Hitting a Wall

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

I’ve been on the 12 Week Press template and I’m in the middle of Week 5 with a deload week around the corner, but not here yet.
Made really solid progress on all 4 main lifts the first 4 weeks, but I only got a small PR on my Squat and Press on Monday (3lbs and 1lb respectively) and Tuesday my Deadlift and Bench e1RMs dropped by about 8 and 5lbs respectively. I was feeling beat up over the weekend and especially after Monday’s session. Wednesday I straight up skipped my GPP session because I felt beat up and today I no longer feel awful, but still run down. I think I can finish out the week’s prescription and just lower some of the weights though. This really crept up quick on me and it’s odd that I’ve been getting great sleep lately and my nutrition has been consistent since I started this.

Question is, should I go ahead and do Week 6 next week as planned and just lower the weight or should I just skip it and go straight to Week 7 to drain off accumulated fatigue?

I’m not doing a meet or anything, just wanted to focus on my Press because of personal goals so timing is not an issue.

2

I would finish the week and do next week as planned, hitting the appropriate RPEs. Kind of sounds like you got into a rut early this week and need to get out. Stick to the RPE of the program and get your training in.

3

Sounds good, forgot to mention too that I got some wrist pain that started on Monday evening. I used wraps for my top bench sets because of it on Tuesday. Pain seems to be fading at this point though.

Edit the day after: Really glad I took this advice because I was erring on the side of doing the opposite. I just went for the lower volume side of the prescription yesterday and actually feel somewhat fresh again. I’m aiming to repost my previous PRs from Week 4 next week.

4

@Jordan_Feigenbaum Just wanted to give an update on this. Did your recommendation and after my following Deadlift/Bench day I gotta say I’m wrecked lol. Starting to believe you’re a masochist for making me do 50 reps of HBBS after hard DL and Bench slots. Either way, I’m REALLY looking forward to the deload week.