1) You aren’t making progress across time. Week to week*, month to month, and/or block to block of training. Either by moving more weight, doing more sets, or more reps. (*not always linear). While we won’t make progress EVERY week in the gym, over time we should be noticing trends going up. If they aren’t, take a moment to assess why. Underloading may be a reason here!

2) You don’t need 2-5 min to recover between exercises. Especially compounds. If you don’t need to recover you may not be using enough weight. You feel ready to go after 30-60 sec. A lot of people underload and rush through sets + rests, their workouts feel easy, low effort. And they think lifting is “boring” or doesn’t quite work. You should need time to recover between compounds especially. Accessory work you should feel like its effortful but can superset or rest 90-120 seconds if needed.

3) You aren’t using weights that challenge you so that you could only do 2-3 reps left for most lifts. You feel bored and distracted during your lifting sets and can think about other things. If you are unsure about this, take a set all the way to failure. How close to that were you? Adjust weight accordingly.

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