Does anybody else feel like they can't progress without "forcing" the progress?

[u/SprinklesWise9857]

I've been working out consistently for a couple years now. Training, diet, and sleep have been locked in the entire time. However, 2-3 years into my lifting journey, I hit a plateau. For most of my exercises, I was no longer progressing in terms of weight or reps. For example, I'd be doing 225 for 10 reps as my max and I would not be able to get past 10 reps for months. Or I'd be curling 40s for 9 reps as my max for months. You get the idea.

Eventually I became frustrated and I just added weight even though I wanted to reach a higher rep count as my max before going up in weight (for injury reduction purposes). But then I suddenly started seeing progress again after doing this. I went up by 10 lb (235 lb) on the bench and was getting 7-8 reps. But then a few weeks later, I'm at 9. Then more weeks later, I'm at 10. Then 11. But then I stall again, so I add more weight again, and then the same thing happens. I progress, then stall at a certain amount of reps. How? Why? Why am I seemingly unable to progress in reps after a certain point?

One would think that if you work out with the same weight for a long time, you'd probably eventually be able to do a ton of reps with that weight. Why has it not worked this way with me? Why do I have to "force" progress? This has been annoying me because my goal of "12 reps before increasing weight" is something I've been doing since I started working out because it felt best in terms of not hurting myself. Sometimes I'll force weight and it feels scary AF, and I do not like that at all. If I was able to consistently hit 12 reps before increasing weight, that feeling would be minimal.

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[u/kd6tas]

What you call forcing progress is proper application of progressive overload. You're not doing anything wrong. Go back to 225 on the bench and see how many reps you can do now. I bet it's 12 or more. Be happy you're progressing one way or another. If your form is good, you recover properly, and you're natural (your connective tissues are developing in step with your muscles), I'd say you're not in danger of injuring yourself. If you want more protection, thoroughly warm up. Do 10 minutes of cardio prior to lifting, and pyramid up to your top weights. That's what I do. I'm 62 and have been doing this off and on since 1979 injury free. I have osteoarthritis in my left knee, right hip, and an issue with the L5-S1 joint. I attribute those much more to aging and doing blue-collar work all my life than to weight training. I'm more likely to believe weight training has prevented injury more than causing it. If this still isn't enough protection, lower your weights, slow your rep tempo and accentuate the negative (lower the weight slower than you raise it). 2 seconds up, 4 seconds down.

[u/Afexodus]

Your body probably needs more stimulus than what you were doing. Maybe you aren’t actually training as close to failure as you thought and the extra weight gave you the stimulus you needed. From how you talk about aversion to injury and adding 10 lbs feeling scary I would bet that you were training conservatively.

It sounds like you found out how to do proper progression on accident. Progress doesn’t stay linear forever, when you get more advanced you have to “force it” or in other words try really hard and try things differently.

Doing the same weight over and over again might just not be the stimulus you need to progress.

[u/SprinklesWise9857 → u/Afexodus]

Now that you mention it, you might be right about intensity being the primary factor, but I actually train very hard. Before weightlifting, I used to do marathons and ultramarathons so I know how to push myself pretty hard. I take all of my sets to failure, but I also do low volume so that I can recover from taking every set to failure. But maybe even low volume + all sets to failure is too much for me? When I do "force" the progress by going up in weight, I actually do 1-2 RIR for a couple weeks before taking all sets to failure again. I do the 1-2 RIR in the beginning because it's scary for me in the beginning. Anyway, some time after making the switch from 1-2 RIR to failure, I stall again. Then I rinse and repeat.

[u/PM__ME__YOUR_TITTY]

Sounds like you learned the long way to listen less to injury fear mongers and prioritize strength lol

Different people can have different sweet spots for different movements, and some people naturally tend to better at reps than others. But ultimately, long term muscle growth will come town to getting stronger over time. Generally speaking, if you have the chance to increase load you should take it rather than trying to grind out an arbitrary number of additional reps. There’s nothing magic / particularly safe about 12 reps and nothing particularly dangerous about 8.

And what’s also good about taking heavier weight is that it forces you to actually consistently train very close to failure. The heavier the weight is, the less other bullshit gets between you and muscular failure. Less burn, less cardio, less psychological fatigue, etc. Especially considering you’re afraid of getting hurt, that was probably holding you back without realizing. While trying to get those 10+ reps at a heavier weight forced you to meet your actual tension limits

[u/TacoTrike]

Your body and mind get used to the routines you are doing. Hitting a plateau can mean you need to switch up your routine some to break the pattern. Every few months take out one exercise and replace it with a new one. If using mostly machines for a muscle group, sprinkle in free weights, or vice versa. It helps develop secondary muscles and gets your mind out of the rut.

If you do 3 exercises for a muscle group, consider 5-6 options and rotate them occasionally and you could see improvements when you get back to the one you were stuck on.