How many of you are successful with the 5x5 program?

I know this has been beaten to death by now, and the only way i'm REALLY gonna find out for myself is if I try it... but I'm just curious as to how many of you guys are really doing this, and how much you like it, because I'm thinking of starting it.

I'm a big fan. Something that seems to get pushed under the rug is that no one who understands why it's a good program will tell you it's the end-all be-all program (I didn't respond to your poll because I don't feel that any of the options represented my opinion). The point of it is to educate. For example, dual-factor theory is pretty much unheard of in the BB'ing community. Also, the notion that a 1x/week split for individual muscle groups is a good idea gets squashed. Progressive overload is a big reason why this works. Then there's exercise selection- after a couple months of concentrating on the compound movements most will agree that they should be the mainstay of any program.
I'll link a post of madcow's that seems to get the idea across:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4643459&postcount=186

I think everyone who does weights should run the 5x5 or something similar in nature. It's an eye-opener in the ways Guinness5.0 mentions and it also shows new depths of fatigue and how to handle them. Most lifters have drifted into slight overtraining over a period of months. With the 5x5 you deliberately push yourself into that state over a period of four weeks.

Besides being a good reminder of the efficacy of the basic, compound movements, the 5x5 is a good introduction to dual-factor methods and can be upscaled to almost any level of experience and conditioning.

I ran the program twice plus one aborted run between them which I had to abort due to a knee injury. I'm currently running a different dual-factor program and will probably be using them on-and-off now for the rest of my lifting life. I'm sure I'll run the madcow5x5 again and equally sure that I'll rarely run it just as it was presented.

I started out on 5x5 and have revisited a couple of times. It's a solid program for increasing strength. I did needsize's version, and added 5lb each week to my compound lifts. This definitely made it easier to progress to heavier weights. I didn't get much hypertrophy out of it, but once I switched programs I could work at higher weights and my work capacity didn't seem to suffer. Then the hypertrophy gains started coming.

EXCELENT POLL ARTRIUS!

Learning the fundamentals behind the 5x5 has been monumental to me. My routine is slightly modified, but the values are equivalent.

musketeer said:

EXCELENT POLL ARTRIUS!

Learning the fundamentals behind the 5x5 has been monumental to me. My routine is slightly modified, but the values are equivalent.

Click to expand...

thanks

bump for more responses

Mr_Sinister said:

I started out on 5x5 and have revisited a couple of times. It's a solid program for increasing strength. I did needsize's version, and added 5lb each week to my compound lifts. This definitely made it easier to progress to heavier weights. I didn't get much hypertrophy out of it, but once I switched programs I could work at higher weights and my work capacity didn't seem to suffer. Then the hypertrophy gains started coming.

Click to expand...

sorry since this is a little O/T, but could you please post a link to needsize's version of 5x5. i would be interested to see how it compare's to madcow's version. thanks

RipStone said:

sorry since this is a little O/T, but could you please post a link to needsize's version of 5x5. i would be interested to see how it compare's to madcow's version. thanks

Click to expand...

Here is needsize's 5x5. The two versions are quite different.

http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=281085

I think I'd have to echo what's been said above. I gained strength and mass on the 5x5, but that's almost irrelevant compared to what it taught me about training.

It got me off the machines for good, showed me that I could hit the same muscle group more than once a week and taught me how to manipulate volume to control fatigue. I don't think it's the be all and end all simply because no program can be, but I feel like it's given me enough knowledge to be able to evaluate other programs and judge how successful they're likely to be for me.

Once I've finished what I'm doing now (single factor 5x5, progressing to dual factor), I'll probably switch between some of the other programs like Korte and Smolov, and come back to the 5x5 as a mainstay.

It's got thumbs up from me.

(I also don't think that any of the options reflect my opinion. It is a good program, but it's useful to run other programs too.)

well, I managed to drop my cycle doseage by quite a bit and still keep gaining the same amount of strength, so I would say that that says something about the program (I cut from 1,800mg down to 800mg).

I enjoy training with a 5x5 or hst based program. I don't really follow anyones set in stone routines though -- once you understand the theory behind them, you can customize to your hearts content. no that doesn't mean adding in concentration curls and cable crossovers.

my entire lifting with my version of 5x5 and/or HST is based around these lifts:

Flat bench
Incline Bench
Seated Military press (had to ditch OHP due to wrist problems)
Wieghted Chins
Dynamic Rows
Deadlifts
Squats
Standing Calve Raises
Barbell Curls
Pushdowns
Weighted ab work

I feel that anything else is second rate.