Rest period or move forward?

Hi,

I've been doing some bodyweight exercises with my basic approach being to do 3 sets, with decreasing reps (10,9,8), but adding, every other day, 1 rep to each (ie, 11, 10, 9 then 12, 11, 10, etc.). I've noticed that in the past 1.5 weeks, increased strain on the highest rep (1st one) and muscle exhaustion with less aggregate reps. By that I mean, I could do 22 then 21 with less trouble than I can now do 25 and 13 (then exhaustion strikes). Should I take a week off and rest the muscles or do something to jar things into action

Something to try....set a limit of reps...say 12 or 15, when you reach this plateau add weight and then start over again...10, 9, 8 etc. Personally, if I do more than 10 reps I get bored, I generally do 8 reps for 2 sets then as many as I can for the third, when I can do 3 sets of 8 I'll increase the weight.

Just how long do you think you could keep that up? Well, I guess you're finding out. You may be under the weather, but this isn't a reasonable way to go about this.

I think you're overreaching, trying to do too much, and it's catching up with you. I'd back off on this lock-step increasing-reps thing and be fair to your body. Increase the reps when you can. Here's an other way: increase the reps from the last set toward the first. For example, try 10, 10, 11. If you make that this time, try 10, 11, 11 next time, then 11, 11, 11 the following time.

There are many ways to make progress. Consider a wave cycle - each week, increase throughout the week, but each Monday, scale back to where you were the previous Tuesday or Wednesday, e.g., Mon=10, Wed=11, Fri=12, Mon=11, Wed=12, Fri=13, Mon=12, etc.

Every few weeks, take a few days or even a week off, or reduce your load greatly for the week.