What is, Because it’s two more reps.

Why are sets of five SO much harder than sets of three? Not just tougher - disproportionately tougher. Translates to ten pounds tougher. And thanks for playing, but your smart-ass obvious answer isn't helping.

Today was my first day back in the gym (like, really back) in two weeks. I’m being careful not to overdo it this week – I’m doing lighter intensity workouts and will probably work a 2 on 1 off schedule for the first week, to make sure I’ve kicked this mono once and for all. I could use this excuse as to why my 5x5 deadlifts today were only at 70% of my 1RM. But truth be told, I can’t deadlift much more than that for five reps with really great form. And with this strength program, if I’m not doing it with really great form, I’m not doing it at all.

My deadlift 1RM is 205#. I pulled that with excellent form, as judged and verified by a room full of CrossFit trainers down at CF Boston. Generally accepted standards (like Coach Rippetoe’s) says that I should be able to pull sets of five at 85% of my 1RM. That translates to sets of five at 175#. Let me tell you, that ain’t happening – not with good form, at least. After the first two or three reps, things quite literally fall apart. I lose retraction in my shoulder girdle, my back starts to unlock and it’s as if my body completely forgets how a deadlift is supposed to work.

It’s not just the DL… my cleans are the same way. (Probably because it’s a similar movement.) I’ve talked to my trainer about this, at length. At his direction, I looked back through my strength work for the past six months, and it became abundantly clear HOW this happened. Lots of sets of singles, doubles and triples. Practically zero sets of five. And never sets of five with a trainer watching my form (so I don’t trust for a second the sets of five I HAVE pulled).

It's not that I consciously sacrificed form for weight. I would never have cheated myself like that, although in retrospect I was clearly hasty with adding weight to the bar. I just did not realize how much my form had slipped, because I got out of the habit of taking video on a regular basis. It's amazing how much room there is between what you THINK your body is doing, and what your body is actually doing, even for those of us that are pretty kinesthetically aware.

I asked my trainer to explain what I've been missing by skipping over the longer working sets, specifically for my deadlifts. Here is an excerpt from our conversation.

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Trainer: One point: it's not just about building strength, muscle size, and endurance in the muscles that actually drive the movement - though you need to do that, for sure. Higher rep ranges tend to challenge the integrity of all of the stabilizing muscles, which is often what will cause failure at a near 1RM. For example, quad and glute strength/endurance is almost never the cause of OHS failure. This is not to say that your stabilizing musculature is weak, but when it comes to heavy stuff, "strong" isn't strong enough.

Me: Agreed. The other thing, and I don't know how to put this technically, is that I think my body just needs more PRACTICE at the movements, multiple reps all in a row. My last set today - specifically, the last two - were funky at best. I had this weird movement hitch in the knee and hip that I knew wasn't right, but my brain couldn't get my body to correct it. It's as if things just get overloaded and start short-circuiting. Now YOU put that in science-y terms, because while I'm sure the phenomenon is real, "spazzing out" isn't that technical of a description.

Trainer: I can, in fact, put that in science-y terms. It's called "neurological fatigue." Which is not really a medical or scientific term, but it's the phenomenon that explains the dis-coordination you're experiencing. And the DL is, in my opinion, the most neurologically fatiguing exercise. That's why I discourage people from performing potentially injurious movements (read: DLs) at a high percentage of 1RM for >5 reps. The neurological fatigue almost guarantees that the fundamental mechanics become less sound as your CNS (and peripheral nerves) lose the ability to coordinate and activate all of the important stabilizing muscles - even if the actual prime movers (the big, strong muscles that actually perform the work) have the innate muscular capacity to do more. So the way to train and improve your stability, your efficiency of movement, is to DO IT. Make sense?

Me: Perfect sense. Just science-y enough to lend you credibility. Not so science-y that I'm glazed-eyed and drooling.

Trainer: One last thing. I would also like to remind you that just because you're doing "light" pulls for more-than-usual reps does not mean that you should back off your get-mad-and-stomp-your-feet-like-a-rabid-caged-animal intensity. Get MAD. Try to scare someone twice your age. Swear at someone. Pick me, for all I care. In fact, please pick me. I dig it. Or, just read Gilson's Bringing Out The Dead. That works for me every time.

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Genius all around. Now that he's set me straight, it's time for me to fix it. We've come up with a really good plan to correct this discrepancy. Start lighter, and don’t move up in weight until I can pull five reps with good form, as verified via video review. Sort of what I should have been doing from the start, but these sort of things tend to happen when (a) you train on your own most of the time, and (b) you have an ego.

So on paper, it's going to look like I’m regressing. But I give that paper the finger, because I care more about actually BUILDING strength and endurance than appearing as if I have in the written record. I’m not a New Year Resolution kind of girl, but if I were to make one this year, it’s going to be to trade a significant chunk of my ego for a big ol’ hunk of virtuosity.

Buy-in

• Jump rope 6:13 (the length of the Chemical Brothers song, "It Doesn't Matter")

• 3 rounds of
• 10 KB American swings (16K)
• 7 push-ups

Workout - DL 5x5

• Warm up with sets at 45#, 95#
  

• 5 @ 145#
• 5 @ 145#
• 5 @ 145#
• 5 @ 145#
• 5 @ 145#

Cash out

• Renegade Row (16K), 5L/5R
• One leg RR (16K), 5L/5R
• One leg RR (16K), 5L/5R