbie gain period.”

If you are keeping a food log and know you are eating enough, then this is a moot point.

I’m keeping a food log just to make sure I get enough calories in a day. I’ve considered upping my calories further since I’m not gaining weight at a rate of 1 lb/week like I should be with the 500 calorie surplus, but I am gaining weight AND losing inches off my waist at the same time. I decided not to fuck with a good thing.

I don’t eat particularily clean by BBer standards, but I stay away from all junk food and empty calories. I get 270-300g of protein a day, and I try to hit a 37/37/26 p/c/f ratio. About the worst thing I eat is deli sliced sandwich meat on occasion, or maybe some wheat pasta with ground beef.

If you’ve been making progress and losing fat for six months, then your metabolism will be different than it was.

You should probably recalculate your dietary needs. I hate to say it, well not really, but you might need to eat more in order to gain more.

to the OP, I was in the same situation starting out: squats in particular magnifying my lower back weakness. Then I came across the following:


Since most beginners have a very weak low back and abs, here’s a possible combination. This should be done every training day after a dynamic warm-up but before the main lifting session.

Back raise, three sets of 12 reps
Med ball sit-ups, three sets of 15 reps

You will find that your low back and ab strength will increase greatly, even after doing this for only a couple of weeks.

(from http://www.elitefts.com/documents/back_raise.htm )


Over a year later, alternating sets of the 45-degree backraise and decline situps are still part of my warmup.

I was stuck at a 160lb squat and could go no where. That’s right - 160. I have very weak legs because of multiple sclerosis.

I changed my squats to box squats (toss the ego before starting these) with a wide stance to include glutes and hams more. I thought that weak glutes and hams might be holding me back.

It helped immensely. In less than a year I went from 160 to 250 for a 1RM. Not much, but for me - great.

Recently, I’ve gotten stuck at 225 for reps so I’ve added glute ham raise to my workout. It’s helping.

Perhaps making some changes like this can help you too.

Oh, and the stronger hams/glutes helps prevent low back injuries from muscle imbalances where the quads were overpowering them too.

Good luck getting past this problem you are having.

Definately agree with the GM, RDLs, Hypers recommendation and would even add some Glute Ham Raises in there as well. Part of the problem may not only be lower back strength. Check your glute activation and strength as well. When doing all of those suggestion supplementary exercises, make sure to focus on contracting your glutes and hams, as well as your low back.
-LH

[quote]vroom wrote:
If you’ve been making progress and losing fat for six months, then your metabolism will be different than it was.

You should probably recalculate your dietary needs. I hate to say it, well not really, but you might need to eat more in order to gain more.[/quote]

Just to follow-up on vroom’s comment, you might want to take a quick read over Berardi’s article on Massive Eating … I have successfuly used the Biweekly Appraisal when hitting these dietary plateau’s.

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/masseating_rl_1.htm

Cheers, Mick

Whoa. Bump from nowhere.

Yeah, after reading that article I found that I was eating about 700/cals under what I should be eating to gain weight. (I was gaining weight before, but whatever). It just blows my mind that I’d have to eat that much every day, and there’s no way I can do it cleanly. Oh well, I do what needs to be done.

I’ve added the extra calories, taken some time off, and changed my set/rep scheme, but haven’t been able to break through some of my plateaus.

My bench numbers have been flat, and I’ve only moved up maybe 10 pounds for reps on dead and squat in the last two or three months, but it does feel like the weight I’m using is more appropriate for me and I feel less strain on my back. In hindsight, I probably was using weights that were too heavy for me before.

Still, it’s frustrating to not feel like I’m making good progress.