Hello,
I have been doing a novice linear progression for roughly 2.5 months and have taken my squat from 125 to 250lbs and my deadlift from 130lbs to 270lbs. My bench and press have not gone up as much due to a shoulder issue I was having. I started doing the bench and press plugin to add more volume and reduce the weight and this seems to have helped my shoulder quite a bit. My bench is at roughly 160 and press is at 120.
I am 5’7" tall and 175lbs (up from 163 when starting) and 30 years old. During my last training session my squat was very difficult to get all my reps. I believe it was close to an RPE 9 or 10. My form gave way in order to get the bar back up to the top and this caused some discomfort in my lower back due to doing a goodmornng to get the bar up.
I was wondering how to know when it is time to lean away from linear progression and move onto the Bridge or another plan. I was interested in possibly doing the Bridge 2.0 or doing a hypertrophy plan to try and loose some fluff around my waist ( I would estimate I am 22 to 24% body fat).
Would you recommend the Bridge 2.0 at this point in time? Or should I keep pushing forward on my LP till I fail reps? I understand that I am still underdeveloped and want to gain muscle in order to eventually fix my skinny fat body. Overall goals are to gain strength and eventually have a good physique.