Overcoming Sticking Points
by Bill Starr
Whenever people start training seriously on a strength program, their gains come rather quickly because they’re stimulating new muscles. This is particularly true if they are also adding bodyweight. Because the exercises are new them – and because they’re making progress – these folks are enthusiastic and motivated, and that’s another key factor in their progress. The numbers climb steadily and all is good.
Sooner or later, however everyone hits a sticking point on a certain exercise. That’s natural, and if it weren’t the case, everyone in the gym would be able to bench press 400 and squat 600. While hitting sticking points is a normal aspect of getting stronger, the ways people respond to them are quite varied. Some try doing more work. Some get discouraged and end up eliminating the exercise altogether. If the exercise is prized, like the bench press, some become so frustrated that they stop training.
Learning how to work through the sticking points is certainly one of the most important lessons in all of strength training. It’s also one of the most difficult situations to master. When your gains are coming regularly, you enjoy going to the gym and look forward to every session with great expectations. When your numbers on the key exercises are stuck, however, simply packing the gym bag suddenly becomes a chore. It’s easy to find an excuse to miss a workout during these times.
Unless you learn how to ride through the rough times you’ll never reach a high level of strength fitness. Needless to say, everyone has a limit on all of the lifts, but top-end sets are different from sticking points. For example, since I’ve been training seriously for more than 35 years, I know that I’m not going to squat more than 385 for three unless I’m prepared to put on five or 10 pounds of bodyweight or give up some of my running. I don’t care to do either of those, so I can live with those numbers. What I cannot live with is being stuck at 355 or 365 for three. I know that I’m capable of doing more, so I alter my program to move the numbers up.
Sticking points occur for two basic reasons: Either you’re overtraining on an exercise or you’re not doing enough total work. It sounds simplistic and a bit contradictory, but many strength-training principles are simple and contradictory. If you do too much work on a certain exercise, you fatigue your muscles and attachments to the point where they cannot recover sufficiently. At the other end of the pole, you may be stuck on a lift because you need to do more work to force your muscles, tendons and ligaments to respond positively.
The solutions are also fundamental. If you’re overtraining on an exercise, you must lower your workload. You may also be ignoring the heavy, light and medium system or doing too many auxiliary movements for the problem lift. By pulling back, you allow the muscles and attachments involved in the exercise to rest and recover enough to grow stronger and start making gains once again. If your workload is too low or you don’t have enough intensity in your program, you need to step up the total amount of work you do for the lift.
Which approach should you use? That’s the tricky part: knowing in which direction to go. It’s not always cut and dried, even for experienced lifters. Often, some experimentation is in order. Try one approach, and if it fails, try the other. While that may sound unscientific, it’s the only method available for most people. If you have the advantage of a wise coach, it’s easier to find the solution, but for most trainees, who have to coach themselves, it’s really the only way to proceed.
There are some clues to help anyone decide whether to do more or less. Calculate your current workload for the three major muscle groups: shoulder girdle, back and legs. Next, check to make sure you’re satisfying the heavy, light and medium principle. It’s also useful to note how many exercises you’re doing for the problem bodypart. In most cases, once the numbers are calculated and examined, the problem becomes obvious.
As a general rule, beginners and intermediates overtrain their upper bodies. Typically, they’re after a big bench press and end up doing far too much work on their shoulder girdles. On the other hand, they often hit a sticking point on their back and legs for the exact opposite reason: they just aren’t doing enough work. The fact is, sometimes you need one approach for the shoulder girdle and a totally different one for the back and legs.
The shoulder girdle becomes overtrained rather quickly for two main reasons: Trainees use too high a workload too soon, and it’s less able to handle the stress. It’s not unusual for beginners to include a half dozen exercises for the shoulder girdle and only one or two for their back and legs in a single workout. Whenever I point this out to trainees who are stuck on an upper-body exercise, they argue that they’re only doing one chest exercise, two for shoulders and only two more for arms.
Here’s the thing: if you’re exercising your chest, shoulders or arms, you’re working your shoulder girdle – period. The above rationale is like saying you’re doing hamstring and adductor work but not counting it as leg exercises.
In these cases it‘s usually just a matter of eliminating a few exercises and progress comes again. This kind of problem is one of the main reasons I advocate using the three-days-a-week program for all beginnings and working all the muscle groups at each session. It prevents them from spending too much time and energy on their upper bodies. If they squat and pull heavy, they just don’t have that much juice left to fool around doing lots and lots of upper-body exercises.
There’s a simple reason for this tendency toward unbalanced training: upper-body exercises are much more enjoyable to do than back movements. In addition, most people are more interested in having a fine-looking pair of arms and a massive chest than they are in developing a thick back and tree-trunk-size legs. The sad truth is that if you do too much upper-body work too soon, all your progress will stop and your quest will be in vain.
Sometimes, trainees are doing the correct number of exercises but using too great a workload. For example, they may be doing only one upper-body exercise in a given session but performing countless sets and reps on it – the bench press in all likelihood. In many cases just decreasing the amount of work done on an exercise is enough.
Sticking points often occur because people do the same routine for too long. It may have been effective for a time, but eventually most people get stale if they stay with the same routine. Change stimulates enthusiasm. I’ve had people come to me because they were stuck on –guess what? – the bench press. They asked me to check their programs, and invariably they were benching three times a week and not doing any auxiliary movements for the rest of the shoulder girdle. I had them switch to doing benches once a week, then adding dips, overhead presses and inclines on the other days. The new exercises hit areas that were being neglected, so gains started coming quickly there, and they transferred directly to the flat bench.
When progress plateaus on the back and legs, it’s generally because you’re not performing enough work. Again, by figuring the numbers, you can tell just how much work you’re really doing on the various bodyparts. Increases must come slowly, however. Overzealousness is usually counterproductive. There are several ways to increase the workload. You don’t always have to do it with top-end weights. You can push it up by doing more intermediate sets or by doing the same number of intermediate sets but increasing the weights slightly. You can also do back-off sets and push the reps up.
For example, I once had a lifter who was coming back to strength training after being quite ill. His goal in the squat was to reach his former best of 350x5. When he started back, he was able to do 275x3. For the first few weeks I had him do but four total sets – 125, 185, 225 and his heaviest set for five reps – trying to move his top-end weight at each workout. I didn’t install the heavy, light and medium system until he was able to do 295x5, because his workload wasn’t yet that demanding. Also, when he got to 295x5, I had him add one more intermediate set, which pushed up his workload slightly. Now he was doing 135, 185, 225, 265 and 395 for five reps. When he got to 315x5, I had him add a back-off set, 265x8. Again, none of the increases were taxing, but they added to the workload appreciably. He actually surpassed his goal by 15 pounds, doing 365 x5 well.
When advanced lifters hit a plateau on certain exercises, the changes they must make are often quite different from those of beginners or intermediates. For example, I see many athletes move their squats to the mid-500 range and then plateau. Since they’ve already established a solid base in order to reach this high level, the procedure described above isn’t going to help them. They have to do more high-intensity work – in other words, more sets at a top-end weight. If they’re doing 525x5, I can’t expect them to do multiple sets, but I can have them use a slightly lower poundage, such as 495, for more than one set.
Since 495 is considerably less than 525, they can usually do two and sometimes three sets five right away. That bumps up their workloads and intensity way up. Once they can increase the weight for multiple sets, I alter the routine to allow them to handle a heavier poundage for lower reps, such as 550x3 or 575x1. The same idea works for any other large muscle exercise, even bench presses and inclines, but be advised,: It’s a killer routine and should only be performed by trainees who have built a solid strength foundation on the particular exercise.
Often, small changes are enough to enable people to break through a sticking point on a certain exercise. Alter the set and reps sequence. I’m an advocate of 5x5, but I also believe other sequences can be effective. One of my lacrosse players always did seven reps on all his upper-body exercises, and he made great gains. I’ve had athletes who were stuck do all triples, from their warmups to their top-end sets, and the change helped them break through to another level.
Those us who have been around weight training for some time also recognize the fact that certain numbers in themselves prove to be barriers to progress. A 300-pound bench press is always a mind trip. Squatting with 315 for the first time is also staggering, since those three big plates on each end of the bar look so formidable. If I see someone miss at the same number several times in a row, I know he’s building up a mental block on that weight, so I have him skip over it the next time. Instead of trying 300, I tell him to use 305. Or I have him build up his reps to just below the problem number, then leap over it considerably. It’s amazing how this all works.
The more advanced trainers have to closely examine the many parts of an exercise once they plateau in order to discover the weakest area. A good coach can spot the problem area, but if you don’t have the benefit of experienced eyes, you’re on your own. The power rack is without a doubt the greatest tool in weightlifting for finding and correcting weak areas. Do three positions for the bench press inside the rack, and the weak area will immediately become obvious. Then it’s merely a matter of making that weak area stronger, which you can do effectively in the power rack.
What it really boils down to is taking some time to seriously examine your overall program and the way you work the exercise in question, then applying the right solution to your unique situation. First, figure the workload. Next, determine if you’re overworking or underworking the problem area. Now make some adjustments in your routine. If the results of the change are positive, you know you’re on the right track. If they aren’t, try something else.
It would be absolutely wonderful if there were a formula to fit every individual, but the truth is, there’s no one method that works for everyone in every situation. Even more frustrating is the discovery that the system that helps you move from 300 to 350 on the bench press doesn’t get you to 400. That requires a totally different routine.
While many find this factor most aggravating, I find it challenging. There’s always a way to break through a sticking point. It may take a lot of study and testing, but you can do it- and if you know you can do it, you’ll be really motivated to improve your strength.
by Bill Starr
Whenever people start training seriously on a strength program, their gains come rather quickly because they’re stimulating new muscles. This is particularly true if they are also adding bodyweight. Because the exercises are new them – and because they’re making progress – these folks are enthusiastic and motivated, and that’s another key factor in their progress. The numbers climb steadily and all is good.
Sooner or later, however everyone hits a sticking point on a certain exercise. That’s natural, and if it weren’t the case, everyone in the gym would be able to bench press 400 and squat 600. While hitting sticking points is a normal aspect of getting stronger, the ways people respond to them are quite varied. Some try doing more work. Some get discouraged and end up eliminating the exercise altogether. If the exercise is prized, like the bench press, some become so frustrated that they stop training.
Learning how to work through the sticking points is certainly one of the most important lessons in all of strength training. It’s also one of the most difficult situations to master. When your gains are coming regularly, you enjoy going to the gym and look forward to every session with great expectations. When your numbers on the key exercises are stuck, however, simply packing the gym bag suddenly becomes a chore. It’s easy to find an excuse to miss a workout during these times.
Sticking points occur for two basic reasons: Either you’re overtraining on an exercise or you’re not doing enough total work. It sounds simplistic and a bit contradictory, but many strength-training principles are simple and contradictory. If you do too much work on a certain exercise, you fatigue your muscles and attachments to the point where they cannot recover sufficiently. At the other end of the pole, you may be stuck on a lift because you need to do more work to force your muscles, tendons and ligaments to respond positively.
The solutions are also fundamental. If you’re overtraining on an exercise, you must lower your workload. You may also be ignoring the heavy, light and medium system or doing too many auxiliary movements for the problem lift. By pulling back, you allow the muscles and attachments involved in the exercise to rest and recover enough to grow stronger and start making gains once again. If your workload is too low or you don’t have enough intensity in your program, you need to step up the total amount of work you do for the lift.
Which approach should you use? That’s the tricky part: knowing in which direction to go. It’s not always cut and dried, even for experienced lifters. Often, some experimentation is in order. Try one approach, and if it fails, try the other. While that may sound unscientific, it’s the only method available for most people. If you have the advantage of a wise coach, it’s easier to find the solution, but for most trainees, who have to coach themselves, it’s really the only way to proceed.
There are some clues to help anyone decide whether to do more or less. Calculate your current workload for the three major muscle groups: shoulder girdle, back and legs. Next, check to make sure you’re satisfying the heavy, light and medium principle. It’s also useful to note how many exercises you’re doing for the problem bodypart. In most cases, once the numbers are calculated and examined, the problem becomes obvious.
As a general rule, beginners and intermediates overtrain their upper bodies. Typically, they’re after a big bench press and end up doing far too much work on their shoulder girdles. On the other hand, they often hit a sticking point on their back and legs for the exact opposite reason: they just aren’t doing enough work. The fact is, sometimes you need one approach for the shoulder girdle and a totally different one for the back and legs.
The shoulder girdle becomes overtrained rather quickly for two main reasons: Trainees use too high a workload too soon, and it’s less able to handle the stress. It’s not unusual for beginners to include a half dozen exercises for the shoulder girdle and only one or two for their back and legs in a single workout. Whenever I point this out to trainees who are stuck on an upper-body exercise, they argue that they’re only doing one chest exercise, two for shoulders and only two more for arms.
Here’s the thing: if you’re exercising your chest, shoulders or arms, you’re working your shoulder girdle – period. The above rationale is like saying you’re doing hamstring and adductor work but not counting it as leg exercises.
In these cases it‘s usually just a matter of eliminating a few exercises and progress comes again. This kind of problem is one of the main reasons I advocate using the three-days-a-week program for all beginnings and working all the muscle groups at each session. It prevents them from spending too much time and energy on their upper bodies. If they squat and pull heavy, they just don’t have that much juice left to fool around doing lots and lots of upper-body exercises.
There’s a simple reason for this tendency toward unbalanced training: upper-body exercises are much more enjoyable to do than back movements. In addition, most people are more interested in having a fine-looking pair of arms and a massive chest than they are in developing a thick back and tree-trunk-size legs. The sad truth is that if you do too much upper-body work too soon, all your progress will stop and your quest will be in vain.
Sometimes, trainees are doing the correct number of exercises but using too great a workload. For example, they may be doing only one upper-body exercise in a given session but performing countless sets and reps on it – the bench press in all likelihood. In many cases just decreasing the amount of work done on an exercise is enough.
Sticking points often occur because people do the same routine for too long. It may have been effective for a time, but eventually most people get stale if they stay with the same routine. Change stimulates enthusiasm. I’ve had people come to me because they were stuck on –guess what? – the bench press. They asked me to check their programs, and invariably they were benching three times a week and not doing any auxiliary movements for the rest of the shoulder girdle. I had them switch to doing benches once a week, then adding dips, overhead presses and inclines on the other days. The new exercises hit areas that were being neglected, so gains started coming quickly there, and they transferred directly to the flat bench.
When progress plateaus on the back and legs, it’s generally because you’re not performing enough work. Again, by figuring the numbers, you can tell just how much work you’re really doing on the various bodyparts. Increases must come slowly, however. Overzealousness is usually counterproductive. There are several ways to increase the workload. You don’t always have to do it with top-end weights. You can push it up by doing more intermediate sets or by doing the same number of intermediate sets but increasing the weights slightly. You can also do back-off sets and push the reps up.
For example, I once had a lifter who was coming back to strength training after being quite ill. His goal in the squat was to reach his former best of 350x5. When he started back, he was able to do 275x3. For the first few weeks I had him do but four total sets – 125, 185, 225 and his heaviest set for five reps – trying to move his top-end weight at each workout. I didn’t install the heavy, light and medium system until he was able to do 295x5, because his workload wasn’t yet that demanding. Also, when he got to 295x5, I had him add one more intermediate set, which pushed up his workload slightly. Now he was doing 135, 185, 225, 265 and 395 for five reps. When he got to 315x5, I had him add a back-off set, 265x8. Again, none of the increases were taxing, but they added to the workload appreciably. He actually surpassed his goal by 15 pounds, doing 365 x5 well.
When advanced lifters hit a plateau on certain exercises, the changes they must make are often quite different from those of beginners or intermediates. For example, I see many athletes move their squats to the mid-500 range and then plateau. Since they’ve already established a solid base in order to reach this high level, the procedure described above isn’t going to help them. They have to do more high-intensity work – in other words, more sets at a top-end weight. If they’re doing 525x5, I can’t expect them to do multiple sets, but I can have them use a slightly lower poundage, such as 495, for more than one set.
Since 495 is considerably less than 525, they can usually do two and sometimes three sets five right away. That bumps up their workloads and intensity way up. Once they can increase the weight for multiple sets, I alter the routine to allow them to handle a heavier poundage for lower reps, such as 550x3 or 575x1. The same idea works for any other large muscle exercise, even bench presses and inclines, but be advised,: It’s a killer routine and should only be performed by trainees who have built a solid strength foundation on the particular exercise.
Often, small changes are enough to enable people to break through a sticking point on a certain exercise. Alter the set and reps sequence. I’m an advocate of 5x5, but I also believe other sequences can be effective. One of my lacrosse players always did seven reps on all his upper-body exercises, and he made great gains. I’ve had athletes who were stuck do all triples, from their warmups to their top-end sets, and the change helped them break through to another level.
Those us who have been around weight training for some time also recognize the fact that certain numbers in themselves prove to be barriers to progress. A 300-pound bench press is always a mind trip. Squatting with 315 for the first time is also staggering, since those three big plates on each end of the bar look so formidable. If I see someone miss at the same number several times in a row, I know he’s building up a mental block on that weight, so I have him skip over it the next time. Instead of trying 300, I tell him to use 305. Or I have him build up his reps to just below the problem number, then leap over it considerably. It’s amazing how this all works.
The more advanced trainers have to closely examine the many parts of an exercise once they plateau in order to discover the weakest area. A good coach can spot the problem area, but if you don’t have the benefit of experienced eyes, you’re on your own. The power rack is without a doubt the greatest tool in weightlifting for finding and correcting weak areas. Do three positions for the bench press inside the rack, and the weak area will immediately become obvious. Then it’s merely a matter of making that weak area stronger, which you can do effectively in the power rack.
What it really boils down to is taking some time to seriously examine your overall program and the way you work the exercise in question, then applying the right solution to your unique situation. First, figure the workload. Next, determine if you’re overworking or underworking the problem area. Now make some adjustments in your routine. If the results of the change are positive, you know you’re on the right track. If they aren’t, try something else.
It would be absolutely wonderful if there were a formula to fit every individual, but the truth is, there’s no one method that works for everyone in every situation. Even more frustrating is the discovery that the system that helps you move from 300 to 350 on the bench press doesn’t get you to 400. That requires a totally different routine.
While many find this factor most aggravating, I find it challenging. There’s always a way to break through a sticking point. It may take a lot of study and testing, but you can do it- and if you know you can do it, you’ll be really motivated to improve your strength.
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