u/Rare-Beginning-3879

Stalled on Starting Strength after 1 month — time to move to an intermediate program?

22M, 5'10", 150lb. Training for 3 years (started at 121lb). Ran PPL, then switched to Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty routine — sleep and diet were poor for most of this period due to working night shifts, but I still made decent progress on HD despite that. I quit night shifts in February and switched to an Upper/Lower split around then, and recovery has improved a lot since. Last month I switched to Starting Strength.

My lifts jumped fast at first on SS (all with a 44lb bar):

Squat: 110lb → 176lb

Bench: 88lb → 110lb

Deadlift: 110lb → 176lb

Overhead Press: N/A (never trained this before) → 88lb

I eat around 3000 kcal/day, roughly 1g protein per lb of bodyweight (~150g).

But I've now stalled on squat and bench specifically — deadlift and OHP are still moving.

Given that the stall is isolated to two lifts rather than across the board, is this a sign I need a reset on just those two, or is it time to move to an intermediate program? Would appreciate any input.

reddit.com
u/Rare-Beginning-3879 — 2 days ago