Losing max

[JaredH]

I'll do a max day and knock a 300 lbs bench out. It'll be a struggle, but I'll get it. Then it seems like a mint later I'll go to max and either not gain any, or not have enough to get my previous max. Between max outs I'll do a week of high reps then a week of work to failure with increasing weight then decreasing weights. Then low reps with high weights (say 250-275). What am I doing wrong? I'll do incline, decline, dumbell.

 

[BRICKS]

If you mean "a month later....", my questuon is why are you maxing so often? What are your goals. I can't speak to the powerlifting, I'll leave that to the experts and there's a lot of really good ones here who can adress that. I'd you are bodybuilding, why would you care what your max to be checking it so often?

 

[JaredH]

If you mean "a month later....", my questuon is why are you maxing so often? What are your goals. I can't speak to the powerlifting, I'll leave that to the experts and there's a lot of really good ones here who can adress that. I'd you are bodybuilding, why would you care what your max to be checking it so often?

I'm not really either. I just like being strong. Strength is really my only goal in the gym.

 

[PillarofBalance]

#1 reason for missing heavy stuff or not progressing is technique.

 

[Gibsonator]

yea I'm no expert powerlifter either but focusing on heavy sets of 3 or 5 for awhile will def build that strength and increase your pr.

 

[Rivere Stelanos]

Like gibs said, if you are looking to increase your strength use a weight you can max out at 5 reps. And do three sets of five on your main lifts.

 

[snake]

The only thing singles may make make bigger is your ego.

 

[PillarofBalance]

Like gibs said, if you are looking to increase your strength use a weight you can max out at 5 reps. And do three sets of five on your main lifts.

If a set of 5 is a max effort how can you do 3 sets of it?

 

[tinymk]

Lots of things are factors on this...Your not attempting to peak sounds more like your attempting to maintain and it is not working.

Your training may be stale, no real in depth description of your training other then your not a powerlifter but your main concern is to be strong. Mix up your training a bit, make sure you also are not getting a CNS burnout, doesnt sound like it but one never knows how another will respond to continued heavy training.

I will agree to disagree with Snake, if your a powerlifter training to peak on a certain date, singles can be fundamental is gaining strength, learning to strain and strengthening your technique against heavy weight. Building a stronger, mind and arch. Confidence in your ability with near max or real max efforts. Properly timed singles are important, doing too many singles is not. I like to do any singles work after working sets and my grip brought in 2 fingers from my competition grip. Makes it harder with a little less weight and I usually get a pleasant surprise on meet day.

POB I will agree with as well, where most people fail on a near maximal lift is their technique is not strong enough and the form breaks down during the lift-bar path, bar placement on chest, leg drive are all major players in achieving and performing a big bench. The other place people fail on big lifts is they mentally give up before they even get under the weight or when the form get tested and the bar begins to crawl, they check out and back off.

So mix it up a bit, make sure your hydrated and fed well and break down your technique, video, and find the mistakes your making and work on fixing them. I tape most my harder lifts and I break down my work nightly and I find error daily to work on for the next week.

My $.02

 

[ECKSRATED]

If u wanna get stronger then singles are a must IMO. Not every damn session but atleast once every two weeks. I'm not talking about a new pr attempt but a coyple singles between 90-97% is fine. I need those heavy singles in my training to get stronger.

 

[JaredH]

You guys are ****ing awesome. Thanks for all the input.