I've been on 40kg for five weeks. 3x5 at 40 is hard but doable, and 45 is a wall, I get one rep and the second stapled me last Tuesday. That's a 12% jump and it's obviously too much, but the smallest plates in this gym are 2.5kg each side. Everything else is progressing fine, it's specifically bench where the jumps have got too coarse for me.
Also, get a spotter or use the pins before you try a new top single again. Getting stapled once is a story, twice is how people stop benching altogether. Set the safeties so a failed rep lands on steel and not on you.
Worth checking whether it's really a loading problem or a volume problem. Five weeks at the same weight with three sets of five is fifteen reps a session, and for a lot of women that's simply not enough bench volume to drive progress. When I went from 3x5 to 5x5 plus a set of dumbbell press afterwards, the same weight started moving again without changing anything about the jumps.
Twice a week is the single biggest change most people can make on upper body lifts. Second session doesn't have to be heavy, just there.
I bench once a week. Reading that back, it looks like the actual answer.
One caution on double progression: keep the rep range honest. If set one is 8 and set three is 4, you're not at the top of the range yet even though the first number looked good. All three sets hit the top before you add weight.
In the meantime, load 42.5 with the 1.25s if your gym has them, and if it doesn't, use the smallest change plates from the fixed dumbbell rack. Slightly awkward on the sleeve, works fine.
@deload_dom · 3mo ago · 3 replies
Buy fractional plates. Roughly £25 for a set of 0.5s and 1.25s, they live in your gym bag, and they solve this permanently rather than for one training block.
The maths is the whole issue. Going 40 to 45 is a 12.5% jump, which for a squat at 90kg would be like adding 11kg in one session. Nobody would try that. With 0.5kg plates you're adding 1kg total and that's a 2.5% step, which is perfectly normal.
Second thing to do at the same time: switch to double progression. Instead of 3x5 at a fixed weight, work 3 sets of 5 to 8. Get 8, 8, 8 at 40kg, then add the smallest increment you own and drop back to fives. It gives you somewhere to go on weeks when the weight isn't ready to move.
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@swayback_sue · 3mo ago
Ordered a set. It genuinely hadn't occurred to me that I could bring my own plates.
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@deload_dom · 3mo ago
Loads of people do. The magnetic ones are handy because they stick on the sleeve and you're not fighting the collar, though they're a bit pricier per kilo.
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