How-To Fix Your Stalled Progress (Strength Edition)

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Barbell Medicine podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Dr. Jordan Faganbomb. [SPEAKER_01]: Today, we're sharing a clip from a recent exclusive ask us anything that Dr. Baraki and I did for the Barbell Medicine Plus subscribers. [SPEAKER_01]: And we're tackling one of the most frustrating and frankly, misunderstood parts of training, the training plateau. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, before we get into today's episode, I wanna run through a little thought experiment with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very common scenario we see play out almost every single day and how you answer this says everything about how you understand progression, platoes and training, and what to do about it. [SPEAKER_01]: So for background information, you need to be familiar with the fitness fatigue model, which is used to describe how people adapt and respond to exercise. [SPEAKER_01]: In this model, performing exercise drives a simultaneous increase in both fitness and fatigue levels.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are many exercise variables that can be adjusted to try to generate more fitness and less fatigue, but there are no free lunches here. [SPEAKER_01]: More exercise will tend to drive more fitness and more fatigue, whereas less exercise will tend to drive less fitness and less fatigue.

[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, with that in mind, let's imagine a lifter who squats 310 pounds for 3 sets of 6 repetitions at an RP8, so 2 reps left in the tank on week 1. [SPEAKER_01]: He comes back on week 2 and he squats 315 pounds for 3 sets of 6 reps, but this time it was a soul crushing bone on bone RPE10 for each set. [SPEAKER_01]: It was maximal, no reps left in the tank. [SPEAKER_01]: First question is, which day was he stronger? [SPEAKER_01]: Got your answer yet?

[SPEAKER_01]: Most people will look at the number on the bar and say, he was stronger on week two. [SPEAKER_01]: 315 pounds is more than 310 pounds, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So he's stronger when he squatted more weight. [SPEAKER_01]: But the fact that the effort was much harder on week two should influence your interpretation. [SPEAKER_01]: On week one, he did each set with two reps left in the tank. [SPEAKER_01]: Meaning, he could have definitely squatted 315 pounds if he wanted to.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, it might have been a little harder, but it's unlikely that adding a measly 5 pounds would have made it a 10 out of 10 maximal effort, like he experienced on week 2. [SPEAKER_01]: If we compare the two efforts, his performance would either roughly the same or lower on week 2 as it was compared to week 1. [SPEAKER_01]: If he had actually gotten stronger, he should have been able to lift more weight with the same relative effort.

[SPEAKER_01]: Meaning that he should have been able to squat 315 pounds for 3 sets of 6 all at RPE 8 or 2 reps left in the tank. [SPEAKER_01]: But since he didn't actually get stronger in the time between the workouts, perhaps maybe even getting weaker. [SPEAKER_01]: Some folks might interpret this as a stall or a training plateau, but why?

[SPEAKER_01]: Was it a lack of fitness adaptations in this case strength coming online or was it too much fatigue to where the lift could have recovered before the next session? [SPEAKER_01]: Now if we think it's a lack of fitness, we need to increase the signal from the exercise program to drive more strength development. [SPEAKER_01]: We might need more volume, more intensity, or more something to get the wheels turning.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the short term, this is unlikely to immediately produce results, as the added training will also drive additional fatigue and the body needs some time to adapt or accommodate to it. [SPEAKER_01]: If we think it's a lack of recovery, adding more work is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. [SPEAKER_01]: In that case, we need to pull back and reduce the signal from the exercise program.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the short term, this might work to see an increase in strength as reducing the amount of training being done can temporarily increase performance as fatigue is dissipated or blood off. [SPEAKER_01]: This is how most peaking programs work. [SPEAKER_01]: But if we reduce the exercise over the long term, however, we are getting less of a signal to improve fitness too.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this particular scenario, we don't really know why the lifted didn't get stronger because it's just not enough information. [SPEAKER_01]: It's only been a week, and that just doesn't tell us much. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if that was your answer, congratulations, you win. [SPEAKER_01]: But many people react to a one week stall by panicking. [SPEAKER_01]: They see the bar speed slow down or the weights stay the same, and they immediately want to change their program.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're responding to short-term noise and in doing so, they often destroy the long-term signal. [SPEAKER_01]: Adaptations require the consistent application of an appropriately-dosed stimulus over a long period of time. [SPEAKER_01]: You can't rush it, and you certainly can't get more out of doing less than you actually need long-term. [SPEAKER_01]: So we decided to stop the guessing game.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today we're dropping a brand new six-part audio series on parable medicine plus called the training plateau action plan and it comes with an actionable PDF to help you determine exactly why you stalled and most importantly what to do about it. [SPEAKER_01]: To give you a taste of how we think through these problems, I'm sharing a clip from our recent Ask Us Anything that, again, I did with Dr. Baraki for our Bartle Medicine Plus subscribers.

[SPEAKER_01]: We start by defining what a plateau or a stall is, as well as some strategies for determining the cause and how to move forward to get over the hump. [SPEAKER_01]: Here's that conversation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the question is, if any of your lifts stall for more than three to four weeks or you hit peak performance for a certain rep range and your performance drops will you increase volume for the next block or try to adjust variables like exercise selection for the same block and or rep ranges and also is there a time where power lifters will benefit from an extended hypertrophy block to break through a plateau instead of doing a power lifting specific block.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty interesting question. [SPEAKER_01]: We've talked about this a number of times in different places.

[SPEAKER_01]: Should we do a dedicated podcast on this? [SPEAKER_01]: You guys can comment and let us know, like powerlifting performance, what do for programming? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's interesting to some people, or maybe it's just a dwindling cohort of our audience. [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see. [SPEAKER_01]: But tell me what you think about this, Dr. Baraki.

[SPEAKER_01]: When I think about a stall, [SPEAKER_01]: I want to define it, you know, like, or a plateau, and I think about it as a lack of progress for about three to four weeks, despite consistent effort and being in a resource-rich environment. [SPEAKER_01]: Meaning that the person is eating reasonably well, sleeping reasonably well. [SPEAKER_01]: There's not this crazy live stress or environmental stress that's going on.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like, [SPEAKER_01]: you know, we would predict that if the program was appropriate as far as the formulation, so it's in it, and the correct dose that you would see some demonstrable progress in that timeframe.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in particular, I'm thinking about the priority lifts, so like the exercise that come like first, second or even third, on like our templates, whereas like, you know, if there's [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that I care that much, and I don't know that I can qualify that as a stall. [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, look, it's at the end of the session. [SPEAKER_01]: So like, fatigue is just going to be a thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does that job with your kind of, you know, how you would define a stall or a plateau? [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's reasonable.

[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that I might, I don't know if it's really a quibble or just like a slightly different way to think about it is when you put a time frame that three to four week period, that is admittedly made up just to be clear and also something that may require a little bit of adjustment based on the person that we're talking about and where they're at in their training journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason I say that is like for you or I, you know, when we're training seriously, it's like if our lifts aren't really moving at ton over the course of three to four weeks, we are not suddenly freaking out or saying, oh, we're in a stall and like aggressively changing tons of variables. [SPEAKER_00]: There might be some tinkering that we're doing, but at the same time, it's like, you know, I've mentioned this before.

[SPEAKER_00]: If either of us hit a PR, [SPEAKER_00]: once or twice a year, that's like a pretty good year for, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like how much true quote unquote progress can you realistically expect outside of kind of artifactual progress?

[SPEAKER_00]: And when I say artifactual progress, that means like if you [SPEAKER_00]: You know, set up your training in a way that the loads necessarily go up week to week, maybe, because your RPE targets are getting higher or because your rep range is going down. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not necessarily the same thing as like progress.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a different way to set up your training, perhaps, to give you a lead-in, to build some physical adaptations, to get your psychology right, to kind of build some momentum in various ways. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, if we have, you know, this, [SPEAKER_00]: A person who, as I gather, is likely the case from the person asking this question, maybe like an early intermediate quote unquote, if we wanted to apply that kind of also made up terminology.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then yeah, that's a reasonable amount of time during which we should see some demonstrable changes in their performance. [SPEAKER_00]: But for a very early career lifter, maybe we expect some things a little bit more often for a much later career lifter. [SPEAKER_00]: We might not expect things anywhere near that timeframe. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the only quibble I would have here. [SPEAKER_00]: But otherwise, yeah, pretty reasonable take. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think you could maybe adjust that time frame two different ways. [SPEAKER_01]: So way number one would be like, look, if you are anybody up to like a very experienced or relatively experienced, trainee within three or four weeks, you should see some demonstrable progress if everything else is steady same and the environment is resource rich, like we said. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you are an advanced lifter, it's probably gonna be longer. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's one adjustment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Alternatively, you could adjust the anchor by which you're comparing performance. [SPEAKER_01]: So for example, your best squat all-time is like, well, like, 630 or something or 630 or something. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right around it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yep, 625, I think. [SPEAKER_01]: But that's not your current max. [SPEAKER_01]: Totally your current max. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's call it 540 or something. [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it is, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so even then with your current max, I would expect some sort of signal of an improvement [SPEAKER_01]: within a, that, you know, three to four weeks, maybe it's five week, whatever, from where you're starting, you know, took to that time point. [SPEAKER_01]: So I, I, I, I think that historical anchor can be problematic if you're trying to define a stall or plateau, I would use a more recent benchmark. [SPEAKER_01]: How does that's fair?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: So the first part, when I'm thinking through this is like, let's verify. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's, let's do assessment. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's verify. [SPEAKER_01]: Are we tracking estimated one Rm?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are we testing actual one Rm? [SPEAKER_01]: We tend to favor the former, right, because like testing in training. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, [SPEAKER_01]: is it really important that we get the most accurate, you know, look, you went up and then you went to a point where you failed. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's necessary, but the problem becomes when people are tracking estimated 1 RMs from like sets of 8 or 10 or 12 or the rep ranges are moving.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I don't know that this really, like it's not giving me a strong enough signal of like, yep, you're stalled for sure. [SPEAKER_01]: It's more like, this is just noisy data and so at that point I might say, why don't you do a single day before or after and just as a comparison? [SPEAKER_01]: And so one strategy that I use and you'll see it in our templates and in my coaching clients is like, [SPEAKER_01]: week one, this is just an example.

[SPEAKER_01]: The numbers are kind of made up. [SPEAKER_01]: It depends on the person, but they'll do a squat, four, seven, four, eight, four, nine, or four, six, four, seven, four, eight. [SPEAKER_01]: These ascending sets to triangulate their current strength potential. [SPEAKER_01]: And then at the end of the block, let's call it eight weeks later. [SPEAKER_01]: They'll do four, seven, four, eight, four, nine.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a test type thing, just to compare and say, did you get stronger or not? [SPEAKER_01]: That kind of gives me feedback that I feel like is relatively [SPEAKER_01]: You could compare it without doing too much rationalization or too much hand wave, the mental gymnastics sort of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the first thing I want to verify. [SPEAKER_01]: quick break from our podcast, because I want to mention today's sponsor, Caraway.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You have to determine whether or not it's insufficient stimulus, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Or insufficient sort of adaptation, like it is it too much or too little, basically. [SPEAKER_01]: And that is challenging to to discern. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, if you're not getting enough stress to drive an adaptation, you won't see the fitness adaptation provided you're measuring it in some sort of way, that's repeatable.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not able to recover or respond to it like excessive fatigue, you're doing too much, you're also not going to be able to demonstrate that improvement in fitness adaptation. [SPEAKER_01]: So discerning that, like teasing that out is challenging. [SPEAKER_01]: Look, when I think about it, I'm like if it's insufficient, [SPEAKER_01]: Persons probably not sore very often. [SPEAKER_01]: They feel pretty fresh on a daily basis when they go into the gym.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just kind of stagnant. [SPEAKER_01]: The weights that they're using, for example. [SPEAKER_01]: On the other hand, with excessive fatigue too much, I'm like, you probably sore more often than not, you might have some joint pain type stuff that's kind of popping up your motivation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Might be a little compromise because every session is kind of grinder, your session RPs or [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's often how we have these conversations with people when they have these concerns trying to get a much more of a subjective history and how they're feeling day to day how they're approaching their workouts, how they're leaving their workouts to kind of give us a little bit of direction of am I pushing further or am I pulling back and then if I'm.

[SPEAKER_00]: or might keep in things kind of more steady giving it more time. [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's the right answer, so there's a lot of different paths, but some of that subjective input from the trainee is really essential.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that is always very clearly quantifiable that will point you in a confident direction that athletes input is really important. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you gotta make it. [SPEAKER_01]: You're just hedging your bets, you're like, [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like it's probably too little, or I feel like it's probably too much, and those have different sort of courses of action. [SPEAKER_01]: If you feel like it's not enough, then you're gonna need more training load.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you feel like it's too much, you need less training load. [SPEAKER_01]: And so once you've kind of chosen your path to path divergent to the woods and I chose the one that's whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: You got to pick a path and then you're just manipulating training load. [SPEAKER_01]: So training load is not only just weight on the bar, but the reps that you're used to volume that you're doing and then the proximity to failure.

[SPEAKER_01]: And all of these, it's like a, you know, a 10 band or whatever equalizer and you get to kind of, you know, try to optimize. [SPEAKER_01]: That's effectively the formulation of the training. [SPEAKER_01]: And so if somebody had too low of a training load, then I would likely increase volume. [SPEAKER_01]: Because I suspect that I was starting from a place that was intelligent. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, the exercise selection was appropriate to what you care about.

[SPEAKER_01]: The rep scheme was also appropriate and intensity was appropriate to what you care about if the maximal strength, hypertrophy, whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: And then the proximity failure was also intelligent. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you want to do an every set to RP-10. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, for maximal strength. [SPEAKER_01]: So those are some big assumptions, but look, if you're a barbell, it's a plus subscriber, if you like. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a reasonable assumption nonetheless.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, if it's too much training load, then I'm going to go the opposite way. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm likely going to reduce the number of sets increase the proximity to failure. [SPEAKER_01]: So get further away from failure things of that nature. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that's kind of like the 10,000-foot view. [SPEAKER_01]: There's some nuance here, though.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so for example, what if, [SPEAKER_01]: the environment is just not conducive to making gains, meaning you're missing meals, or for example, your sleep is compromised, life stress, whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: If that's the case, training modification probably should still happen, but also your expectations should change, just a different season of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think about when I was in the ICU, for example, doing that rotation, I think about, you know, when you were doing night shifts, for example, in medical school, it's just not a great environment, and so you're like, look, I'm kind of, this is more like maintenance mode, [SPEAKER_01]: I'm training for a psychological benefit and then also to maintain my existing adaptations.

[SPEAKER_01]: At that point, almost universally, I like reducing training load, just because it's not the training stress that's pickling you or cooking you, it's the life stress. [SPEAKER_01]: And so reducing the training load to sort of match all of that seems like a good idea. [SPEAKER_01]: We see this like people in high stress academic settings, like, oh, I got to finals coming up or high stress jobs that you're looking at. [SPEAKER_00]: Is that kind of makes sense to you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're mitigating detraining as much as possible compared with the idea of promoting new training adaptations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by mitigating detraining, it makes it so that when you're ready to kind of put all your resources back in the game, you're less likely to experience either significant soreness that takes a ton of time to recover from or an injury that would be otherwise avoidable because you didn't have as big of a jump in your training loads compared to if you just like [SPEAKER_00]: all together.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's just kind of keeping you as prepared as possible to get back in the game once you're ready. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And then the last little wrinkle here is let's say maybe the training loads actually fine. [SPEAKER_01]: And again, the training formulation, what the training consists of is also reasonable or fine to the best of your knowledge. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's a technique related thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, your legs may in fact be getting stronger on a squat, but if your technique is compromised [SPEAKER_01]: And it could be, you know, broadly speaking, I separate these in like two different categories. [SPEAKER_01]: Is this just like a skill related thing? [SPEAKER_01]: Or is like a specific muscle deficiency that you need to kind of like make up for?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I discuss this a lot in the low fatigue, ebook, whatever, so that would be a great resource for not only like troubleshooting, but also like how do I identify those sticking points? [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, that'd be kind of like the last little wrinkle here. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, well, maybe the training load is fine. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the environment is also fine. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's just you.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's sort of thing and so that we discuss the courses of action there so that kind of all makes sense and you're ultimately you're just going to monitor your response and iteratively change based on the same sort of like little algorithm we just worked through. [SPEAKER_01]: The last question here was, is there a time where power lifters will benefit from just a straight-up high-perature fee block to break a plateau?

[SPEAKER_01]: Generally speaking, outside of psychological preferences or someone's like, look, I do not want to do the low bar squat, the competition bench, my regular deadlift.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just burnout, outside of that setting, which is totally fine, totally normal, and like whatever you can do, break. [SPEAKER_01]: not really. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that power lifters should be doing hypertrophy specific sort of training to the exclusion of training for their sport. [SPEAKER_01]: Mainly because you get a decent hypertrophy stimulus from squat bench deadlift and their variations, you can prioritize hypertrophy more in a particular block if you feel like.

[SPEAKER_01]: My technique is compromised by lack of musculature, and ultimately, like long-term strength gain requires both hardware updates, that's hypertrophy at the level of the muscle, more functional units to create force at the level of muscle, and software updates that neurological type stuff, and you want both.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a good program should include elements of both and where you shift your priority, you know, high-perch fevers, strength, and that blend kind of depends on the individual and then also where they're at in the competitive year. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're close to a beat, probably not a lot of high-perch if you work, if you're far away from a meet, more high-perch if you work generally speaking, that makes sense to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's reasonable if you don't know anything else about the person, and the reason I make that caveat is that I think that over time working with enough people we have also seen some folks who just generally tend to do better with more of their training spent in higher rep ranges, and they prefer it, they train better that way, they tolerate it better, and it still ends up leading to like one RM performance improvements and things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: reps higher for longer and then other people who just tell us reliably they're like gosh every time I do higher reps sets at a particular say reasonable intensity range maybe they don't respond as well or things tend to decline and so this is all just where you're you're proposing like knowing nothing else about you here's how I would go about this but once you gather more information about the person's kind of training response or their preferences or things like that then it just becomes an exercise in tailoring it towards those things

[SPEAKER_00]: even though you don't necessarily need to commit to that forever. [SPEAKER_00]: So even when I tailor something towards it, I still might say, hey, what do you think about experimenting with this for a little bit of time? [SPEAKER_00]: If it's something you never tried before, even that is sometimes enough to get somebody excited and try hard, which is all that might be needed for them on something new. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, get excited about their training for sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: The last little nugget here, and then we can move on. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to do 20 minute answers to every question. [SPEAKER_01]: Agreed. [SPEAKER_01]: I find that the people who tend to thrive upon switching to higher rep range ranges, present company, me, including, and talking about me, it mostly stems from like overshooting on the lower rep ranges. [SPEAKER_01]: Because you like the bigger weights. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: who doesn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm like, look, if I have a little bit of like maybe we'll call him like a conditioning level constraint, like look dude, what are you going to squat for a set of eight percent of 10? [SPEAKER_01]: What are you going to deadlift for a set of 12? [SPEAKER_01]: Show me. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm saying. [SPEAKER_01]: So like I can't, you know, take, I can't go full send because I'm like, I'm going to tired.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So just just the thought, I don't have any evidence to support that's just completely made up, but some experience there. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, I hope that helps clear up some of the confusion about defining a stall and it gets you thinking about ways to address it. [SPEAKER_01]: Like we mentioned, strength isn't linear and sometimes the best move is to actually stay the course.

[SPEAKER_01]: However, if you've checked the boxes and you truly are stuck, you're going to need a plan. [SPEAKER_01]: So we just released this brand new exclusive six part audio series on Barbolmettison Plus, called the training plateau action plan, and we go into every variable, training volume, intensity, frequency, exercise selection, progression, and more. [SPEAKER_01]: And we give you a step-by-step guide to help diagnose and try to troubleshoot your own training.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can sign up and get instant access to the series, the PDF, and our entire library of exclusive content at barbalmedicine.supercast.com. [SPEAKER_01]: Check it out now.