Quote:
Originally Posted by Silock
There's a "soft" cap and a "hard" cap. I would venture that most people NEVER reach their "hard" cap.
When you are past the newb gains, you've reached one cap. Beyond this point, gains are hard-fought. While you may gain 10 lbs of muscle in the first year, you'll be lucky to add 1 lbs of pure muscle the next year, and year after that. This second point is the "soft" cap.
The "hard" cap is where you just cannot gain any more muscle naturally. At all. I would venture that most people, most lifters, NEVER reach this point. You can gain strength almost your entire life. Old man strength is a real thing. Lots of lifters are their strongest in their 40s and 50s.
So, what do you do when you hit a wall? This is why it is SO important to have a good, proven training regimen. You may have to increase your frequency or decrease it. It all depends on the individual. For instance, I don't do well training one body part per week. I need more frequency than that. Some people do just fine with 1 body part per week.
You hit a wall when you have missed your prescribed weights three workouts in a row. Then, you drop the weight and work your way back up. If you dropped the weight enough, and are using the proper progression scheme, you'll be able to build your "momentum" enough and break through the wall. This can take months. Lots of lifters would be happy to add 5-10 lbs per YEAR on their bench.
That's why after you've passed that initial period, it's imperative to have a proper program, or you will just be spinning your wheels. You won't gain strength or muscle. You'll just keep what you have, hopefully.
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You will hit a cap based on your body mass, muscle density, etc. no matter how hard to train for it, no matter how proper your program is. There is a ceiling.
And it's simply a biological/physiological function that human males hit their strength peaks approximately in their mid-30's. However, a person will degrade from that point. You don't get stronger as you get progressively older once you hit that point.
The guy I know who does natural competitions doesn't keep track of his weights with his major movements anymore because the gains are relatively non-existent at the point where he is at. And we're talking about a guy who measures out his lunch on a digital scale. He is uber-meticulous about everything.
Trying to track an improvement of five pounds over an entire year on any lift, let alone the big power lifts is damn near an exercise in futility. That's pretty much clinical obsessive-compulsive disorder or Aspergers syndrome.