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Are you plateaued.. or just not trying hard enough?
It’s very common for beginners to assume that they have hit a plateau because sessions are feeling harder. The assumption is that adding ‘x’ amount of weight will feel the same when you’re squatting 100kg as when you were squatting 50kg.
As evidenced by my face here on a set of 170kg squats, that’s just not the case. Training only gets harder as you go on, as you are asking more of your body.
As an intermediate, you will find that rest periods and workouts take longer, and you may also need to do more of them in a week.
Every now and then, you will also need to test the waters of what you consider achievable. I can’t tell you how many people assume they are maxed out without even trying the heavier weight. What’s the worst that can happen, you fail a rep? At least now you know it’s not that you’re just being soft.
Some signs that this is the reason for your plateau:
You’ve never failed a rep
You never get sore in the target muscles
You have never trained with someone stronger than you or been coached
How to fix it
It's really pretty straightforward. You simply have to try to do more.
When you think you've done the most reps that you can, try one extra. When you think you're maxed out on weight, try a kilo or two more.
If you're not legitimately failing, there's really no evidence that you're stuck, other than your interpretation that this is feeling difficult; and that interpretation is naive until you have experienced a true 10/10 effort rep.
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