Jay-Budaman

Hey guys, just need a little advice on my routine. First let me give you a little background on my weight training history. I started lifting weights in high school about 3 days a week and made decent gains in strength and size, even thought I didn't look different in the mirror I could tell that I was getting bigger by others reactions. After my freshman year of college I joined the Marine Corps and enlisted as a reservist. I lost over 30 lbs in bootcamp and while I felt like I was in great shape and could do pushups all night when I got back to the weightroom I noticed that I was much weaker than when I left. So I found a training partner and we started lifting weights together. When we started about 2 months ago my friend was way stronger than me, he would do his set then we would strip weight off of the barbell so that I could do mine. By the end of a two month period I could lift what he lifted and even went with higher weight and for more reps on exercises that he was stronger than me in before. But over the past two weeks I have seemed to reach a plateau. It has even gotten to the point where I can only do 6-7 reps when I could do 10 before. I figure that I'm overtraining and need to take a few weeks off to let my body recover, at which point I can start lifting and make gains again. How long do you guys think I should take off or what I should do? I read an article about intensity cycling and thought that might be a good idea, to start working out with lighter weights and adding on to that. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
PFC Jay-Budaman, USMC

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"

-Phillipians 4:13

cman

Your in high school and your a marine? your profile says high school student?

Heavily medicated for your safety.
Medicated Not medicated
Age 40, 5'11" 210lb's

soonerdawg

JB.. I'll let the pros answer your questions. I just wanted to say HOORAH to a fellow Marine.

cman

Oh I see. you have been a member for a long time but only 5 posts.
gotcha

Heavily medicated for your safety.
Medicated Not medicated
Age 40, 5'11" 210lb's

SquatBenchDead

Intensity cycling is VERY important in strength training.

This doesn't mean to drop the weight back and still go to failure!!!!

A simple example would be:
Let's say you can bench 275 for 5 reps and you absolutely can't get more than that. Drop the weight back to like 205 for 5 reps and build it back up by like 10lbs per week. Guaranteed you will pass up 275x5.

This is just a basic example, but a proper program would be much more involved.

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