5x5 journal

[donny43]

Some background- Been weight training for the last 5 years but just doing the 1 body part a week for the 1st 3 years. I then tried out a westside routine and was doing that for about 9 months when "disaster" struck. Whilst making good gains little did I know the continual wide stance squats, good mornings and the working up to a one rep max was absolutley destroying my groin muscles . The result tennis elbow of the adductor muscles which was making it impossible to squat,deadlift, Glute ham raise, good morning, even rowing from all angles. I had an operation (adductor tenotomy) 3 months ago and 6 weeks after the operation started a Korte 3x3 because of the lower weights involved. I had to lower the % less than the recommended %58 and %60 for the 1st couple of weeks just working under the pain threshold. My groin now gets a 'good' pain now and I am on the way back. I still have a bit of abdominal tendonitis that plays up whenever I do cable crunches or sit ups but I'm hoping that will just dissapear as I develop and strengthen all sorounding muscles. I know I fucked up doing a excercise program that my body was not ready for and I probably wouldve made more gains if I followed a program like this in the first place. I plan to run the loading part of this DF program for longer than the suggested 4 weeks as I think I will keep making gains beyong the 1st 4 weeks as I have not trained in a proper manner for over a year.I am aiming to get to my previous maxes in this 5x5 cycle and surpass my those records in the next cycle.

Previous maxes Squat= 160kg
Deadlift= 170kg
Bench press= 135kg

Anyway onto the workout

All the main lifting is preceded with 3x10 warmup sets at a lighter weith than the 1st working weight

Week 1 Day 1
Squat 5x5 105 kg A pissy weight but the last couple of reps on the 5th set I knew I was squatting. I was pissed off withe the light weight but this is the 1 st time in over a year I have strainfully squatted pain free.

Bench press 1x5
2x5x70
1x5x80
1x5x90
1x5x100

Fairly light but there is plenty of time to ramp these up.

Row 1x5
2x5x60
1x70
1x80
1x85

Like bench was fairly light but there is plenty of time to ramp these up.

Summary: I got the was that it feeling after finishing this workout but this will change when I up the weights. Groins feel good but have stirred the stomach tendontitis up a little but nothing major. Didnt do any abs because of this.

Question For the 1x5 how is my weight increases per set?

 

[anotherbutters]

In your other thread you said you'd been lifting 5 years, giving everyone the impression you were probably at the point where you can't gain easily by simple supercompensation any more and that you need something like the DF 5x5. You didn't mention the small matter of not lifting for the past 12 months!

If by your own admission you think you can still gain by continuing on the loading phase, then I suggest (as will probably everyone else) that you do the SF 5x5. There's no point loading and deloading if you can just stick heavier weights on the bar each week. The SF will be quicker for you.

 

[donny43]

In your other thread you said you'd been lifting 5 years, giving everyone the impression you were probably at the point where you can't gain easily by simple supercompensation any more and that you need something like the DF 5x5. You didn't mention the small matter of not lifting for the past 12 months!

If by your own admission you think you can still gain by continuing on the loading phase, then I suggest (as will probably everyone else) that you do the SF 5x5. There's no point loading and deloading if you can just stick heavier weights on the bar each week. The SF will be quicker for you.

Thats what I meant by saying I would run the first part of the program longer than 4 weeks and when I feel like I can go no further I will resort to the 3 rep method. Isnt that the idea?
I also didnt mention I havnt lifted for over 12 months but rather this is the 1st time ive squated pain free for over 12 months. I was trying to work through the pain as you do.

 

[anotherbutters]

Thats what I meant by saying I would run the first part of the program longer than 4 weeks and when I feel like I can go no further I will resort to the 3 rep method. Isnt that the idea?

The idea of the first four weeks of the DF, the loading phase, is to do a lot of volume and build up your fitness very quickly. However, that will also bring with it a lot of fatigue, which you need to recover from by reducing the volume, which is what the second half is for. This manipulation of fitness and fatigue is necessary for people that have been lifting a while and are at the stage where they can't make progress simply by trying to lift heavier weights each week (which is quicker).

The single factor isn't based on fitness/fatigue theory - it's just simple supercompensation. You just go in and try to lift slightly heavier weights (say 2-3%) each week. The volume is much less than the DF's loading phase, so you don't build up anywhere near as much fatigue, so you don't need to deload.

The difference is that in the DF loading phase, you do 5x5 at the same weight for various lifts, so that's 25 reps at the heavy weight. In the SF, you always ramp up to one heavy set of 5, so the volume is much less. You can still do the same lifts.

Here's a link to the SF: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4497774&postcount=15

You're right, once you stop progressing, you can change the set/rep scheme or something like that to get you going again. You should do well on the SF as you're getting back to previous maxes.

 

[donny43]

24/10/05

After weighing up both option of df vs sf thanks to Anotherbutters I have decided to go with the sf 5x5 as I have never done this type of training before and coming back from injury I havnt trained properly for a while so I will see what strength gains I can milk from the sf version

Wokout

All excercises preceded by 3x10 at a lighter weight than 1st working set

Squat

1x70
1x80
1x90
1x95
1x95


Deadlift 1x5

80x1
90x1
100x1
110x1
120x1

Standing Military press 1x5
1x40
1x45
1x50
1x55
1x60
Havnt done any shoulder work for over 12 months

Pullups @ bodyweight 5x5
3x5
2x4
Like shoulder press have not done these for over 12 months.
The the 3rd set was straining a little to get 5 so dropped backed to sets of 4. Will go for the 4th set for 5 next week.


Summary: good workout and completed all sets reasonbly.


Question: 1/For the shoulder press and pullups be a 1x5 or 5x5 rep range as you are only working these excersises once a week.
2/Is the idea to up the weights 2%-3% for all of the 5 sets in the or just up it for the last set? I feel I can up it for all the sets but dont want to over do it to quickly.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Question: 1/For the shoulder press and pullups be a 1x5 or 5x5 rep range as you are only working these excersises once a week. .

Yeah it's still a ramped set for each.

2/Is the idea to up the weights 2%-3% for all of the 5 sets in the or just up it for the last set? I feel I can up it for all the sets but dont want to over do it to quickly.

Play it by ear. The rule of thumb is not to sacrifice your top sets with overly heavy ramps, but the ramps will go up over the course of the program.

My .02 is that you're gonna recapture that lost strength quickly. Good luck!

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Agreed with Guinness. Ramp the pullups and OHPs when you can, and only raise the warmup set weights when the jumps become too large. You can safely make 30-50 lb. jumps in weight with most exercises before you have to worry about the gap becoming too large. Once you're jumpfring from 315 as a warmup to 405 as a working set, then worry.

 

[anotherbutters]

Ditto on the warmups. You might want to make it clear that these weights are in kg, lest people think you're only squatting half your bodyweight

Umm, you just did a Wednesday workout. How are you laying this out?

Mon: squat, bench, row
Wed: squat, dead, press, pullups
Fri: squat, bench, row

 

[donny43]

Ditto on the warmups. You might want to make it clear that these weights are in kg, lest people think you're only squatting half your bodyweight

Umm, you just did a Wednesday workout. How are you laying this out?

Mon: squat, bench, row
Wed: squat, dead, press, pullups
Fri: squat, bench, row

Sunday/Saturday- Depends on fri/sat night activities: squat, bench, row
Monday:Indoor soccer
Tue: squat, dead, press, pullups
Wednesday:indoor soccer
Thur: squat, bench, row

 

[donny43]

Week 1 day3

 

[donny43]

Week 1 day3
All weights in KG
Squat
5x70
5x80
5x90
5x100
3x110
8x90

Bench Press
5x70x2
5x80
5x90
3x102.5
8x90

row
5x60x2
5x70
5x80
3x87.5
8x70

flat close grip Bench
4x5 @ 80

Comments: Squats ATG really are very different from going to parallel. Coming out of the hole is heaps harder than staqrting the concentric phase from parallel. Time for those hammies to get stronger I guess.
I put an emphases on doing the concentric phase of all reps of all excercises as quickly and powerfull as I possibly could with a controlled eccentric phase. I liked the feel I got and will continue with this method which is a good way to lift anyway.

Question: What is the purpose of the back off set?

 

[anotherbutters]

Question: What is the purpose of the back off set?

I think just to give you a bit of hypertrophy since it's more reps, and keep the volume up at a reasonable level.