Stalled squat on press template

[lifter2017]

Hi Doctors,

I'm a 35 yr old lifter, 9 months into my first year of training. I'm on week 5 of the press focused template, and my press is improving, and my deadlift has skyrocketed, but my squat hasn't improved at all. My bodyweight is increasing, at an average of 1/4 lb per week. Prior to starting the program, I was squatting 3 times per week, for 3 working sets, with around 5 sets warm up sets. I have not done any squat variations before starting this program.

My current 1RMs (lbs).

Squat: 265
Press: 135
Deadlift: 340

My competition squat single @8 is 245, and 2ct pause squat 225 * 5 @9.

Do you have any suggestions for what to do? I was thinking increasing squat volume by 25% across all the program might help, but I'd appreciate if it you have any suggestion for me to try.

Thanks in advance.

[Austin Baraki]

Glad to hear your press and deadlift are increasing so well!

Regarding your squat, this is a difficult scenario to give a confident answer on. I'd make sure your technique is good, make sure you aren't significantly undershooting or overshooting your singles, and are approaching your competition squat sessions with the expectation that you'll be able to increase the weight from the week before. Sometimes folks have a particular mental hang-up over a specific lift and will be hesitant to add weight on it, compared to some of their other lifts. I wouldn't make a blanket recommendation to add 25% more training volume right off the bat (which would be a pretty significant change).

[Jon La]

FWIW, I also had this for a bit. I’m now in week 7 and it’s started moving again. Not sure what was up - might have been rpe variance, since I’ve only been using it for a few months.

Anyway, good luck OP. Keep with it and I’m sure you’ll start to see some movement again

[JimDM]

FWIW, I also had this for a bit. I’m now in week 7 and it’s started moving again. Not sure what was up - might have been rpe variance, since I’ve only been using it for a few months.

Anyway, good luck OP. Keep with it and I’m sure you’ll start to see some movement again

Well I’m no expert, but that might be because you’re now dissipating fatigue that had built up during the initial weeks, and are thus able to display the strength that you developed along with said fatigue. OP might be in a similar position, I don’t know.

[lifter2017]

Thanks for the responses folks; I think there might be truth in all of them:

1. Mental: my deadlift wasn't really moving too much until I decided to just "pull harder". I know that sounds stupid, but it worked. I think I was giving up too early when trying to break the bar off the floor. Maybe I need to push my squat harder. Even though I lifted the same weight for my heavy single today as previous workouts, the top third of the lift felt easier than in the past.
2. Technique: I noticed today on heavy singles my knees come further forward than on my working sets. I'm going to pay attention to that and fight the urge to bring them too far forward.
3. Fatigue: I missed a day 4 workout a couple of weeks ago, and the next workout workout was one of the best I've ever had. Next week is a low stress week, so perhaps I'll see some improvements across the board in week 7.