Staying with the same lifting weight(s) long term?

Emtabo01
Emtabo01 Posts: 672 Member
edited January 24 in Fitness and Exercise
What happens if you keep lifting the same weight and don't really increase? I've been doing NROL (Women and now Abs) since last October and I just feel like I'm at a point where I'm wondering if I'm cut out for this. I feel like I always have some kind of injury going on. My husband suggests stopping trying to constantly increase my weight, which seems to be the point of heavy lifting, right? So what if I just stop increasing weights, but do the workouts with a lower more manageable weight for a while. Will I notice any improvements in any area? It seems better than giving it up completely. But I don't want bother with something that has no benefit, kwim. I'm 33F, at goal weight, trying for body recomp currently.

(My issues so far are lower back pain from deadlifts probably doing to many reps at too high of a weight, elbow pain from trying to do more than one chin-up in a row, and now a different kind of elbow pain, tendon related I think from who knows what).

Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,864 Member
    At some point, everyone hits a wall...often this is a cause for switching up your routine. Also, big power lifts like dead-lifts are pretty tough to do a lot of reps when you're weight get heavier. Most programs only have you doing 1x5 if the weight is "heavy"...some programs like 5/3/1 have some more volume there, but somewhat lighter weight except for the big 5/3/1 week.

    Also, what other kind of stuff have you been doing? When your weights get heavy, it really puts a stress on the body and a lot of people just try to do too much...they want to lift and they want to go do their 30Ds and they want to run a marathon and they want to do a triathalon all at once and over train.

    How long have you been doing the program? Might be time to switch programs. I'm just switching from 7 months of Starting Strength because my body can no longer recover from 3x weekly full body routine that requires squatting every time out and switching between heavy deads and barbell rows every time out. It happens and that program is designed for the beginner and to make big strength gains fast..and it has...but now I need to move to more of a split routine to help with my recovery.

    If you lift the same weight with the same exercises and never push beyond that, it's not going to do much for you because the workout isn't going to illicit a training response by your body 'cuz you're just doing same old.

    You may also want to consider a de-load week or a break. I take a whole week off from lifting every 6 weeks. My new program also has me doing a de-loaded week on week 5 of my training cycle...so I'll get a nice de-load and then a week off before I start the cycle over again.
  • j6o4
    j6o4 Posts: 871 Member
    deadlifts shouldn't give you back pain unless your doing it wrong, mayb you could replace deadlift with rack pulls and trying sticking your chest out when you do chin ups.
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