So I have been a real skinny guy for all my life. I am 175 cm or 5'9 and was 67 kg for years and years. When I turned 24 I finally moved to around 71kg but that was mainly first time in my life when my bad diet kicked in and got some stomach fat. I finally started working out properly 6 months ago, I am really new to this so my training is probably deeply flawed, all my knowledge I have picked up from youtube channels such as yours or Athlean X and so on.

I am eating around 2200 -2400 calories a day. I find it really hard to eat more and I do try do be quite agressive on protein mainly. But I do recognise eating is my weak point.

I train 4-5 times a week these days. My split is: back/biceps, chest/triceps, shoulders, legs.

My goal in training is 50/50 in regards to strength and muscles. I do want to grow muscles but just as badly I want to increase my strength.

So when I started to work out 3-5 days a week I saw some pretty nice gains both strength and muscle wise. Whether it be lat pulldown or bench press I nearly doubled the weights in about 2 months. Although they were some really small weights to begin with. For the first time in my life I got some muscles in my chest. My back developed the most and the lats really do show out and I was really happy with my progress for the first 3 months. I also got my weight up to 74 kg which I was quite satisfied with as a lifelong skinny guy.

After that it has been a total standstill from strength wise and basically the same muscular wise as well. I really can't increase weights on most exercises since the ones that were very close to max for me 3 months ago still are. For instance: I was quite quickly able to bench press 50 kg for 6 to 8 reps and 55kg for 3-4 reps. To this day I can't do more. 

Or for another example: I do pull ups as my first exercise on back day usually. I started with 3 sets of 8. But they were more like 8-8-6 since my arms got really tired for the third set no matter how long I rested. To this day it is still the same. For a lot of exercises I can't recover enough after the first set to push the same amount on the next sets and it goes on for months.

So my main questions would be. What to do for the plateu. What kind of a program do you suggest from the ones on the site for me? How to get through the strength plateus on different exercises?

So since you recognize nutrition as a weak point, I would recommend you start there. Have you used Scott's calculator and figured out your macros? If so, when was the last time? If it was 6 months ago and you've gained more muscle and dropped your body fat percentage since then, your macros might have changed.

Is there a specific program you've you been following for the past 6 months, or one you madr? Are you tracking progress for each lift? If not, make sure you do and keep a log so you remember what you did last week. If you can't progress to higher weight, work on doing another rep or two in each set. And is the plateau the same for all your exercises across the board? If so the issue might be your nutrition, or recovery. It might even be time for a deload.

As far as what program, I like Scott's push pull legs.

Hey @krissucool.

I agree with Johnny about your diet. Check that first. Along with your strength plateaus, have you stopped gaining weight? If you have, then it's a sign you need to increase your calories to not only help the body weight start going up again, but also the weight you're lifting.

If you've been on the exact same program for the last 6 months or so, it's probably time to switch it up a little bit for starters. I wouldn't suggest a deload week because generally newbies like yourself don't actually need deloads. They just need to eat more or get their recovery sorted to get back on track, which is what I think will help you.

There are some other ways you can burst through your plateaus too. If you can, get a spotter to help you on things like the bench press or other exercises where they can give you some assistance when you start to struggle. Being able to push past those sticking points will help you overload and become stronger. You can also do some cheat/momentum reps yourself on things like machines or a bicep curl. So if you're aiming for 8 reps but can only do 6, use a bit of momentum to get the last 2 reps done, and just make sure you control the negatives.

You can also try adding more sets. For something like your bench press, if you can do 50kg for 3 sets of 6-8 reps, try doing 5 sets instead. If you can do 55kg for 3 sets, again, try doing 5 sets instead. While you're not immediately doing more reps per set, you're doing more reps OVERALL, which can help you get stronger.

For pull-ups (and some other exericses), you can only focus on the negative when you fatigue so much that you can't do the concentric portions. That would mean for a pull-up, you jump to the top position, then control the negative, and do that for a set or two once you fatigue out doing full range of motion pull-ups.

As for a suggested program, I'd go with the PPL program if I were you. The frequency is always good for newbies, and it's perfect for someone like you who's trying to gain strength as well because that's exactly how the program is designed - strength training on your compounds then volume for the rest of the workouts! http://muscularstrength.com/Push-Pull-Legs

Hope that all helps!

Thanks Scott, most of what you are saying makes a lot of sense. I have stopped gaining weigth indeed. I can see muscular improvements from time to time but no weight and strength gains. (Except for biceps which incredibly keep developing all the time.) I am already using cheat/momentum reps at the end of sets like you suggested as well.

I know that diet is my biggest problem and I have really trying to improve it a lot during the last month (Finally, today while stepping on a scale I saw 75 kg!)

For the strength plateu I was just wondering if it really is only diet or should I change anything else as well. As no matter the diet, benching 50-55 kg seems increadibly low after 6 months whatever the diet.

I will probably give the PPL program a go but before I wanted to ask a few notes about my current training.

For instance, my most average back training consists of:

My rep range is usually 8-10 reps but for some exercises the last sets migh fall down to about 6. I try to go to failure on all sets with the weight being about 85% of my 1 rep max.I usually do a drop set with about 2/3 of the weight after the 3 main sets are done also to failure. I try to be quite high intensity in my training so these exercises get me completely wiped after I finish them.

3 sets of pull-ups

3+ 1 sets of barbell row

3 +1 sets of lat pulldowns

3+ 1 sets of one arm dumbell rows

I also do about 2-3 biceps exercises in my back workout.

So adding to the previous it would usually be something like 3+1 sets of barbell curls and 3 sets of chin ups orsmth.

Great that you saw the scale go up today! Guess you started eating a little more food this week which got the bodyweight moving up again. Diet can be tricky initially but once you get into a routine it becomes second nature, and if you're struggling to add more food, just add more of the things you are already eating.

The diet will have had an impact on your strength, but there's a good chance it was training too. It will probably help if you start doing some more strength-based rep schemes at least for a little bit, which is what you would have if you decide to do the PPL (which using reverse pyramid sets to help you get stronger).

Your back workout looks OK, but maybe you could stick to just three of those movements and do more sets per exercise. I'll link you to a video below which explains why you probably don't need as many exercises. Also, if you are going to failure too often, you'll be frying your Central Nervous System (CNS), which could be making recovery more difficult, which could be impacting your strength as well.

Use failure as a tool a few times a week, and if you were to do it once a day, only pick one exercise (ideally your last exercise) to go all out and finish off strong there.