Hey bros,
I've had a weird phenomena happen the last few months: I've lost about 50 lbs on my deadlift, and about 30 on my squat. My bench and overhead press have stayed relatively the same, only fluctuating when I miss a gym day or don't sleep well the night before I lift. But this is starting to really frustrate me and if anyone can share some insight or a similar experience, I'd be grateful.
First, I'm 6'1, 170, 12-15%bf. I eat about 2000-2500 calories per day (going for a recomp).
Mid-January, my lifts were:
Squat: 250
Deadlift: 310
Not great by any means but a lot better than what I'm lifting now. Over the course of about three weeks, where I had a few missed trainings due to being sick (food poisoning) and traveling (Europe to America and back), I suddenly couldn't pick up 300 lbs off the floor. Then I tried 295. Then 285. Then 275. Nothing.
After failing to even move the bar on all of these, I finally was able to squeeze up 260 for a set of five. Since February, I have not been able to deadlift more than this weight. At that time I was still squatting 250 for 3 sets of 5.
Now a strange and similar thing is happening to my squat as happened to my deadlift. I'm losing big drops of strength every time I go to the gym. I went from squatting 250 a month ago, to 240 two weeks ago, now down to 230 yesterday. I video taped my last set of squats (low-bar btw), and my ass is hitting just slightly above parallel on all five reps, which is telling me I'm cheating my way through the set and my true 5rm is probably more like 220.
I suspect a few things might be responsible, but I'm not sure.
- In December I got brutally sick with a virus for two weeks and couldn't lift at all. Since then my program has been playing "catch up" in the gym, to get back where I was, rather than being able to focus on forward progress.
- Last year I hurt my lower back squatting and, right around the time of my inexplicable dead lift strength loss, I started getting lower back pain again (I have some as I'm typing this). It's a chicken or egg thing for me, since I don't know if I got the pain by re-tweaking my lower back trying to pull up too much weight from the floor, or on a squat gone bad, or if it was caused by behavior outside the weight room - such as sitting down more at work, or on the bus. Either way, the pain has been persistent since mid-Feb. and it has made me miss a handful of workouts. Some nights I would put the bar on my back to squat just the bar or one plate, and I couldn't get into position because my back would start hurting.
- APT: I seem to be developing APT, which I don't remember having a few months ago. My posture is degrading visibly, and I feel more tired trying to walk up straight with my hips forward than before. I'm not sure if this is because of the strength loss, or a factor in it (it is also probably heavily exacerbated by sitting down all day at work).
- Sleep: I've had trouble sleeping a full eight hours for about a year now. I wake up 2-3 times per night. I'm trying to improve my sleep hygiene, but don't really know much about it other than the obvious things like no caffeine after noon, getting enough exercise, etc. But it could have caused me to lift with bad form a few times due to fatigue which caused or worsened whatever is causing my lower back pain.
I know this was a lot of reading, so thanks in advance to whoever responds. I know it's common for progress in weightlifting to be elastic and it isn't always a straight line, but I feel like the past year has just been one big step forward followed by two huge steps back. I'd like to get out of this hole and begin making progress again.
Thanks
-
I've had a weird phenomena happen the last few months: I've lost about 50 lbs on my deadlift, and about 30 on my squat. My bench and overhead press have stayed relatively the same, only fluctuating when I miss a gym day or don't sleep well the night before I lift. But this is starting to really frustrate me and if anyone can share some insight or a similar experience, I'd be grateful.
First, I'm 6'1, 170, 12-15%bf. I eat about 2000-2500 calories per day (going for a recomp).
Mid-January, my lifts were:
Squat: 250
Deadlift: 310
Not great by any means but a lot better than what I'm lifting now. Over the course of about three weeks, where I had a few missed trainings due to being sick (food poisoning) and traveling (Europe to America and back), I suddenly couldn't pick up 300 lbs off the floor. Then I tried 295. Then 285. Then 275. Nothing.
After failing to even move the bar on all of these, I finally was able to squeeze up 260 for a set of five. Since February, I have not been able to deadlift more than this weight. At that time I was still squatting 250 for 3 sets of 5.
Now a strange and similar thing is happening to my squat as happened to my deadlift. I'm losing big drops of strength every time I go to the gym. I went from squatting 250 a month ago, to 240 two weeks ago, now down to 230 yesterday. I video taped my last set of squats (low-bar btw), and my ass is hitting just slightly above parallel on all five reps, which is telling me I'm cheating my way through the set and my true 5rm is probably more like 220.
I suspect a few things might be responsible, but I'm not sure.
- In December I got brutally sick with a virus for two weeks and couldn't lift at all. Since then my program has been playing "catch up" in the gym, to get back where I was, rather than being able to focus on forward progress.
- Last year I hurt my lower back squatting and, right around the time of my inexplicable dead lift strength loss, I started getting lower back pain again (I have some as I'm typing this). It's a chicken or egg thing for me, since I don't know if I got the pain by re-tweaking my lower back trying to pull up too much weight from the floor, or on a squat gone bad, or if it was caused by behavior outside the weight room - such as sitting down more at work, or on the bus. Either way, the pain has been persistent since mid-Feb. and it has made me miss a handful of workouts. Some nights I would put the bar on my back to squat just the bar or one plate, and I couldn't get into position because my back would start hurting.
- APT: I seem to be developing APT, which I don't remember having a few months ago. My posture is degrading visibly, and I feel more tired trying to walk up straight with my hips forward than before. I'm not sure if this is because of the strength loss, or a factor in it (it is also probably heavily exacerbated by sitting down all day at work).
- Sleep: I've had trouble sleeping a full eight hours for about a year now. I wake up 2-3 times per night. I'm trying to improve my sleep hygiene, but don't really know much about it other than the obvious things like no caffeine after noon, getting enough exercise, etc. But it could have caused me to lift with bad form a few times due to fatigue which caused or worsened whatever is causing my lower back pain.
I know this was a lot of reading, so thanks in advance to whoever responds. I know it's common for progress in weightlifting to be elastic and it isn't always a straight line, but I feel like the past year has just been one big step forward followed by two huge steps back. I'd like to get out of this hole and begin making progress again.
Thanks
-