HBP PE2 Stuck between 6 and 9!

Here are my last two sets from 4x9r last week. As you see, I failed the last rep pretty decisively. Every time I pass myself out of 6’s I get stuck in the 9’s. I have been going back and forth between these two steps for a year, or more. 

Will I ever get past this? 

 

I have a similar problem @Bronwyn Higgins, and I think you'll also find this kind of thing discussed in many forums!

Although I'm sure coaches will give you some advice, for what it's worth, here is what I found is currently working for me...

My situations is like yours in that I can successfully do 4x12r, but I can never quite reach the heady heights of 4x15r. After a while of trying I'd then 'drop back' to 4x12r, thinking that I would do that for a while and then give 4x15r another go!

But then when I returned I would spend weeks on it, never get past 4x15r...and then like Groundhog Day think that maybe the solution is to drop back again.....

Then I heard a podcast where Coach talked about not being in too much of a hurry to move up levels, and instead, aiming to have something 'left in the tank' before moving on. So I decided that in my situation his advice would be something like, stay at 4x12r until I can actually do 6x12r.

Doing that successfully would mean that when I once again move up to 4x15r I wouldn't be a borderline pass on 4x12r, but I'd be attacking 4x15r with much more capacity. In other words, instead of arriving at a level that will require 60 reps (i.e., 4x15r) armed only with the ability to scrape through 48 reps (i.e., 4x12r), I'll instead be arriving at the next level with the ability to do 72 reps (i.e., 6x12r). Hopefully, that's more than enough 'left in the tank' to give 4x15r a serious run for its money.

Of course, the real question is whether it works or not, and I'm sure everyone is different. But I think it's working for me, so it might for you, too. To illustrate, my reps for the last few weeks are as follows (oldest session first, doing one session a week):

  12,12,12,10,9,8
  12,12,10,8,6,6 (first session back after a virus so numbers down)
  12,12,12,11,10,8
  12,12,12,12,10,10 (first time past the required 4x12r)
  12,12,12,12,11,8
  12,12,12,12,11,10

So you can see that 3 weeks ago I passed the 4x12r level, yet still had a further 2x10r 'left in the tank'. And this week I'm only 3 reps short of my goal of 6x12r so I'd hope to get this done in the next 3 or 4 weeks.

The one other thing I'd add is that often you'll see in forum discussions about plateaus that the coaches advise really focusing on form; that's the other thing I've done in the last couple of months--slow it down, making sure to do the full range of movement, keep the elbows in, etc.

I don't know if that helps or not, but if you do try it (say, aiming for 6x6r) I'd love to hear how you got on.

All the best,

Mark

@Mark Birbeck this is so helpful! Thank you! I will definitely keep you posted. Thanks for takindg the time to write all that. 

Happy Saturday! 

No problem at all! I just did my upper body session, and HBP were 12,12,12,12,12,9...which is another minor improvement. So I'm pretty pleased at the moment, and 6x12r feels very close. It certainly *feels* like the approach is working.