Legs like fixed steel rods, not pistons

[Tim Lofton]

So today I go to do squats, in continuance of the PP novice program. The weight was 250#, a repeat of Wednesday's weight where I got all but the very last rep. Today, there's was no lift, no push, no nothing at all. I got two sets of two reps at 250 and a set of three reps at 245 before calling squats as a no-go today.
The most that has happened with squats is getting through the first couple of sets okay and maybe the third set with real difficulty or maybe missing the last rep or two, but to come out of the gate with the check engine light on right away was a bit surprising. Press and deadlift went fine. A speed bump on the recovery road this week maybe? Thank goodness it's the weekend I guess. Thanks for your input/comments.

tim

[davew]

If that happens to me, it usually coincides with any combination of poor sleep, poor eating, or a psyching myself out mentally.

[IWillLiveFreeOrDie]

Probably just mental. Enjoy the weekend, and the extra recovery it provides. Then hit it hard on Monday.

[gzt]

I'd double-check your form and think about what you ate, how you slept, etc, as well, though. If this were just one workout at 250, yeah, that may be a bad day, write it off, come back on Monday or whatever your schedule is. But this is the second time you failed to make weight and it sounds like you're regressing. Which happens, but usually not at 250, depending on how big you are or how old you are.

[Dastardly]

When feeling a little overtrained to continue heavily on the back squat, if what you liifted two days ago still got you feeling somewhat beat down.

It may be a good opportunity to try front squats. I did that yesterday when I was feeling very worried about squatting feeling I was definetely fatigued from adding weight several sessions in a row.

It worked well, was still challenging but more so for the whole body than as a pure hip exercise like the back squat feels like when very accustomed to it.