When should i stop stronglifts

Assuming that you're eating plenty, sleeping plenty and staying hydrated, stronglifts 5x5 stops working due to one main reason Not enough stress: Over time your body adapts to any given stimulus.

Performing 5 sets of 5 reps over and over again will eventually lead to adaptive resistance. Your body is essentially so adapted to that specific stimulus that no further progress can be made. Not enough recovery: Performing 5x5 squats 3 times per week might be okay when you're a beginner, because you're only lifting relatively light weights. Now that you've gotten stronger, though, your workouts cause much more damage to your body and take longer to recover from.

Not at all, it's a decent programme and you've probably gotten decent results from it. But nothing works forever. As you become a better, stronger lifter your programming has to adapt with you. Put simply, when you can no longer add weight to the bar every workout, and you've already de-loaded 2 or more times.

The goal on this program is to lift heavy. You can lift heavier when you lift fast. Your lighter warmup weights will move fast. The bar can sometimes move slowly on hard reps aka grinders. The point is that you put all your strength into the bar by trying to accelerate it. Take your time between reps. Rest a second before doing the next rep so you can get tight and take a big breath.

This will also give you some recovery. The general rule is to take a big breath before you do the rep, hold it while you do the rep, then exhale when you finished your rep. Your blood pressure will increase when you hold your breath like this.

But your body will get used to this, especially if you start with the empty bar and work your way up slowly. Your heart is a muscle, and it will get stronger like all your other muscles.

Ignore people telling you to inhale on the way down or exhale on the up and similar bullshit. All of that does release pressure, but it also weakens your torso. It makes your lower back more prone to injury. The point of taking a big breath and hold it, is to create pressure in your abdomen.

This pressure increases support for your lower back. It makes your lower back safer and less likely to get injured. Exhaling during reps does the opposite. An advanced technique that works well on the Bench and Overhead Press is to press several reps with one breath.

But you must be able to hold your breath for reps for this to work. Rest days are crucial to get results on this program. The weight stresses your body every workout. This triggers it to get stronger and build muscle mass so it can better cope with the weight next workout. But your body needs time to recover, gain strength and add muscle. Workouts also cause fatigue. They increase your strength, fitness and endurance in the long-term.

But in the short-term they tire your body, muscles and mind. You need rest days to start your next workout fresh. Your legs will still be tired for Squats , shoulders still tired to press, back still tired to pull. Worse, you could still be sore from your last workout if it was hard.

This will make you struggle to lift more weight. Your schedule may force you to workout two days in a row. Once in a while is fine but every week will hurt your progress. This gives your body more recovery time. A walk or light jog is fine. A marathon is not. Avoid high intensity activities where you go all out.

Your body is already used to it. Your legs might actually recover faster because this flushes blood and nutrients in your legs. If you never biked to work, probably a bad idea to start now. Increase the weight on every exercise where you did five reps on every set last workout.

So add weight to it. Ask them to get a pair or buy your own set. Put it in your gym bag and take it with you every time. Small plates take no space and weigh little. This shifts the center of gravity. This is asking for bad form, uneven loading of your body, and injury. Just get small plates. The weight is heavier as a result. The weight is lower which makes big jumps harder. This is too much, too soon. It makes you miss reps and plateau.

Small plates delay plateaus. So get a pair of 1. Then get fractional plates of 0. The lighter you are, the more you need this. The program progresses faster when using kg than lb.

This is because the default increment of 2. This accelerates your progress when the empty bar feels too easy to start with. But lower the increments before you struggle to get your reps. Remember avoiding plateaus is easier than needing to break them. But remember each workout makes you stronger.

So stick to the progression and increase the weight anyway. Focus on lifting with proper form meanwhile. This will prepare you for the heavy weights later. Starting too heavy will cause soreness. One skipped workout often turns into two skipped workouts.

Now you have to restart and lost a week. This ruins your motivation and usually ends the program. But this is irrelevant. Starting too heavy also causes plateaus. Your starting weight must be light so you have room to easily add weight for several workouts. Of course lifting heavy is better. But lighter weights trigger your body to gain strength and muscle too.

The other issue with starting too heavy is that it encourages bad form. Instead of practicing proper form with easy weight, you must lift it at all costs to get your reps. This builds bad technique habits which will cause plateaus and injuries later when the weight gets even heavier. Starting heavy is trying to accelerate your progress. You think it will make you stronger faster.

Remember the fable of the rabbit losing the race to a turtle. You want to be like the turtle — starting light, adding weight steadily, and getting there faster by avoiding soreness and plateaus on the way. Your starting weights depend on your strength and experience. Each rep must start from the floor. Use full diameter plates so the bar starts at your mid-shin on each rep.

If the empty bar is too heavy to start with, then use a lighter bar. This is a common issue with females who have less upper-body strength. Add weight each workout. The program will get you stronger. If the starting weight is too light, you can fix that by using bigger increments for a couple of workouts. Instead of adding only 2. Switch back to the recommended increments once the weights becomes more challenging.

Understand you gain little by starting heavy since the weights increase fast anyway. What you lose is time spent working on proper form with lighter weights. This turns into a huge advantage when the weights get heavy. So be conservative with your starting weights.

If you make the mistake of starting too heavy, you should go to the gym anyway for your next workout, but lower the weights. Do several lighter warmup sets before your heavy work sets. Warmup with the empty bar.

Repeat until you reach your work weight. Warming up increases how much you can lift while decreasing the risk of injury. The warmup sets raise the temperature of your muscles and lubricate your joints. They also give you form practice before lifting heavy. And they prepare you mentally for the heavy weights to come.

Never jump into your heavy work sets without warming up first. Always warmup by doing several lighter sets first. You must still do lighter warmup-sets. Also, too much cardio pre-workout will pre-exhaust your legs for Squats. Skip the cardio and do lighter warmup sets — it will save you time.

The proper way to warmup is to start with two sets of five with the empty bar. Keep adding weight until you reach your work weight. Only rest after the last one.

The weight is too light to get injured plus doing extra sets could tire you out. The StrongLifts app has a built-in warmup calculator that gives you the exact sets, reps and weights to warmup with. It gives you this for every exercise and weight. Or you can use one of those free warmup calculators online. But they all suck.

The mistake they make is to make you do five warmup sets regardless of how heavy your work weight is. This means the warmup calculator in my app is different. This is more effective. Warming up makes your workout longer. The stronger you are, the heavier your work weight, and the more warmup sets. Keep your workouts short by not resting between warmup sets.

This will give you a good sweat without getting you too tired since the warmup weights are light. The only exception is your last warmup set.

Rest before doing your first work set. This way you have full ATP available before doing that heavy set. On your other warmup sets, just add weight and go.

Use the warmup rest timer in our app — it tells you how long to wait so you can focus on lifting. Respect your warmup sets by lifting them like your heavy sets.

Your workout starts with your warmup. Put the same focus and effort into them. If you do it right. This gives you more reps to practice proper form. It also increases how much Deadlifts you do. You also get breaks from lifting heavy when you deload after hitting a plateau. All of this takes care of your recovery. So keep lifting and adding weight. I usually take a week off training when going on holiday with family or friends. You can actually come back stronger from the extra rest.

You should be able to continue where you left off. Different case if you spent a week partying, drinking alcohol, eating crap and barely sleeping. It will suck when you come back — talking from experience. Lower the weight more to make it easier on yourself. Or maybe not… to teach yourself a lesson and not do it again next time…. If you come back from holidays on Sunday, you should be back in the gym on Monday. You already had a week off.

I usually train between Christmas and New Year. But if your gym changes its opening hours, you can either do your workout in advance or skip it for once. Travelling a lot for work is tougher.

I usually go to the local Crossfit gym. Every city has one and they have all the equipment you need. Just pay the open gym drop-in fee. By the way — skipping a workout is not a break. Regular breaks are fine. Note that the StrongLifts app will tell you how much weight to start with after your break. This prevents missed reps and soreness after your break. Download it here. Goals give you direction.

They remind you of what you need to do to get where you want to be. They eliminate distractions by keeping you focused on what matters. These goals are all one rep maxes aka 1RMs. Powerlifting and weightlifting competition use 1RMs to compare strength between lifters and determine winners. All it takes is going to the gym three times a week and doing the work.

You also need more dedication — eating right, eating plenty, sleeping enough, perfecting technique, being consistent, etc. Not everyone is willing to put in the time and effort, so not everyone gets there.

You switch program when your current one stops working. Age and body-weight impact time-frames. Young guys progress faster — more testosterone. Big guys progress faster too — they have bigger muscles. Old guys progress slower because of their slower recovery. Females progress slower due to less testosterone and smaller body-weights. Just try to improve. Most guys can easily reach the intermediate I level in 12 months.

So that is an extra 24lb of lean muscle in a year. In the beginning you will. Everyone does or we would all Squat kg. But some people hit plateaus sooner than others. This explains the range for the time-frames. Break your goals into mini-goals. Before you can Squat lb, you first have to Squat lb, lb, lb and lb. Focus on your next step instead of looking at the top of the mountain. Your main goal will look easier to achieve and you can check your progress on your way.

Some ideas…. I recommend you set the Intermediate I goal by this day next year. Set the Beginner goals for within the next six months. Set the consistency goals too. Then do the work. Failure is part of the game. Everyone plateaus eventually or this would be too easy. You had a long day at work. You feel sick. It happens. What matters is that you show up anyway. You got away with it when the weights were light.

The usual mistakes are rushing through your workouts, trying to accelerate progress, and not recovering properly…. Some people start looking for a new program when they fail reps. They think this one must be broken.

They also take their technique, nutrition, and sleep more seriously. They consider it part of their training — because it is. This is a lot of work. In fact, the stronger and more muscular you want to be, the more time and effort you have to put into this. Fix all of that instead of switching program. Anyway, the first thing you do when you fail a set is to rest longer. Rack the bar and wait at least five minutes before doing your next set.

This is not cardio but strength training. Rest longer so you can lift heavy. Use the built-in rest timer in my app. Mark it as two reps done by tapping on the set circle several times in a row the reps will decrease.

The app will recommend you to rest longer before doing your next set so you get fives this time. Double-check your equipment is set to catch the bar if you fail on the Squat or Bench Press. Squat and Bench in the Power Rack. Set the safety pins at the proper height so they can catch the bar if you fail. Rock climbers make beginners drop off the wall so they feel the safety of the rope. You want to feel the safety of the Power Rack. Squat down, come back up, then fail mid-way.

Let the pins catch the bar. This builds your confidence. Failing reps ends the set. Rack the weight, rest five minutes and then do your fourth set. Then rack the weight again, rest, and do your fifth set. The only exception is if you failed because you lost focus or balance. But then on your fourth and fifth set you get 5 reps. Here you can do a sixth set of five reps to replace your failed set where you only got two reps. Never lower the weight mid-workout to get five reps more easily.

You can already do it. You now want your body to lift heavier weight. You need to lift that weight for that. So stick with it and try again. Keep the range of motion the same on every rep and set.

The weight can only increase because you got stronger. Not because you moved the bar over a smaller distance than before. Same idea on the other exercises. Maybe you can get the rep if you let your back round, your elbows flare or your knees cave in.

Get small plates so you can microload and avoid plateaus. Repeat the weight next workout for every exercise where you failed reps on. You do increase the weight on every exercise where you did get five reps on every set.

It tells you how much weight to lift next workout when you fail. It repeats the weight on the exercises you fail only while increasing it on the exercises you succeed. If you fail in a different order, your form is off. Deload if you fail to get five reps on every set for three workouts in a row.

Then add weight every workout again. It will take several workouts to get back to the weight you got stuck on. You missed reps on one or several sets for three workouts. Deload instead.

Only deload on the exercise you failed. And if you fail three workouts in a row on Squat, but only failed one workout on Bench, then deload on Squat but repeat the weight on the Bench Press.

You can also deload if you have bad form. Add weight every workout after the deload. During those two weeks the weight will feel easy. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Here is my issue, I was incredibly faithful to going to the gym 3 times per week for about three months. I progressed on Stronglifts starting at suggested minimums without stalling on anything except for overhead press.

Right around three months into it, my wife got sick, followed by my kids getting sick, followed by a road trip with friends, etc. All in all, I have missed six weeks of going to the gym and it may be eight weeks by the time Christmas passes. How should I handle this?

I do not want to injure myself but would prefer not to start at the beginning? Should I switch to something like starting strength since I believe that allows you to start at something above minimum? Or should I just progress more quickly on stronglifts? Or something else? Related question here I feel mine is different because I really missed a significant amount of time : How to handle a break from StrongLifts?

The answer will essentially be the same as the question you pointed to , it's just a matter of degree. Nothing is more demoralizing than trying to work with weights you've used before, but now you are struggling with them. You'll want to deload to the point where the weight feels easy. Then take a day to test where the bar starts to feel heavy for your 5 rep sets. Those would be reasonable starting with just the bar and working up.

Since Stronglifts is all about 5 rep sets, we care about what you can do for 5 reps. And because you will be doing multiple sets at 5 reps we are going to be very conservative. When you do your testing, it will always be 5 rep sets, and you will stop when the bar starts to feel heavy. Is there any truth to that?

Is StrongLifts the best way to build muscles that are big and strong and hard? Now, just to be perfectly upfront: this article is pedantic. If you get stronger at the big barbell lifts, eat enough protein to build muscle, and eat enough calories to gain weight, you will indeed grow bigger and stronger. The main principles that lay the foundation of StrongLifts are good ones. The idea is to lift heavy weights while also getting in enough reps to gain some muscle size.

The StrongLifts part refers to the five big barbell lifts that the program emphasizes:. Not necessarily easier to do , but easier to learn. The workouts are simple but gruelling. However, it seems that StrongLifts may actually be ripped from Starting Strength.

If Mark Rippetoe is to be believed—and his account seems credible to me—then Mehdi ordered Starting Strength , was sent a copy, asked to be an affiliate, and was refused.

All three lifts are done for five sets of five repetitions. The second workout emphasizes the squat but also includes the overhead press and the conventional deadlift. The deadlift is only done for a single set, given how fatiguing heavy deadlifts can be, especially when done as Mehdi recommends, like a powerlifter—lower the barbell very quickly, reset between each rep.

Each StrongLifts workout is made up of three exercises, and each exercise is done for five sets of five repetitions. There are two workouts, but we train three times per week, like so:. We go to the gym three days per week, alternating between two different workouts. Every workout, people are challenged to add 2. This forces them to push themselves harder and to find their limits. And, ideally—if muscle is actually being built—it gradually makes them stronger over time, just like the man who lifted a calf as it gradually grew into a bull:.

The importance of progressive overload cannot be overstated. One of the biggest problems people run into when working out is that they stop their sets too far away from failure. They fail to challenge themselves enough to stimulate much, if any, muscle growth. By adding weight to the barbell every workout, people are forced to push themselves harder each workout.

There are other ways of approach progressive overload, and linear progression only works for so long, but challenging people to always beat their previous performance is a great way to make sure that people are lifting hard enough to build muscle. He recommends eating enough protein to build muscle, and he gives 0.

Anywhere from 0. He also recommends eating enough calories to gain a bit of weight every week, but not so much that we wind up getting fat.

That way our weight gain goes to our biceps instead of our bellies. When we lift 1—5 reps per set, we tend to stimulate less muscle growth per set systematic review , but we also make some beneficial neural adaptations that help us improve our 1-rep max. For example, check out the results of this study :. Okay, so, the systematic review of 14 studies found that lifting in a moderate rep range stimulates about twice as much growth per set as lifting in a lower rep range, which was confirmed with the individual study we used as an example.

Those differences disappear, though, when we match volume total poundage lifted. These findings indicate that heavy load training is superior for maximal strength goals while moderate load training is more suited to hypertrophy-related goals when an equal number of sets are performed between conditions. We covered a study by Brad Schoenfeld, PhD, in our strength training article that does a good job of demonstrating the downside of lifting in lower rep ranges for muscle growth:.

If we compared sets of 5 against sets of 10, the differences would likely be a bit smaller. My guess is that it would take 3—4 sets of 10 reps to match the muscle stimulation from doing 5 sets of 5 reps. Still, by bumping the rep ranges higher, we could trim off a couple of sets, freeing up some time and energy for adding in the lifts that StrongLifts is missing: chin-ups, biceps curls, triceps extensions, lateral raises, crunches, and maybe even some neck training.

First, different people define strength differently. Think of it this way, who is stronger? The guy who can bench pounds for one rep but only pounds for 12 reps, or the guy who can only bench pounds for one rep but pounds for 12 reps?

The first guy has more maximal strength, the second guy has better muscular endurance, both have great general strength, and the differences are fairly small anyway.

Both guys have big muscles, both guys are strong. The more important thing is choosing lifts with good carryover to the tasks we need to do. StrongLifts includes five good lifts, but there are more: push-ups, chin-ups, barbell curls, loaded carries, and so on. Every adaptation has a purpose. The reason hypertrophy yields bigger muscles is because in addition to accruing more myofibrils, it also causes more fuel glycogen to be stored inside the muscle fibres in the sarcoplasm , allowing them to do more work, lift more total weight before needing to rest study.

Having more glycogen in our muscles is great. Not only does it make our muscles look fuller, it also improves rates of muscle growth study , study , study , glucose control, and our general health.

Finally, the whole point of strength training is to take big muscles and make them better at lifting in lower rep ranges. When we bump the rep range higher, doing 8—12 reps per set, we get quite a bit more muscle growth, less wear and tear on our joints, greater cardiovascular improvements, and just as much general strength. However, the same is true for doing 5-rep sets.

Biceps curls? Moderate reps to gain more muscle size with less joint stress. Neck curls? High reps to make them safer. It spreads the stress on any given muscle out over the week, limiting the muscle damage we cause with each workout, and keeping our muscles growing steadily all week long. This was then confirmed with a meta-analysis that evaluated all of the relevant research:. Now, there are a number of different ways of organizing our workout routines so that we train each muscle at least twice per week.

Some people might prefer going to the gym 6 days per week and only training a third of their muscles each workout. But for beginners, three full-body workouts per week, each lasting only about an hour, is usually enough to maximize muscle growth. Overall, doing three full-body workouts per week is a great way for a beginner to build muscle. Squats are a great lift for building muscle in your quads and glutes, which are the two biggest muscles in your body. By emphasizing those muscles, you can indeed build quite a lot of overall muscle mass.

Plus, because those muscles are so big, the squat is quite taxing on our cardiovascular system, making it perhaps the healthiest of all exercises. Squats are the only lift that are done every workout 15 sets per week , meaning that we do them twice as often as the bench press, barbell row, and overhead press 7.

Should we be giving squats such a heavy emphasis? That depends. Do you want to be building muscle twice as fast in your legs as in your chest and back? Are you happy gaining strength on the squat twice as fast as you do on the bench press? That depends on your goals. The next thing to consider is the type of squat in the StrongLifts program: the low-bar back squat. This is a variation of the squat favoured by powerlifters because it makes the lift easier on their backs, engages more of their hips, and cuts the range of motion short, allowing them to lift more weight.

Outside of powerlifting, though, most intermediate lifters would get more benefit from the high-bar or front squat , both of which allow for a deeper range of motion, are easier on the hip and shoulder joints, and are better for strengthening the back.

For example, look at how much deeper we can go on the front squat before crashing our pelvis into our femurs:. The front squat, especially, is great for developing general strength, as it does such a great job of bulking up the upper back.

If we take a look at the moment arms at the sticking point of the lift with thighs just above parallel , we see that the back squat is all hip, whereas the front squat spreads the load between the upper back, hips, and quads:. Now, how much does this matter? Maybe not that much. The bigger issue, I think, is that the low-bar squat is an advanced powerlifting lift.

Most beginners would be better off with a goblet squat, which is much easier to learn, requires much less coordination, and does a great job of building full-body brute strength right from the very first workout:.