Hi BBM Team,
I just finished week 8 on 12 week strength. Squats and presses have felt great, however on day 2 deadlifts I just kind of lost all power and my low back seemed to just turn off. My last 2 warmups were a real struggle and my last warmup was practically a grinder. The same thing happened on day 4 with the paused deads, so I reduced the load and skipped SLDL for the day. I have some discomfort in my low back, but no real pain. I’m hoping I can chalk this all up to fatigue and keep loads light until I feel better. My question: should move forward through the weeks as planned or should I repeat the week until I feel better? Any suggestions you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
My last 2 warmups were a real struggle and my last warmup was practically a grinder.
It sounds like you aren’t actually using RPE to autoregulate your loads.
That’s probably true. I definitely went in with the expectation that my single would be within a certain range. So maybe I need to temper the expectations and feel it out so to speak. I think it was just very surprising because the last rep was still what I would typically consider a warmup.
Thanks for the reply, Austin. I appreciate it.
I have a related question/personal observation. There are a significant number of workouts where I am in situations similar, but maybe not identical to OP where the bar is heavy that day, and there is some mild discomfort in my back due to what feels like muscle tightness (just describing how it feels; not saying this is the cause) or soreness on either squats or deadlifts. If I use RIR to measure RPE during these sessions, I can work up to pretty close to normal weights that I can hit, but they present significantly more discomfort than usual and typically lead to continued increasing fatigue in the days that follow. For quite some time, my progress would intermittently get bogged down by excessive fatigue due to intensity, which would interfere with my ability to accumulate volume.
My personal solution has been to measure RPE on a more subjective basis, taking these feelings of discomfort and actual perceived exertion into account to determine RPE instead of strictly adhering to RIR, and that has worked out much better for me in allowing me to accumulate increasingly more volume without significant fatigue. Do you experience this phenomenon at all with people you coach in terms of a traditional RIR measurement to RPE leading to excessive fatigue? If so, what are your approaches to fixing that?
P.S. Belated congrats on your 705 deadlift, Austin. Solid lift.