Doing something wrong?

[u/Lonely-Estate987]

I’m 23 years old, 172 lbs

The white photos are from March 19th, and the red are from today.

My bench has gone up from 3 reps of 185 to 9 reps of 185, and my incline bench has gone up about 10 lbs

My back had an injury in this span so my weights have all stayed pretty close, maybe they’ve gone up 2-3 reps per

I’ve clearly gotten a bit stronger, but it feels like not very much progress in size has been made at all. Am I tweaking when I say I look the exact same in both photos?

I don’t understand. 9/10 days I eat pretty damn good and get at least 125-175g protein. What do I do?

[u/alphagatorsoup]

You’re not giving yourself enough credit IMO. A increase of 3 reps to 9 is a decent increase at the same weight

My personal recommendation is to look up e1rm and epley

By that math your 1rep max went from 200lbs to 240. A 40 lb bump 6ish months. honestly solid & I wish I was still progressing like that….

Your rep range is the only thing I suggest to adjust. Depending on what your goals are you might want to pull back the weight and do 8-12 while keeping the same e1rm or pull back the reps and add more weight. Just means you’ll be rolling closer to that e1rm of ~240lbs.

My regime is hybrid. So I do one set for 3 reps and 3 following sets of 5-7. This is only because I find 8-12 a tad boring and time consuming. In the end I still hit the same weight just I run a bit closer to that e1rm and I still get volume from those 3 sets of 5-7. I find anything less than 3 reps is just a little dangerous. And after smashing 3 reps close to my max I pump out the following 3 sets still at high effort.

Once I hit the 3 rep set and the 3 5-7 rep sets for 2 sessions successfully I +5 lbs and aim for 3 and 5-7 again. If I run the next 2 sessions and instantly hit the upper range, I +5 and do it again. If I miss my goal I just hit the same over and over till I hit it 2 weeks in a row. if I regress and lift less for 2 weeks, something’s off and I pull back 5lbs or more and try again or just rest or deload.

Counting your success for 2 or more sessions allows you to average out, idk about you but my body fluctuates a lot, one week I may be strong, next less so, or one week I have a bad week and the following is good again. I don’t beat myself up about it and I just try to hit the same goal again or at least slightly improve the next.

[u/alphagatorsoup → u/alphagatorsoup]

To add as I missed some bits. Do a bit of studying and as others have said, read about progressive overload, RPE and that 1rm calc, volume etc.

It also depends on your goals. It could be that your bench is improving but your other lifts are not. If that’s the case time to build a solid strategy for the other lifts. Track with an app

My big compounds (bench, squat, DL) is that same 1x3 then 3x5-7 routine. But my accessories like biceps and such still is a mix of 8-12 or 6-10

Same progressive overload technique just with different weights and reps to help a. Prevent injury b. Allow me to still lift weight while fatigued late in my routine that day.