 There's a real easy hack to get your squat to progress. Our next caller is Zaneb from Germany. Zaneb, how can we help you? Hi, guys. How are you all doing? Good. We're great. How are you? I'm doing very well. Thank you. First of all, thank you so much for this amazing podcast. Listening to you guys is literally the highlight of my day. So thank you so much for having me today to give you some context. I'm 21 and I just got back to weightlifting three months ago. And I've been consistently following a PPL split because I'm still excited to go back to training and hitting the gym five or six times a week. And I made significant progress in just three months when it comes to muscle gain. Maybe, I don't know, because I have genetic potential or muscle memory from previous training, but lately I haven't been able to progress with my squats. So I increased the weights for my accessory movements, but my squats are stalled. The only explanations that I could come up with is that my upper body is not as developed and strong as it should be to handle the weight anymore for my squats. So my question is, how do you deal with stalls on compound movements when accessory movements are progressing or also, do you guys have any advice on correcting strength and balances between the upper and lower body? Can I ask you where your nutrition is right now and where it's been? Okay, I'm currently eating intuitively. I have celiac disease and I have so many allergies, so my diet is pretty restricted. My protein is high. My carbs are a bit low because I don't tolerate grains and stuff, so I don't have that in my diet. Yeah, so it's pretty much just whole foods and like meats, organ meats, and some vegetables that I can tolerate, some fruits. That's it, yeah. Yeah, have you, just for the gut stuff, have you gotten tested for SIBO, by the way? No. Okay, I would recommend that you find yourself a good gastro doctor and ask them for a SIBO test, so that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It's common with people who have kind of intolerances to grains. It's very treatable and it can make a huge difference. I'm somebody that has done this and it makes a big difference for me, but let's talk about the question, right? You're talking about squats. There could be so many reasons why your squats are not progressing, so I'm gonna ask you a few more questions. Just get a little bit more information. What are the rep ranges that you're training in? How often are you squatting and what other auxiliary lower body movements are you doing? So my rep ranges are between six to eight, five sets, five working sets. Yeah, I think I'm trying to focus on my form, so I don't wanna compromise the form. So once I feel like I don't have a good form, I just stop immediately and I'm squatting twice a week and with some variations, squat variations on the third day sometimes. Are you doing split stance exercises like lunges and Bulgarian? What about hip thrust? Yeah, I have thrust. Okay, so it could be that you might need to change your program. Yeah, how long have you been running that? Six to eight reps, how long? Three months, no. There you go. I would change that. I would definitely change that rep range. You might need to go through a few weeks of a higher rep range. I would love to see her do anabolic and start in phase three. Yeah, that could be really good. Have you followed any of the maps programs? No. Okay, we'll send you maps anabolic and you might wanna start in phase three and then go backwards, phase three, two and one. Do the three foundational workouts a week and then do the trigger sessions on the off days. But it's typical that your body will stall in a lift after about eight to 12 weeks is usually when you'll start to see if plateaus are gonna happen, they'll start to happen around there. Changing the rep ranges is a really easy way to get things moving again. Like if we got you to focus on 15 to 20 reps, you're gonna have to go way lighter. It's gonna be really exhausting, but after about four weeks of doing that, you're gonna feel like you're getting good stamina and strength, then you can go back to the lower rep ranges and then within a couple of weeks, you'll probably start to see the weight move back up. Now as you stall, did you notice any real sticking points in the left that were obvious or is this more just, you got fatigued during your sets? I just get so fatigued, yeah. Okay, yeah, so that advice would apply. Yeah, I'll go even further. I would love to see you run maps anabolic which we'll send that over to you in the order Sal said. So start in phase three, go to two, then go to one. Then I would love to see you follow that up with maps performance, run it in the orders design, and then follow that up with maps power lift. If we're talking about getting yourself a badass squad, I'm hearing what you're telling me right now where you're kind of stuck in a plateau and how you've been training, that order of programs, watch where your squad is at in three months. And she's a college student. Why don't we give her all three of those? So that's maps anabolic, performance and power lift. You're gonna be set actually. So the advice we're giving you, you don't even have to remember it, just follow the programs the way that we're explaining and you should see your body really start to progress pretty consistently. Yeah, right out the gates, we're gonna switch you to a total different rep range by going to anabolic phase three, first two, then one. So that'll be good for you right away. And then we'll address some mobility, unilateral work and performance, which is gonna, and so initially, maybe you won't see the squad go way up right there. You may, but you may just hover around just taking care of the body like you need to. And then when you go into maps power lift and start to break, then you're gonna start to hit PRs. Just make sure you keep us informed when you hit that 400 pound squat. That's right. What are you squatting right now, by the way? Fingers crossed for that. Thank you so much, guys. No problem, Zany, real quick. What are you squatting right now just for out of curiosity? 50 kilograms. Okay, so like 120 pounds. Yeah, that's excellent. How much do you weigh? Around 145. That's really good for, yeah, that's really good for six to eight reps. Especially if you're focused on form. I think we'll be able to get your squat 30, 40 pounds higher within that period of time. So let's see what happens. I hope so. Yeah, fingers crossed. Yeah, excellent. All right, cool. Let us know what happens, okay? Okay, thank you so much, guys. Have a great day. You too. All right. Thank you. I love the international callers. Yeah, similar to the kind of the last caller, stuck in that five by five or low rep range for an extended period of time. You know, when you're so hung up on being strong, this is the, I think this is the Achilles heel to chasing strength. We always talk about why you should do that. 100%. And it is good for people that have body image issues and stuff like that, but this is the Achilles heel to chasing strength is you get so hung up on adding weight to the bar and it's exciting when you do that, right? You keep getting stronger and stronger that you stick in that routine too long. And then the last thing you wanna do is go like, oh, I've been crushing five by five. Oh, and now I gotta do 15 reps and I gotta cut my weight. Yeah, my weight's down by 50%. This is, by the way, this is the Achilles heel of any program that works. You do something that works really well for three months. You are stubborn to move out of it. Oh yeah, you don't wanna leave. No. Because it's working. And then when it doesn't work, it's panic. So yeah, you just gotta stay ahead of it. I used to stay in a plateau for like four weeks before I'd finally get it for my fixed goal. That was the time to move. I would be longer than that. It would be longer than that. I would stay in the same program and training modality way too long. Really? Yeah, and that's why I think we're so adamant talking to that. Because I think, here we are trainers, we have the knowledge, the information, yet even we're guilty of doing this. So you know most people are. You get a little bit of momentum and seeing results, you like it, you enjoy it, and then you just stay in that phase of that routine just way too long. 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