How to Tell If You're Really Stalled @BarbellMedicine

Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

Three weeks of flat numbers on a lift you care about. Is it a stall, or just the day-to-day noise getting larger as your absolute strength climbs? In this segment from the Barbell Medicine Podcast, Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum and Dr. Austin Baraki walk through the within-session diagnostic (the reference warm-up set), the across-week diagnostic (a three-to-four week trend in estimated 1RM against a recent anchor), and the framework we use with a frustrated lifter whose environment outside the gym has become problematic.

If you are stalling, switching programs, or wondering whether your scale is calibrated, this is the segment.

Timestamps

0:00 - The replacement for the novice / intermediate / advanced framework
1:00 - What the warm-up tells you
3:00 - What counts as a genuine stall
5:00 - How to measure it (recent anchor, like-to-like comparison)
6:30 - Beginning- and end-of-block testing for cleaner signal
7:30 - Austin: the bad-sleep-bad-work consult
8:30 - Environment first, then training load
9:00 - The wrap

Resources
Full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=iYDmLCk5Nhc&feature=youtu.be

Training Plateau Action Plan (free): barbellmedicine.com/training-plateau-action-plan

Progressive Loading Part 1: barbellmedicine.com/blog/progressive-loading

Beyond Progressive Overload Part 2: barbellmedicine.com/blog/beyond-progressive-overload

The Death of the Novice-Intermediate-Advanced Framework Part 3: Article: barbellmedicine.com/blog/novice-intermediate-advanced-strength-training

Halperin I et al. Accuracy in predicting repetitions to task failure: scoping review. Sports Med. 2022.

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$Lifting Heavy During and After Menopause For decades, women with low bone density were told not to lift. Then LIFTMOR put 65-year-olds with osteopenia under heavy barbells — and they gained bone with one minor injury across 2,613 supervised sessions. We cover why DXA misses most fractures, the LIFTMOR and MEDEX-OP results (heavy lifting vs Pilates), exercise and falls, and how to actually start. Part 3 of the Barbell Medicine menopause series. Educational content, not medical advice. Timestamps 00:00 Bone: where the advice and the data diverge 00:10 The SWAN bone substudy 01:00 How much bone you lose around menopause 01:22 Why DXA misses most fractures (Siris) 02:13 LIFTMOR: lifting heavy with low bone density 03:25 The protocol — 5×5 at 85% 03:48 The safety record: 1 injury / 2,613 sessions 04:15 Predict the result 05:35 The LIFTMOR results: +2.9% vs −1.2% 06:46 EFOPS: 16 years of exercise 07:18 Heavy lifting vs Pilates (MEDEX-OP) 08:29 Is Pilates / yoga / water aerobics enough? 12:25 Exercise and falls 13:06 Clinic: Should I be deadlifting? Resources: Subscribe to BBM Plus for the full unabridged Direct Line: https://barbellmedicine.supercast.com/ Barbell Medicine coaching and templates: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ Signal book pre-order: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/shop/learning/signal/ Studies cited • Greendale et al., SWAN bone loss across the FMP, JBMR 2012: https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.534 • Siris et al., undiagnosed low BMD & fractures (NORA), JAMA 2001: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.286.22.2815 • Watson et al., LIFTMOR, JBMR 2018: https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3284 • Kemmler et al., EFOPS 16-year, Menopause 2017: https://doi.org/10.1097/GME.0000000000000720 • Kistler-Fischbacher et al., MEDEX-OP, JBMR 2021: https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.4334 • Sherrington et al., exercise for preventing falls, Cochrane 2019: https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD012424.pub2 • ACSM Position Stand: Osteoporosis and Exercise, Med Sci Sports Exerc 1995;27(4):i–vii$

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