question on weight progression

i do a push/pull/squat 5x5 3 day split. recently i gained a better understanding of what i need to be doing on a 5x5 routine and have a question.

using squats as an example, i get to my 5th set and either can not make a final rep at all or w/o losing form. should i be starting my 1st set at a lower weight, or just add lesser weight to the final set?

to me, the answer would be to add lesser weight to the final and this is what i want to do but my gym lacks 2.5lb plates and am using your guys's input to decide whether to go get my own.

thanks if you can help.

 

Any McVideos of squatting your final set?

I would say that you will never progress unless you push yourself... which means failure is inevitable, but if this is happening on all your workouts then you may want to low weight...

 

Dub post... lets make some use of it...

Yeah a friend of mine actually saw this plate...

 

no video....my last squat day was geared toward finding my max for 5 reps on the final set, and the perfect weight would have been using 2.5's on each side rather than 5lb's....

i guess my next question should be, is it just stupid to be using 2.5's for squats? do big lifters ever use them for progression?

 

2.5's can make the difference between progression and no progression.

 

If you can't get your reps in with good form, I'd lower the weight. If you don't have 2.5's then just drop it by 10lbs. I think on that program it's more important to get your reps in without grinding them out.

 

thats what i was thinking, but theres a lot of more knowledgable people around and just wanted to make sure i was doing the right thing.

i asked the guy at the front desk at my curl monkey gym, and they THREW out all their 2.5's... he's looking at me like i'm some kinda queer for needing small plates, but he was the one with the sculpted eye brows. and i'm sure he had no fucking clue what i was talking about when i said 5x5 over head squat.

 

Ok it is one thing for the gym to maybe just not want to spend the money on 2.5's, even though that's still bad... but they actually DID have them and threw them out? That's pretty ghey.

 

I've considered getting some 1.25s...since my progression on presses sucks so bad.

There is definitely nothing wrong with using 2.5s on squats. Even if you only squatted once a week...that would still come out to 10 pounds a month. And, once you're fairly advanced, that's not bad at all.

 

When I didn't have 2.5's, I would drop the full 10 lbs. This would seem pretty light, so I would do a pause press for bench press on the first couple reps. I'm sure you could do the same type of thing on squats. The pauses really helped my progression.

 

what are your increments in sets?

how many minutes do you rest in between sets?

 

i go up 10lbs on each set. i rest btwn 2-3 min

 

How long have you been doing the 5x5 routine?

 

not to burst your bubble but you are obviously doing the 5x5 wrong.

have you tried reading the 5x5 in the FAQ?

 

i've read through the faq on a few occasions......in reading it the other day, i thought i was correcting the way i was doing my sets.

tell me what i'm doing wrong.

 

You read this link in the FAQ?
http://www.eclipsegym.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57

For starters, you're not resting long enough if you're sticking to the programs rule set.

 

Are you working to a max set of 5 or are you doing 5 sets at a given weight?

If you do this:

5x5x135

Then missing the last rep isn't a big deal.

If you do this:

95
105
115
125
135

Then you need to choose weights that allow you to finish. Obviously it wont happen every time if you are pushing yourself but you should be picking weights that you think you can do.


And yeah, rest 5 minutes before a working set.

 

i haven't been doing the bill starr program. i've been doing a push/pull/squat.

push-
bench, dips, push press

pull-
pull ups, deadlifts, BOR

squat-
back, front, overhead

and in the past i had been going for @5x5 not concerned if i failed to get 5 reps and doing more than 5 if i could, but more recently i've been pyramiding up to my max 5x5 making sure to get to 5 and stopping if i can do more.

 

i'll rest more between sets too.

thanks everyone for the help so far.