Upper body lifts plateauing on LP - yet again

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hey folks,

first of all: Thank you for all the great content you are putting out. It’s always a pleasure to listen to your Q&As and I regret not taking the time to binge-watch them all. You are attracting followers here in Europe and Germany especially, that’s for sure. I hope you can bear with my question and the fact that I am used to the metric system. :slight_smile:

I am 22 years old, started the SSLP in December and went through it with joy for the most part. My progress was halted by two nasty flus (in a single winter, doh) costing me almost 2 months in total. I started the LP at a bodyweight of 182 lbs and weighted ~200lbs in mid March. Right now I am at 193lbs, slowly recovering after I lost quite a bit. Still, I’m definitely not skinny and not actively losing weight, so I can rule that out as a cause for not making progress.

In February I hit 300lbs in both the deadlift and the squat while being awfully stuck at both the overhead press and the bench press, the first plateauing at 60kg (135 lbs) and the latter at 80kg (~176.5 lbs). Failing both weights two times consecutively, I tried a deload with no success. I would always miss 2-3 reps on the 2th and 3rd set. Being stubborn, I just did the same weight over and over again until one miraculous week I was in such good shape that I actually managed to make it through. Ironically, I got exactly 10lbs further on each lift before stalling again. I did not really get to try anything from there on, since I got sick yet again.

Now, after slowly getting my lifts back up, I am stuck in almost the exact same place again with the presses plateauing at 60kg and the bench presses at 82,5kg. This time though, I hardly manage to get one set done. The first 2 or 3 reps will feel manageable and then the 3rd or 4th will be a disaster of a miss. Given how I did not have any problems progressing on squats, deadlifts and power cleans other than the occassional 1-2 workouts were I was still recovering from an exhausting firefighting operation, this boggles my mind and it is depressing as I don’t think that yet another deload will help the issue. Following is an overview of my last successful 3x5 weights with my previous bests in braces:

Squat: 135kg / 297lbs (147,5kg / 325lbs)
Bench: 80kg / 176,5lbs (82,5kg / 180lbs)
Deadlift: 140kg / 308lbs (160kg / 352lbs)
OHP: 57,5kg / 126lbs (65kg / 143lbs)
Power Cleans: 72,5kg / 148lbs (82,5kg / 181 lbs)

I have to shamefully admit that I have so far managed to read over the difference between a compressive grip and the squeezing stuff I was doing before. Your bench press guide video did wonders. Suddenly pronating my hand felt a lot easier, still it didn’t change the outcome of my bench presses. Even after deloading to 80kg, after the 3rd or 4th rep I would get the bar a few inches from my chest and be stuck right there. Other than that, my technique feels … “sound”. Not perfect, not where it could be with a capable coach but without major flaws.

Deloading again does not feel like a useful option but both pressing movements are so weak that I cannot grasp how I cannot get more out of the linear progression. I feel like I am stupid and missing out something simple, thus I am seeking your wisdom. In this thread (https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/forums/training-q-a-with-dr-jordan-feigenbaum-and-dr-austin-baraki/2458-advanced-novice-for-upper-body-lifts) Jordan advised a programming change towards more volume for the bench press, but the thread starter had a significantly stronger bench press than me, so I wonder what to make out of this.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

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I would use our upper body bench press “plug in”:

Workout A
Squats per SSLP
Bench x 1 @ +5% from last 5 x 3 sets on LP, then take 15% off the bar for 5 reps x 5 sets
Deadlift per SSLP
Press x 8 reps x 4 sets @ -12% from previous press 5 x 3 sets on LP

Workout B
Squats per SSLP
Press 1 @ +5% from last 5 x 3 sets, then take 15% off the bar for 4 reps x 6 sets
Power Cleans or Rows per SSLP
Close grip bench x 8 reps x 4 sets @ -15% from previous bench press 5 x 3 sets on LP

3

Hi Jordan,

thank you for your answer. I will try the workouts as prescribed today and on Friday and will hopefully come back to tell the tales of my success. I feel embarassed to ask this, but am I right to assume that this plug-in is supposed to done until the novice progression ends, i.e. I just cannot sustain workout-to-workout progress any longer, or is this just a temporary means to overcome the stall and move on in the regular fashion? I would assume that I would continue to progress by adding 5% to the singles each workout and, starting from the 3th workout, derive the weights for the presses in workout A and the CG bench presses in workout B off the corresponding singles?

If the newsletter issue addresses this questions and is available somehow, I would thankfully take the link as a response. :slight_smile:

Best,
Andreas

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Yes, the plug-in does until something else stalls. When that does, jettison LP and start fresh. I see no reason in continuing to modify a program beyond recognition instead of changing.

I would not plan on adding 5% weekly- that’s a huge increase. Rather, add a small increment of weight, 1-5lbs or so.

I don’t have the link off hand, but yea it’s in there.

1 Like
5

Hi Jordan,

thank you for your clarification. I have been running the plug-in since last week’s Wednesday and things have been going well so far. Feels good to finally get the numbers up again. Thank you so much for taking the time, it has really helped me. :slight_smile: