my 5x5

Hey guys I am 5’ 9’’ about 190lbs. I started this workout last week. It was a basic 5x5 but I feel that I needed a shoulder day. What do ya think?

Tuesday – Heavy Day
Squat – 5 sets of 5
Bench – 5 sets of 5
DLs– 5 sets of 5
Barbell Curls – 2 sets of 10
2 sets of weighted hypers
4 sets of weighted Sit-ups

Thursday – Light Day
Squat – 4 sets of 5
Incline Bench – 4 sets of 5
Military Press - 4x5
High Pulls – 4 sets of 5
Sit-ups – 3 sets

Friday - Medium
Squat – 4 sets of 5, 1 triple, back-off
Bench – 4 sets of 5, 1 triple, back-off
Deadlifts – 4 sets of 5, 1 triple
Weighted Dips – 3 sets of 5-8
Triceps and Biceps – 3 sets of 8 each

Sunday – Shoulders
Barbell shrugs – 5 sets of 5
Seated Lateral raises – 3 sets of 8
Reverse Peck Deck – 4 sets of 12-15
Shoulder Presses – 3 sets 6-10
Chip Weight Front Raises – 3 sets 8-12

1) Bad idea on the shoulders with all the rowing, pulling and pressing the last thing you need is adding more work. Everyone who forwent the bullshit laterals is amazed at how well proper compound movements develop the shoulders. I highly suggest trusting 30+ years of results accross broad spectrums of lifters and athletes.

2) You are deadlifting 2x per week and highpulling on Wed. Do yourself a favor and Row on M/F and deadlift or highpull on W.

3) Choose either inclines OR military for your Wed workout - not both.

Conclusion - you are adding too much workload. A lot of what you are adding is going to pound the hell of your shoulders on a program that already hits them hard every day in multiple ways. Your workload will be too high and inhibit progress. All the extra shoulder isolation work (which will amount to a small pile of shit if you are lucky) will inhibit progress in the core lifts. Go plain vanilla and then decide what you do or do not like after a few months.

Yes barbell rows with back flat but torso as close to 90 degrees as you are able (that means parallel to the floor).

Go to the exercise descriptions section on this page and there will be info on correct ways to do barbell rows and why they are done dynamically (i.e. not jerking but smoothly accelerating the weight into the body). Another variation is done from the floor on each Pendlay Rows and also performed dynamically. What passes for rows in the normal gym (upright humping with slight range of motion and slight torso angle is absurd) http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow1/table_of_contents_thread.htm

I got more shoulder and trap developement by doing Madcow's 5X5 than I had in 4 years of lifting. I wouldn't change anything here.

Your shoulders will be SPENT after the 5x5. Don't even think about adding a shoulder day. Pretty much every exercise you do works your shoulders one way or another during the 5x5. The whole point of the 5x5 is a controled over reaching/loading and its designed to do that as is. By adding exercises, you are messing up the whole design and will end up making smaller gains and working much harder. The 5x5 seems like cake, but week 4 will be tough and by week 8/9 you will be ready for a break.

benny, i hate to criticise someones plan... but i think these guys are right. its hard to tell many things about your workout, for instance, when you day light day, what do you mean? how light? and the progression... how are you doing that?

the most important things about a training program are the things that dont get written down when you lay out your sets and reps. things like what weight your starting with as compared to your previous best, how you plan to progress and add weight each week, how heavy is the day where you only do one work set as compared to the day where you do 5 work sets... things like this, the things you do to make progress a series of small and systematic steps instead of just going to the gym and doing the weight that is possible or feels good each day is what makes the 5 by 5 work, not the exact layout of sets and reps.

dont worry so much about individual bodyparts, and doing an exercise for each specific thing. try to convince yourself that when your squat and bench and military and row and pullups etc are all up by 10%, youll be bigger all over, which is exactly what will happen.

I honestly don't know how you would still have energy on Monday after 5x5 squat and 5x5 on bench. I can barely move after those 10 sets.