Beginner Program OHP can't lift bar

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

howdy gentlemen,

My girlfriend is on the beginner program and just advanced out of the 4.X weeks into week 5. For the standing OHP, she got to the workout which has RPE 7,8,9 for 8 reps. She was able to grind out 8 on the first and second but only 6 reps on the final set with the bar (45lbs). She got pretty discouraged by this. All her other lifts went fine this week, so I didn’t think it made sense to go back to week 4.X and my suggestion was to just do a similar workouts to those prescribed but for 6 reps instead of 8, until the weight of the bar is more doable.

What would you suggest?

Mostly, I think she needs to hear straight from the horse’s mouth that this is not a big deal and no reason to be discouraged - small deviations from the program don’t somehow spoil the whole thing and not to overthink it.

I tell her these things but she doesn’t believe me.

2

Yea, I would agree that it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things and would encourage her to do the program as best as possible. That said, if she can’t lift the bar for the requisite reps, I’d first see if she can use a training bar, which is lighter, in order to do the OHP in the normal fashion, e.g. adding weight little by little to get to the rx’d RPE. If not, I’d then see if she can use dumbbells or do a different exercise, e.g. incline bench, close grip bench, or similar. If none of those things are available, she could certainly a set of 4 reps @ RPE 7, then 5 reps @ RPE 8, then 8 reps @ RPE 8- using just the empty barbell. I’d prefer that over doing sets of 6, which I don’t think she’ll be able to load either.

Just my 0.02. Ask her what she’d prefer to do and then go from there.

-Jordan