you hit the gym all fired up' and your strength has DROPPED!! what do you do?

[Tha Don]

recently i noticed my strength dropped, after making really good progress

my bench has been flying up, 1 week i was pushing out 6 x 95kg, then the wekk after i could barely push 3 x 95kg... rather strange, i didn't really understand why my strength dropped, i didn't get much sleep the week before so maybe i had overtrained a bit the previous week

anyway if the situation occurs again, when my strength goes down, what should i do?

1) struggle along with the same weights, and get a spotter to help my squeeze an extra couple of reps out?

2) go lighter? like take 5-10kg off all my exercises to push a few more reps out?

3) go even lighter? like take more weight off and hit 12 reps of so?

4) call it quits for the day, go get some rest and come back the next day?

5) it must be time to give my body a proper rest... take the whole week off?

let me know what you guys would recommend

peace

 

[P-funk]

go lighter, back off the weight instead of trying to push the heavy stuff. You may end up hurting yourself in the end because you are trying so hard to get those extra reps that are usually there. The day of light work may be beneficial to you, especially if you have ben going heavy for a while. It will kind of be like deloading, or active rest. Some days your on and some days your not.

 

[Arthur2004]

go lighter offcourse

 

[CowPimp]

I say continue on your normal routine for another week or so. If you notice the same results, then take a week off.

 

[Todd Bostrom]

You need to drop the weight back and start building back up again. You won't be able to hit the same weights every week. Eventually you will hit a wall. This is why you need to cycle your training.

 

[myCATpowerlifts]

i just do the same weight, for as many reps as possible

 

[oaktownboy]

ephedra??sex??kidding of course...like they said..take it lighter, get some rest..look at diet..etc.

 

[Mudge]

If you train heavy for long stretches of time I know I start losing strength. Powerlifting requires a little knowlege, those guys peak thier lifts in 2-3 month periods, they dont max out all the time and they dont always lift super heavy either.

Volume and training frequency would also be different, one US powerlifter said all his friends thought he was a madman for training so frequent as every 8 days, where most bodybuilders are 5-7.

 

[Tha Don]

thanks for the advice, in future i'll drop the weights back a bit n' give myself a break from going too heavy

i made the choice to struggle on going heavy for the rest of that week, the following week i dropped the weights back slightly and i was still really struggling to push the reps out, so i took last week off and did a full body workout yesterday to prepare myself to get back into it

i'll have to start building it up again, i guess i will have to make sure i DO cycle from heavy to moderate every couple of weeks, its easy to overlook at times when your 5kg off from hitting your short-term benching target n' you are making great progress doing what your doing... until then outta' nowhere it all falls apart!

peace

 

[Todd Bostrom]

In strength training, there are no short term goals. Strength takes time and many people are so very eager to improve.

It is common place in strength training to drop the weight back to 70% of 1rm and build back up over the next 10-14 weeks

 

[X Ring]

i usually drop the weight then go home and cry myself to sleep

 

[Flex]

I usually just start shouting out "LIGHT WEIGHT, YEAH BUDDYYYYY".

then voila, it becomes light, and i can pump heavy iron again