in January and February I stopped skipping legs and made decent progress on my squat, from 60kg to 80kg, +2.5kg/week, but in March I've kind of stalled. At 80kg I now get extremely out of breath from my third set and have to pause and breathe long and often before I can continue, or I'd fail and/or pass out. I skipped leg day last week because reasons, this week I came back and tried the same weight as 2 weeks prior, and I had to rerack the bar halfway through my last set to catch my breath for 20 seconds, before squeezing out the last two reps. I tried pushing through this breathlessness for the previous two sets, but I would've been folded if I tried to again.
is this just an indication of having shit cardio (I know I do anyway), or is there something else wrong here? also considering buying a belt, if that makes it easier to brace wouldn't it also help my breathing? I was aiming for 2pl8 by the end of April but this is really slowing me down.
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1RM or reps?
Did you eat before the gym? Do you normally eat before the gym?
Is your rest time regular or intuitive?
You said you skipped a week of legs and came back to it. This could be your body trying to find a comfy spot in the proper form again since it was deprived of squat last week.
Many things could cause this, one week isn't anything to worry about. Given your progress, it is probably just time to deload about 10% of the weight from the bar and start progressing again if no other culprit is found.
5x5
I normally go 8:30pm so I've had dinner 30-60mins beforehand
I aim for 3 minutes rest, might take a bit longer before my last set
Skipping it was definitely a problem, my legs were also a lot more sore, I'd built up some resistance to it when I was consistent. My breathing was still an issue before that though, it just wasn't so bad I had to rerack. I was thinking of keeping the same weight and concentrating on my form and breathing for my next session to get comfortable again. Or maybe deloading like you said.
I would recommend 10% deload to give your body a little breathing (literally) room while you bounce back. Try breathing in for the first half of your drop, holding your breath there until you are pushing back up. Imagine you are in waist-deep water when you do your squats.
I don't personally have the same thing as you but I do sometimes get light headed when doing squats. I do a WL specific program so I usually Squat around my 80% and when I feel like this after doing some reps I genuinely breathe super long and very deep. When it gets to like 90% I do that and I also sit down.
Sounds like an oxygen issue, breath control maybe? If you push heavy weight the load is what's probably the cause though.
solution is to stop training legs.
Reduce the weight, and get all your fundamentals right.
>I was aiming for 2pl8 by the end of April
Hold your horses, goals are good, but don't rush into them.
I meant end of May, 60-100kg in 5 months, 10kg a month plus an extra month in case my progress slowed. Didn't expect it to completely stop for 3 weeks though, so I think it's over
not holding it for the whole set, I'd drop at rep 3 kek
I start off taking 1-2 deep breaths in between reps, by my last set I'm taking 5-10
I think I'm going to start cardio no matter what, I tried running a while back and hated it though so I'll have to find something else. probably cycling or swimming.
I do focus on breathing, on my last 2 sets it doesn't help though
like I said, hate running. plus I already have one dodgy knee, I'm not trying to destroy both of them
Work on your knees. Do as low as possible squats with lower weight. My knees and ankles were fricked after I started back up. Buy or use a slant board if you have to. Also make sure your hip and ankle mobility is good or your knees will be fricked no matter what.
>like I said, hate running. plus I already have one dodgy knee, I'm not trying to destroy both of them
This is why I suggested climbing hills. It's hard work and low impact. If your knee is an issue maybe try cycling a few miles a week. It could also be a blood pressure issue combined with being a cardiolet
>I think I'm going to start cardio no matter what, I tried running a while back and hated it though so I'll have to find something else. probably cycling or swimming.
Save your knees, get your ass right on the elliptical instead of a bike. I don't even have damaged knees and cycling regularly and squatting 5x5 twice a week burns my knees out by the weekend at 23.
If you're feeling your knees already at only age 23, you're gonna be a wreck by 30. You will not be lifting by your mid 30s. Re-evaluate your squat form.
I suspect you're holding your breath through the set. That's fine for doubles and triples but if you're doing anything with decent volume you'll drop from doing that
>is because I'm a cardiolet?
Yes. Legs need a lot of blood
Make sure you are breathing well. It was happening to me until I made sure I was focusing on breathing. Also I started taking a generic claritin or whatever its called on workout days. Another thing I did was drop back down in weight and go as low as possible. Ass to grass. Also started doing Bulgarian split squats a while back and quads have started blowing up. My weight isn't going up much lately but my quad size is noticeably growing fast.
Improve your cardio by running or rucking up hills. This will also improve the endurance in your legs. What is your resting heart rate?
You need to start warming up. Dont half ass it. You need to build good conditioning up along with your main lifts to get strong or you're gonna be burnt out before you know it.
For squats:
- 45 degree back extension (to turn on glutes)
- hamstring curl, obviously to turn on hams
- lat pulldown or band pull aparts to get the upper back ready
- Some kind of planking movement (if you have trouble bracing, if not you can do these for accessory work)
All for 3 or 4 sets of 15-20. Gets the blood moving. Primes your body to use proper form. And is actually pretty good cardio if you do it in a circuit with minimal rest times between. Dont make the mistake that most guys make, which is bulking and putting more weight on the bar but end up with no endurance. Every single person on IST would benefit from doing the above routine or a variant of it.
Notice how i left out quads here. Thats cuz you're quad dominant already. You dont need to further exacerbate a muscle imbalance.
>Notice how i left out quads here. Thats cuz you're quad dominant already. You dont need to further exacerbate a muscle imbalance.
Not OP but your closing statement is confusing. If you are doing these things for a warmup wouldn't you want to warm up the target muscle as well? The imbalance shouldn't matter because the warmup is not building muscle, just providing them with blood and stimulation.
It will contribute to your overall volume over time. But the main purpose is the potentiation of the muscle groups that you want to have fire when you go under max strain. Most people have no problem getting their quad to fire on a squat, but almost every person new to lifting wont have a clue how their glute and hamstring should fire. Gotta distribute the force evenly across the posterior chain instead of the quad and knee dominate and get grenaded over time, if you care about longevity
i do deadlift but dont do squats because muh knees (or do with light weight), what isolation can i do as a squat replacement?
Look at posts above. Slant board and Bulgarians with low weight. Bodyweight if you have to. Ease into it.
I'll presume you are set on avoiding squat movement entirely. Squats are big on quads so hammering the shit out of leg extension would stimulate the same muscle but knee flexion is still necessary for the bulk of the legs to be trained as far as I know. If you do DL you should be slamming your posterior chain pretty well so I would imagine adding leg extension would be easiest to implement without overtraining your hamstrings or glutes. Try 5 or 6 sets of 10-15 nice reps of leg extension after deadlift. This will make you feel like your legs are going to pop like water balloons.
i was always close to passing out when doing legs whenever i didn't ate shit and went into workout straight from the bed, i'd suggest you eat well 3 hours before training legs
as for other solution it might be simply that you are not bracing properly when squatting, read about breathing when squatting and dead lifting
i don't do cardio neither and i only grasp for air when i'm maxxing out but i simply take longer breaks between reps in that case so i can calm down and then go back to repping shit
You didnt get 2.5kg stronger per week. You just never used your legs before so needed to learn how to use them. You think you're stalling because now you will need to begin growing those muscles to get stronger.