How-To Fix Your Stalled Progress (Strength Edition)

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1:18Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Welcome back to the Barbell Medicine Podcast. I'm Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum. 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, and we're tackling one of the most frustrating and frankly misunderstood parts of training, the training plateau. Now, before we get into today's episode, I want to run through a little thought experiment with you. 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, plateaus in training, and what to do about them.

1:50Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum: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. In this model, performing exercise drives a simultaneous increase in both fitness and fatigue levels. Now, 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. More exercise will tend to drive more fitness and more fatigue, whereas less exercise will tend to drive less fitness and less fatigue. All right, with that in mind, let's imagine a lifter who squats 310 pounds for three sets of six repetitions at an RPE8, so two reps left in the tank, on week one.

2:32Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:He comes back on week two and he squats 315 pounds for three sets of six reps, but this time it was a soul-crushing, bone-on-bone RPE10 for each set. It was maximal, no reps left in the tank. First question is, which day was he stronger? Got your answer yet? Most people will look at the number on the bar and say he was stronger on week two. 315 pounds is more than 310 pounds, right? So he's stronger when he squatted more weight. But the fact that the effort was much harder on week two should influence your interpretation. On week one, he did each set with two reps left in the tank, meaning he could have definitely squatted 315 pounds if he wanted to.

3:12Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Sure, it might have been a little harder, but it's unlikely that adding a measly five pounds would have made it a 10 out of 10 maximal effort like he experienced on week two. If we compare the two efforts, his performance was either roughly the same or lower on week two as it was compared to week one. If he had actually gotten stronger, he should have been able to lift more weight with the same relative effort, meaning that he should have been able to squat 315 pounds for three sets of six all at RPE eight, or two reps left in the tank. But since he didn't actually get stronger in the time between the workouts, perhaps maybe even getting weaker, some folks might interpret this as a stall or a training plateau.

3:52Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:But why? Was it a lack of fitness adaptations, in this case strength, coming online, or was it too much fatigue to where the lifter couldn't recover before the next session? 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. We might need more volume, more intensity, or more something to get the wheels turning. 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. If we think it's a lack of recovery, adding more work is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

4:31Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:In that case, we need to pull back and reduce the signal from the exercise program. 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 bled off. This is how most peaking programs work. But if we reduce the exercise over the long term, however, we are getting less of a signal to improve fitness too. In this particular scenario, we don't really know why the lifter didn't get stronger because there's just not enough information. It's only been a week and that just doesn't tell us much.

5:05Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Now, if that was your answer, congratulations, you win. But many people react to a one-week stall by panicking. They see the bar speed slow down or the weight stay the same, and they immediately want to change their program. They're responding to short-term noise, and in doing so, they often destroy the long-term signal. Adaptations require the consistent application of an appropriately dosed stimulus over a long period of time. You can't rush it, and you certainly can't get more out of doing less than you actually need long-term. So we decided to stop the guessing game. Today, we're dropping a brand new six-part audio series on Barbell Medicine Plus called the Training Plateau Action Plan.

5:43Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:And it comes with an actionable PDF to help you determine exactly why you stalled and most importantly, what to do about it. 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 Barbell Medicine Plus subscribers. 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. Here's that conversation.

6:15Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum: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 powerlifting specific block? Pretty interesting question. We've talked about this a number of times in different places. Should we do a dedicated podcast on this? You guys can comment and let us know, you know, like powerlifting performance, what do for programming?

6:52Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:I don't know. Maybe that's interesting to some people, or maybe it's just a dwindling cohort of our audience. We'll see. But tell me what you think about this, Dr. Baraki. When I think about a stall, I want to like 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, meaning that the person is eating reasonably well, sleeping reasonably well. There's not this crazy life stress or environmental stress that's going on. So like, you know, we would predict that if the program was appropriate as far as the formulation, so what's in it and the correct dose that you would see some demonstrable progress in that time frame.

7:34Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:um and in particular i'm thinking about the priority lifts so like the exercises that come like first second or even third um on like our templates whereas like you know if there's biceps curls at the end i'm like i don't know that i care that much and i don't know that i can call quantify that as a stall it's just like look it's at the end of the session so like fatigue is just going to be a thing um does that jive with your kind of uh you know how you would define a stall

7:58Dr. Austin Baraki:or a plateau i think it's reasonable 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 uh 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 and 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 a ton over the course of three to four weeks we are not suddenly freaking out or saying oh we're in a stall and aggressively changing tons of variables.

8:35Dr. Austin Baraki:There might be some tinkering that we're doing, but at the same time, it's like, I've mentioned this before, if either of us hit a PR once or twice a year, that's like a pretty good year for us at this point, right? And so it's like, how much true quote unquote progress can you realistically expect outside of kind of artifactual progress? And when I say artifactual progress, that means like if you 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. That's not necessarily the same thing as like progress.

9:09Dr. Austin Baraki: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. And so yeah, if we have, you know, this, a person who as I gather is likely the case from the person asking this question, maybe like a early intermediate quote unquote, if we wanted to apply that kind of also made up terminology, then yeah, that's a reasonable amount of time during which we should see some demonstrable, you know, changes in their performance. But for a very early career lifter, you know, maybe we expect some things a little bit more often for a much later career lifter, we might not expect things anywhere near that timeframe.

9:49Dr. Austin Baraki:So that's the only quibble I would have here. But otherwise, yeah, pretty reasonable take.

9:52Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah, it's not I think you could maybe uh adjust that time frame two different ways so way number one would be like look if you are anybody up to like a very experienced or relatively experienced trainee within three to four weeks you should see some demonstrable progress if everything else has stayed the same and the environment is resource rich like we said and if you are an advanced lifter it's probably going to be longer so that's one adjustment alternatively you could adjust the anchor by which you're comparing performance so for example your best squat all time is like what like 6 30 or something or six.

10:23Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah, right around that. Yep. 625, I think. But that's not your current max. Totally not. Your current max, let's call it 540 or whatever it is. Right. And so even then with your current max, I would expect some sort of signal of an improvement within that, you know, three to four weeks, maybe it's five weeks, whatever from where you're starting, you know, to that time point. So 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. That's fair. Yeah. Fair enough. all right so the first part when i'm thinking through this is like let's verify let's let's set let's do an assessment let's verify are we tracking estimated one rm are we testing actual one rm we tend to favor the former right because like testing in training it's like 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 i don't think that's necessary but uh the problem becomes when people are tracking estimated one rms from like sets of eight or 10 or 12 or the rep ranges are moving 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 it's more like this is just noisy data and so at that point i might say why don't you do a single at eight you know before or after and just as a comparison and so one strategy that i use and you'll see it in our templates and in my coaching clients is like week one this is just an example, the numbers are kind of made up depends on the person, but they'll do a squat, four at seven, four at eight, four at nine, or four at six, four at seven, four at eight, these ascending sets to triangulate their current strength potential.

11:53Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:And then at the end of the block, let's call it eight weeks later, they'll do four at seven, four at eight, four at nine. It's a similar, it's like a test type thing, just to compare and say, did you get stronger or not? And that kind of gives me feedback that I feel like is relatively, you could compare it without doing too much, you know, rationalization or too much hand wavy mental gymnastics sort of stuff. So that's the first thing I want to verify. Quick break from our podcast, because I want to mention today's sponsor Caraway. Now I've been going through the process of moving into a new house, and I've been finding a lot of things that I'm ready to replace.

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17:45Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:If you've been dealing with a nagging injury, if you just came out of surgery, or you work with people who have, I want to tell you about our upcoming pain and rehab seminar in Bozeman, Montana, June 20th and 21st. This is a two-day deep dive into how we actually think about pain, rehab, and getting people back to exercise. We've updated the curriculum this year to reflect where the evidence is right now, with training lectures covering the current recommendations for exercise during injury and rehab, and breakout sessions on exercise modifications and technique tailored to specific individuals.

18:13Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:This isn't just a powerlifting-focused event. The modifications content has been expanded to cover athletes across different sports, So wherever you're meeting your current patients or clients, there's going to be something you can put directly into practice. For example, the lower extremity post-op lecture and its subsequent breakout walks through the full rehab spectrum after surgery with a strong emphasis on the middle phase of training. This is the phase that gets the least attention and causes the most problems. We spend real time on the return to sport criteria and how to structure progressions that actually get somebody there.

18:41Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:The pain lecture also has new cases this year and is built around helping folks make sense of what they're experiencing. not just here's what the research says but how to use that information in a real conversation with a real person who's frustrated and confused and wants to know what to do next spots are limited so if you want to learn more and register today head over to barbellmedicine.com and look for the bozeman pain and rehab seminar we also have a link in the show notes below part two is and this is like you know the i don't know what the market size is for like strength training as far as money goes but let's call it the million dollar question you have to determine whether or not it's insufficient stimulus, right?

19:20Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Or insufficient sort of adaptation. Like, is it too much or too little, basically? And that is challenging to discern. 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. 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. So discerning that, like teasing that out is challenging. When I think about it, I'm like, if it's insufficient, person's probably not sore very often.

19:57Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:They feel pretty fresh on a daily basis. When they go into the gym, it's just kind of stagnant, the weights that they're using, for example. On the other hand, with excessive fatigue too much, I'm like, you're probably sore more often than not you might have some joint you know pain type stuff that's kind of popping up your motivation might be a little compromised because every session is kind of a grinder your session rpes are higher like stuff like that does that seem to make sense to you yeah i think

20:22Dr. Austin Baraki: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, or am I keeping things kind of more steady, giving it more time sometimes is the right answer. So there's a lot of different paths, but some of that subjective input from the trainee is really essential. It's not something that is always very clearly quantifiable that will point you in a confident direction that the athlete's input is really important.