Male, 25, 6 foot, 89kg. On week 5 of the GPP Hypertrophy program, whilst having slowly improved or at least maintained my pressing and deadlifting, my squat has begun to plummet in the last 3 weeks. Weights I was handling on my LP make my legs feel like jelly. week 2 I squatted 117.5kg x6 @ 8. Just got in and squatted 107.5kg x6 @8.5 after failing 112.5 getting only 4 reps. I feel as if the lesser squatting volume compared to the LP and the Bridge which I completed beforehand has had a detrimental effect on my squat. I have also noticed a general lack of work capacity, I can hardly get any myoreps most sessions as I am gassed. Currently eating around maintenance and maybe lost a kilo on average of the last 5 weeks. Anyone had a similar experience and should I worry or just hope that it will begin to rise again and I will begin to hit pre again once I switch back to a strength template (busy summer so planning on running the time crunch for a month or 2 and then jump on HLM)
How is your sleep these past weeks?
Also, and maybe more importantly, I would not expect you to lose weight, given your program. Maybe you are not eating quite enough?
6 feet at 196 is not very big. I’m 5’8 and weigh the same. If you don’t want your strength to diminish you’re gonna need to eat more. Also keep in mind that while running a hypertrophy block you’re not going to be quite as strong. While I’m in my hypertrophy phase I’m only dealing with weights that are 60-75 %
Eating around maintenance and losing weight is not eating maintenance. To take advantage of the hypertrophy goals of that program you should be gaining weight to build muscle. The feeling of loss of absolute strength makes sense but the lack of work capacity doesn’t. Work capacity should be increasing.
TL;DR You are NDTP.
Appreciate the replies. Think I will up my calories and focus on just hitting my rpe targets in sessions and not worry too much about weight on the bar. Then I can look forward to the weight increasing again once I switch to a strength program and eat in more of a surplus.
Yeah, seems a good approach.
But I suggest not going crazy on the calories right away. Read the article, estimate your macros in an usual day, and adjust from there.