Lack of progress on low fatigue template

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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Hello again! You might remember my last post about 5-6 weeks ago. I was concerned about load selection and if that is what was causing my lack of progress. I am back now with i think better load choices (evidently more variation in my performance day to day).

i am on week 9 of the low isf 3 days a week low fatigue template.

Relevant info:
Male, 24, 191lbs, 35.5" waist, Height: 5"9, Currently losing about -0.5-1lbs a week eating around 2.6kcals per day, and average 140g of protein per day.

History:
Training for multiple years, but had many layoffs in the past. Most relevant recent training has been two years of, beginner template then the powerbuilding templates (1 and 2).

  • I stopped making progress in the last couple months of powerbuilding, and wanted to focus on strength more again.
    now week 9 of low isf 3x a week low fatigue template.

i am writing again because i havent not seen my lifts go past baseline, and i am actually down about 5-10% across all lifts, slowly occuring over a few months.

i haven’t changed the template at all. I am not sure where to go from here. I know there is some advice for adjusting the template but given that i didnt see a spike in performance ever at any point of the varying volume from week to week, i am not sure if it would he much use to reduce or add just one set. Maybe i am wrong! That is why i am here to seek guidance from the experts!

thanks so much for all you do, barbell medicine has changed my life completely.

i am open to any and all suggestions new templates or adjustments etc. i really want to get stronger.

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2

Thanks for the kind words at the end. I appreciate you saying that.

This may surprise you, but I probably wouldn’t change anything.* Rather, I would just have you run the program as it’s written and actually test your 1RMs at the end. I don’t know if something is otherwise going on in your life that may compromise the training adaptations, e.g. sleep, stress, technique, etc.,

I just think knowing your actual 1RMs may be helpful in this case, though I agree reducing work set weight average by 5-10% is not particularly confidence inspiring. The way I view it is that your average performance varies between a lower and upper boundary, which can be averaged. The goal of training is to increase the likelihood that your average performance is higher than before. I don’t think this is likely to occur week-to-week, but more over months.

I think if this is your first run through the template I would finish it as written, noting how you do, how you’re feeling, and seeing if you fall into any of the troubleshooting categories discussed in the PDF. I’m not sure more volume is likely the move, but it’s possible!

*If there are exercise variants that you hate, I would definitely change those.

1 Like
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Thanks so much for the reply jordan!
i swear one day when i am out of debt i am going to pay for some one and one coaching hahaha.

i will for sure stick it out. The only changes ive made to the template are subbing the slingshot bench for floor press because i dont have access to slingshot equipment, and in the first 8 weeks i believe one of the variations i did overhead press.

i havent done a true 1rm test in a long time, that will be interesting! I am curious because i am always second guessing my rpe usage even though i have been using rpe for years now. Things always feel hard and i try to just stick with the same relative level of hard, but one video for instance, my deadlift looks way easier than it feels lol.

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An interesting anecdote from our last seminar. While working up to a set of 6 reps with a target RPE of ~ 8, a guy ended up hitting a 50+ pound PR over his best set of 3…for 6 reps. He also related a story of not seeing significant increases in the loads he was handling, as he was quite cautious with RPE ratings.

While there’s likely to be significant inter-individual variation, this suggests to me that there’s a wide range of intensities below what are traditionally used that can “work” to drive strength performance.

3 Likes
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I am curious! If i were to do an “rpe audit” how would you/would you change training at all? Monday will be day 1 of week 10 3-day isf for me.

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I would probably want to rpe audit the main lifts. I wonder what rep range/rpe to try

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I would plan on just taking the top set as programmed to failure and see how that goes if I were going to do an RPE audit.

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Ok so for mondays workout:

squat, 315lbs what i thought was a 1@7 weight was actually 6@10

2ct paused bench 210lbs what i thought was 2@7 was 5@10 (so correct i think!)

paused deadlifts 315lbs what i thought was 4@7 was 6@10

do you think using my rpe audit videos, i could help judge my future sets by relating the speed to the reps in the videos?

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Speed can help home in on an accurate RPE and video can help corroborate how you felt under the bar. Looks like your strength is doing pretty well nonetheless :slight_smile: