I havent read through your entire journal so i dont know, but how many weeks have you been loading? I don't know if Rippetoe includes it in the Starting Strength Program (as i havent read it over in a while) but you may be able to break out of the squat plateau by doing 3x3's.

I've been at it 4 months now. I had a back issue 2 months ago and had to take 10 days off. Then I took another about 10 days off from Squats and did Step-Ups instead. When I resumed Squats, I went low weight and started A2G.

What benefit would 3x3 have? I'd be able to progress because of less reps?

That's part of it. But it's more than that. The purpose of a back off is to just get a little recovery but not to LOSE anything strength wise. And in this case we're talking neural adapatations which are the first to come and the first to start going. This is of course different for everyone depending on many factors including training status. For instance, initial beginner gains may stick around a lot longer than later gains of a more trained individual.

But regardless all you want to do is recover and go past where you were. If you drop the intensity too much (and it is hard to say how much is too much) but say more than 15 percent and certainly if you remain at lower intensities for a period of weeks is is VERY probable that you are not just recovering and adapting but are detraining (a little) and then simply retraining. The result is you just get where you were before but you don't break the plateau or only break it for a very short period.

If you needed more of a backoff what you could do is instead of building back up very slowly you can just have the first one or two backoff workouts be lower volume but in general keeping the intensity somewhat high.

The 3x3 is the same general concept where you are dropping the volume but raising or keeping the intensity the same. In this case I doubt it would work because of the frequency. You'd need to drop a squat workout or change it to a lighter squat. Or keep the weight the same at the lower volume. But even then it is not guaranteed to work very well on this set up and certainly no better than a simple back off in the way I've described. I would save that for a later time when you want to "peak" and deload rather than simply continue progression.

The reason is that it's just not the optimum way. This is not an extended loading protocol. This is a workout to workout protocol. The best way to handle stalls is in a way that is as similar to the normal way of progressing in the program as possible. You don't want sudden changes in the type of stimuly your introducing. You just want a little rest while staying as close to your recent 5RM as possible while still allowing that rest to take place.

BTW, for some reason I was thinking along the lines of an intermediate 5x5 so I realize that when I said the backoff should be 3 workouts and then the fourth should be the higher weight, although that may well work it is certainly not so rigid as that and you could take a little longer but I wouldn't do more than around 2 weeks whereas the way you were doing it before you're talking an entire month (at least for squats).

Saturday 5/19/07

Squat A2G ----------- 1x5 1x4 1x4 167 lbs
Military Press --------- 3x5 128 lbs
JS Rows -------------- 3x5 149 lbs

Chin-ups -------------- 2x8

Supersets:
Dumbbell Curl ---------- 2x8 30 lb
Tricep Kickback -------- 2x8 22 lb


Notes:
None

You're regressing in performance despite the lowered weight on squats. That could mean many things such as not enough sleep or not enough eating. But if things don't get a lot easier on your next workout you may need to drop the volume for the next one (on squats).

An extra day off is not the worst idea in the world either.

FYI, Eric and I have been talking behind the scenes and I admitted I found myself letting my Squats get out of control. Eric's post above was made before he read my PM. I'm going to continue my Squat progression from from 167 and concentrate on my form.

In this case, btw, I think you should probably go back to the microloading you were doing before since obviously the bigger jumps may be too much. Which kinda comes down to you doing the right thing in the first place before I said you were drawing out the backoff too long :biglaugh: It would make sense to forget entirely about the idea of this being a back-off and continue progression exactly as before except with proper form and depth :)

I would go ahead and repeat that weight and see if you get all the reps. But then most likely you'd need to microload to get all the reps the next time.

Tuesday 5/22/07

Squat A2G ---------------- 3x5 167.5 lbs
Bench Press --------------- 3x5 197.5 lbs
Deadlift ------------------- 1x5 225 lbs

Skull Crushers ------------- 2x8 70 lbs

Notes:
Squats went real well. I started thinking about technique again and found a post by Dave76 over at bb.com. Dave lives in Wichita Falls and has trained with Mark Rippetoe. Dave explains that Mark says when coming out of the bottom of the Squat, "Think about lifting your tailbone first. Don't push with the legs as much as you think about lifting the tailbone." I tried this little tweek and it made a huge difference. The Squats were still tough, but they felt "right". I hope this was sound advice.

Edit: I also took more time between Squat sets. I watched the clock and took a full 3 minutes between sets. I may have been rushing before and not quite ready for my next sets.

I feel like I'm back on track with my Squats and hope to do some real progressing again.

Notice my weights are in half pound increments? I found some microloading weights that allow me add 2 1/2 pounds. They're big washers that I bought locally from a supply store. They're 2" washers with a 2 1/8" inside diameter, perfect for an olympic weight bar. They weight about .63 lbs each, so four of them weigh 2 1/2 pounds. They were 2 bucks each with tax. The company is called Fastenal and they have stores all over the US. I live in a medium sized city and we have three stores here. Here's a link to the exact washer I bought in case you want to pick some up.

Thursday 5/24/07

Squat A2G --------------- 3x5 170 lbs
Military Press ------------- 3x5 130 lbs
JS Rows ------------------ 3x5 150 lbs

Chin-ups ------------------ 2x8

Saturdayday 5/26/07

Squat A2G ---------------- 3x5 172.5 lbs
Bench Press --------------- 3x5 200 lbs
Deadlift ------------------- 1x5 230 lbs

Superset:
Dumbbell Curl ------------- 2x8 40 lbs
Skull Crushers ------------- 2x8 75 lbs


Notes:
Couple good workouts. Squats are coming along great now with my new tailbone first tweek. It's a subtle change, but like I said last post, it feels right. Now I get it moving a little more before I get to the point of maximum exertion.

I wish I was going up 10 pounds a workout for Deadlifts. I'll have to wait a few more weeks until they're really challenging. I would love to add one set more to my workouts. (hint hint Eric...what do you think?)