Are we progressing properly?

So this is something I've been thinking about a lot recently and been incorporating into my own training, we obviously as martial artists tend to focus more on strength gains than most else, using common rep schemes of 5x5 with the main focus being adding weight to the bar.

I propose that most of us are being a little hasty with that weight, myself included.

The general advice is when you hit 5 sets of 5 reps (or whatever your scheme) to ad weight for the next week, to do another 5x5 or a 3x5 working up to the correct weight. Most anyone I know who has out any kind of time into these kind of linear progression program's stalled out eventually, taking HUGE steps back in 'resets' to bust through their platau.

I spotted a guy today who hit his 5x5 but ground the hell out of his last two reps in any set, when I asked 'what's the plan next week' he answered "add 5lb and go again"

I'm of the impression now that one should only progress in weight once they hit their 5x5 (or whatever) and really crush it, with near perfect control and good bar speed on every rep. I honestly beleive that training in this way will mean that linear progression would carry on for way longer, we'd get injured less and we'd get a lot bigger.

To me this means all presses being paused, both bench and strict, a 2 second pause at the bottom and 1 at the top shows that you control that weight, not the other way around.

Deads again are pulled with good speed, with a dead stop and a pause at the top, squats are with good speed and form.

Things have looked like this for me:

Week 1: hit my 5x5 damn near killed me, no reps in the tank and grind on 2-3 reps per set, backside came of bench on last rep or two
Week 2 hit all 5 with a rep in the tank, didn't pause still hard but felt better than last week, backside stayed on bench.
Week 3 paused first 3 sets, 2-3 reps in the tank, bar moving faster now
Week 4 all reps paused, 2-3 reps in the tank and I don't feel to spent afterwards.
Week 5 add weight or have one more session to ensure you really own it.

Yes progressions are slower, but the paused reps are having a huge benefit to my training and pysique and I'm not feel particularly beat up.

Anyone else doing the same or have much to add?

 

Well then that's not really linear progression anymore. Personally I think sticking with linear progression as long as possible is going to be quicker at getting you to the point of being able control huge weights. Get big weight up ugly and make it pretty later. Actual power produced is still going to be high if you're moving big weight slowly rather than small weight quickly.

If your goal is to just get stronger or bigger, then a paused bench is just a tool in the toolbox. If you want to compete at some point, then a paused bench is going to be a staple.

For most goals 10x0 is going to be a great tempo.

As you progress, a lot of intermediate to advanced programs have speed days to great effect, but in my opinion, beginners are not going to be well served by doing much else that going for weight on a few core compound lifts.

 

Last night I met up with a friend and we discussed training. He said that a theoretical Deadlift 1RM of 310kg was ridiculous (based on 32 reps at 110kg). I've been experimenting with 5x5 for a couple of weeks in Squat and Bench and it has some merits in solidifying technique, paused reps are good too for competition prep but I feel that learning to do a fast rep is better for strength gains. If you train a slow rep when the weight is increased you're more likely to hit failure, and I wonder at intensity when doing reps at 80ish%

 

I'm not saying move stick till you can pause, the pauses are a personal thing, call it ego lol.

I just think it may be a little hasty to move up when the bar speed at the last weight was a massive grind then linear progression is going to stall reall quick IMO, not to mention the increased risk of injury.

Does that make more sense lol I'm terrible at putting points across.

 

On bench I just had a slow rep on the last set of 5x5 otherwise they were all down 1 up 1 the only real difference between sets was where I took a breath. On first set all 5 reps on 1 held breath, second set it was 4 and 1, third and fourth set on 3 and 2, fifth set 2 and 3 I think not exactly a plan. I may try it again today with a 3 and 2 throughout and see if I can keep a better speed from the bottom across all 25 reps

On squat I'm trying out a lower bottom position and speed too at 60-65% but haven't got a lot of consistency across all 5 sets, if anything I still need to get all 5 reps in a set looking and feeling the same so there is a lot of work to do there, but I do like after to up the weight and lower the sets and do something at 85-90% or feel I'm going to lose the feeling of what a heavy weight on the bar is to me. Mark Bell's latest video had an interesting explanation on training for depth. After his famous 1080lbs fail (I posted this recently on my Training Log 'Powerlifting: The Mentality') he has pushed his raw squat and talks about a squat dip - going to near parallel, pushing the knees out which gets external hip rotation dipping below parallel to get a stretch reflex and pushing up at that point. I like that as an idea to work on.

 

I get what you're saying. The way I do it is I'll only go up in weight on the bar (for really hefty lifts) after I repeat that lift at least 4 times (usually 4 weeks) in a row. Minimum.

So for example with a Deadlift. Let's say I was at 300 kg. And I ground out 2 reps on week 1. I'd stay at 300 kgs for my top lift until I can get 4 reasonably easy reps. That may take me 6 weeks to accomplish.

Once I can do it for 4 reasonably easy - Only then do I add say 2.5 kgs. And then repeat the process by doing 2 reps.

I want to get my CNS to adapt to the load. I also want to make sure all my bits are used to handling something that heavy.

So with Deads my main concern is Traps Integrity. I know my legs and back are easily strong enough to handle much greater loads. And have done so when I was a bit heavier.

But if I don't like the way my weakest links are performing then I'll wait for them adapt. I might also do specific lifts/ exercises to 'bring them up to speed'.

And yes you're right. It's a slower process. But I enjoy it.

A year or so ago I got sick of just doing really hefty singles. So I don't bother with doing singles anymore. I just think it takes the joy out of what you're doing IF you always feel obligated to lift really heavy.

I sometimes experiment with lift speed. Sometimes I pause it etc. But mostly I just go as fast as the weight'll let me.

So my squats tend to be fastest, fast, pretty fast, middling, quite slow and slow. If I'm doing say 6 sets of back squats then I'll resist the neg (slow drop) on at least the first 2 or 3 sets. And explode up as fast as poss on the pos.

I only go to a max of about 90% (of my 1 rep max). And often more like 80 to 85% for my top sets. I want it to feel hard to do but not blood-vessel busting.

A guy I train with every 3 months or so is always getting nose bleeds from really lamping it.

I've never done that. Partly because I've evolved it that way. And now moreso because I've read a lot of work by the olde timey strongmen (Louis Cyr, Hackenschmidt, Saxon, Thomas Inch, Maxick etc) recently.

Good Luck

 

someone's been reading lift-run-bang

it's really common sense, if you look at it. if you can lift a weight faster and/or better than you could before, you got stronger. if you can't lift a heavier weight, check if you can lift a lighter weight better and/or faster, and then try again. if that fails catastrophically, periodize.

 

i killed my triceps over last couple of days, possibly from band pulldowns and grip sets (i think i did 6 x 8 left and right while watching youtube last night) so when i got to the gym i could barely do a shoulder dislocate with my bands... anyway

Squats: not consistent across all 25 reps, i got close to missing a couple and felt i needed to push from my mid foot or i was going to fall back coming out of the bottom, i dont know if it was just end of week tiredness, looks like i'll be staying with 60kg a while yet.

Bench: oddly enough the CGBP felt pretty good with the same weight as my normal bench, a couple of sets the last rep had to really push it but with single breaths and keeping my arch the weight didn't seem a lot more considering there was a lot more range of motion, a rung higher on the rack. form has improved a little but can be compromised in multi rep sets by losing the arch, the tightness and when to take the breaths

Deadlift: not too shabby, I could have gone heavier but was at the gym a long time by then and 120 went up easy for 3. light weight light weight

 

I'm all for a more conservative approach to lifting. Most trainees starting out with 5x5 are so focused on seeing their loads go up that they neglect form. Too many times I've come across people who got to a certain point and then POP! there goes a knee, a shoulder or a disc. My rule of thumb is to stay at the same weight for at least 3 consecutive workouts every time you add an extra 25% BW to the bar. It means intentionally applying the brakes to your progress every couple of weeks but my guys see greater returns in the long run compared to trainees who rush through.

 

Yeah that's pretty similar to what I was saying then, I see a lot of "I pulled 200 for a double last week, going for a 205 this week". Why not try for 200 for 3 or for 3x2 youknow?


Does all this mean I'm growing up? scary!

 

I do see your point. But realistically anyone who has a decent experience in lifting is not going to be able to use a simple linear progression program. They are simply not going to be able to add weight to the bar every workout. So people have to progress in other ways, you just have to.

Progressing to a harder exercise such you mention going from a touch-and-go bench to a paused bench is a form of progress, but it's not linear.

Other might include
- Heavier weight with lower reps
- Same weight with more reps
- Reps with more range of movement
- Partial reps with heavier weight

It's all a form of progression and some of these methods will work better for some than others. And you can always go back to your 5x5 of whatever to see if you have improved by changing.

But at the end of the day you have to make sure that you are working hard progressing, even if it's a little bit. If you never change anything, then you will not improve.

Another handy thing is to have someone knowledgeable watch your progress and technique. They will be able to tell you if your technique was shaky or spot on, despite how heavy the bar may feel.

 

I wonder if anyone currently posting has actually made any gains recently, measured as competition or 1RM for any recognised lift? I'm going to suggest very few, and that might come down to training without a coach or buddy network. Sure it's convenient to train on our own but too much is a bit of this a bit of that programming (and I include my own too ever since my last gym closed). I agree that some variation of WB is a good thing, whether it's possible to do it with the limitations in most commercial gyms is another thing. I know that changing rep ranges 531 or exercises can be a way of avoiding 1RM

 

oooOO. Me me. That's me!

 

How for a lot of people the 1RM isn't the be all and end all and certainly will not be completely telling in terms of progress. Of course if you are competing at lifting the 1RM is king but if you are listing to support your martial arts then things like your rep max at a certain weight can also be used as an indicator as endurance with heavy loads can help martial arts.

 

"I wonder if anyone currently posting has actually made any gains recently, measured as competition or 1RM for any recognised lift?"

*raises hand* (+2.5kg to max squat, and somewhat less recently small amounts to my dead and ohp)

and i switched to periodization immediately upon realizing i had stalled in the lift i wanted to move up (ohp)

 

n/m

 

you clearly don't deadlift much, or you wouldn't be making that statement so confidently. bodyweight training also won't do any of the things you say that a deadlift won't do, either. MA training does. which is irrelevant for this discussion since this is purely a lifting discussion, which happens to be carried out among martial artists, who lift for their own reasons. i don't lift to make my MA better. i train MA for that (albeit less these days as i train by myself). i lift because it's fun, and because i have a wonky shoulder that needed strengthening and had a direct order from the physio to start lifting weights, upon which i found it fun and got hooked on it. and guess what? it made my MA better

 

n/m. Scratch that last post. I'm multi-tasking in multiple tabs and posted to the wrong thread. Sorry!

 

Ohhhh saucer of milk for hara! I like it

Admittedly I haven't competed in a fair while in any kind of strength sport, I've been really focused onmy boxing and getting some fights in so that has taken a back seat for now. While I'm nasally crippled and away from the old head punchety the strength is becoming more of a focus.

I mached a previous PR at 4kilos lighter BW last night with fantastic bar speed if that counts for anything? And I've out 20kg on my clean in about 2-3 month, which is admittedly probably mainly technical.

It was acctually a post on another forum that started this line of thought for me, I'll see if I can track it down.