After 2 Years of Extremely Serious Training. Reached Serious Plateaus as a Natty. Help?

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forever02

New member
Long story short, I am 29 years old. I have been involved in sports all my life, from a young age until I was 21-22, when I dropped out after five years of American football and became a couch potato. Seriously, I didn’t even walk until I turned 27. At that point, I had a serious talk with myself and decided to get back to the gym for real. I looked like crap, felt like crap, and lived like crap, so I decided to finally change it. Being a sports person, I knew that progress was going to be extremely slow, but I was determined to do it right.

When I went back to the gym, I felt extremely weak and could barely lift anything. I was doing bench presses with just the bar and two 5 kg weights, and I couldn't handle it. Four months in, with 4-5 workouts per week and a full-body split, I saw progress. I dedicated myself to learning from both science-based and non-science-based lifting. I studied a lot and came to understand my body and how to build muscle and strength, as I cared about both.

After the first four months, I made a personal oath to do five workouts per week, not drink alcohol, and stop smoking for a year. I did it, and let me tell you, progress was booming. I kept educating myself and learning more and more. After two years of working out, I grew bigger and extremely strong.

Now, I am here to ask the community of intermediate to advanced lifters for advice, as I have seriously hit plateaus on almost every exercise and lost about 15% of my strength on most lifts. My biggest strength is my lateral raise, doing 56 kg x 10 reps (28 kg per dumbbell). My deadlift max is 200 kg (with relatively poor form, but it was my goal since I started). My bench press max is around 140 kg (with a machine, not a barbell, as I simply can't stand it). My leg press max is around 280 kg x 8 reps.

I evolved my workout split to fit my personal goals and understanding of my body. I do a mixture of strength training (especially as the first exercise of every workout) and then focus on hypertrophy. Do not try to convince me that strength and hypertrophy do not work together, as I have personally tested doing them separately and found little to no difference, except probably at my current level of hitting plateaus where I need to concentrate on one or the other.

I eat really healthily, with a weekly cheat meal of a large pizza. Generally, I lift until past failure, as I feel like a wimp if I do not. I know it's not the best to always go to failure, and I am pretty sure I have hit overtraining.

This is my workout split, custom-made by me for me:

Monday at 18:30 (Chest | Shoulders | Triceps): https://hevy.com/routine/3mZfrbYvrA2

Tuesday at 18:30 (Heavy Back | Biceps): https://hevy.com/routine/GZG1YxFKaox

Thursday at 18:30 (Legs): https://hevy.com/routine/7liUupnSW92

Friday at 18:30 (Shoulders | Chest | Triceps): https://hevy.com/routine/EyFM3HfW92U

Saturday at 11:30 (Light Back | Biceps ): https://hevy.com/routine/20SMCUPGu7k

This is me playing around with 60 kg lateral raises (for fun, don't judge the form as it's not "perfect"):

I don't consider myself the most aesthetic or the biggest dude, but it's been 2 years since I started, and I’m really happy with my progress. Feel free to browse through my Instagram for physique updates.

My question is simple: what do you fellow lifters recommend I do after losing power and strength? Keep in mind that I am also cutting extremely slowly, at about 1-2 kg per month.
 
@forever02 You’re in a deficit. Gains cannot continue indefinitely without calories to support new tissue.

Also not sure if I’m understanding your routine, but it appears you’re doing 7 sets of things like chest press and deadlifts? If I’m not mistaken and that’s what you’re doing, that is way too much volume.
 
@forever02 I see. The drop sets are probably unnecessary, especially with deadlifts, but the main reason your progress has stalled is because you’re not eating enough to support further progress.
 
@forever02
  1. You’re going to have to start prioritizing strength or hypertrophy. Yes they can be done together but the focus should be on one or the other, then with accessories done as the offset. For instance, I powerlift and strength is my ultimate end goal, but I still do accessory work in a more hypertrophy focused sense because it’s less taxing after doing heavy compound work
  2. You can’t expect to grow much on a deficit. Your choices are either bulk and train hard for a bit then cut back down, or cut down and stay stagnant for a bit then bulk back up again
  3. Remember that you don’t have to always lift to failure, let alone past it. The stronger you get, the more lifting to failure starts to become excessively fatiguing and taxing and then it fucks up recovery and progression. Find a good program that has this all laid out for you and doesn’t have you overshooting intensity
 
@straykat Would you recommend one? To be honest whenever I’d go on programs not tailored to me, it would always mess my progress as I know these specific exercises work best for me and I enjoy them. For example, I’m not willing to do squats as I had an injury and was stalling for months.
 
@forever02 Who are you trying to impress by folding your arms so much that it becomes easy with 30kg ?

Do you work out for yourself or for others?

Edit the dumbbells almost not reach your bellybutton level. It is almost as if you were doing shrugs
 
@sistersara Check the later clip, not the 30 kgs… If you call that easy then I don’t know.

Folding arms at the elbows is a practice many do. There’s absolutely no reason to lift with arms stick straight.
 
@mitchell Yep, you can see them on the video posted after the clip with me shooting up the 30 kgs. Not the best form in the world but I have not yet met someone who can come close to that yet. Sadly, now being in deficit, I do 22-24 kg with slow reps and good form as I lost a lot of strength.
 
How’s your shoulders looking ? Boulders? I usually put my hands behind my back and try to squeeze my shoulders, only pose I know of, but it’s a good one
 
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