So I'm starting to plateau on my squats in my
Starting Strength routine. I've got a few thoughts on why this may be, so I figured I'd throw them out there and hopefully get some advice.
I'm 5'8" 170 lbs right now. Since I've been in a fat loss prop bet (ends Oct. 8th), losing fat has been priority over gaining muscle mass. My squat seems to have peaked at around 160 lbs. (3x5) and it has been stuck for about 4 workouts now. 160lbs is a heavy squat to me. I'm completely gassed after I finish the work sets and this is the max weight that I feel I can do w/o a complete breakdown in form. I'm doing this 3x per week along with deadlifts once or twice a week. Because my priority is losing fat, I've been eating very clean and at a caloric deficit. I'm not one to log my diet but I'm very certain that my diet right now is in the 1800 to 2000 cal/day range. My sleep habits aren't perfect, but I do the best I can, usually getting 7 hours of sleep a night.
My questions are this:
So, is it possible that b/c I'm at a caloric deficit, I'm not putting on enough muscle to be able to overcome the 160lb. squat?
Is it possible that b/c this is a heavy squat 3x a week that I'm not recovering fast enough? An interesting thing that happened this week was that my squat felt good on Monday and weak on Friday. Am I going too hard?
Have I peaked on the Starting Strength routine? If so, should I move over to a 5x5 routine where I won't be lifting heavy squats every workout?
Or should I just reset back a little bit, say drop my squat down to 145 or so and try to slowly work back up and continue my same routine?
An interesting note is I don't have any microplates at my gym, so 5lbs. is the smallest increment I can jump up. Could this be a part of the problem?