5x5 or 10x3

[InTraining]

"Shocking muscles" makes very little sense...since they only know resistance they aren't going to respond.."Hey! I don't remember this...we are doing a giant set of these exercises we must grow! etc"...there was a great thread about this a few weeks\months ago but thanks to the non-plat poor excuse for a search function I cannot find it....

Better than "shocking muscles" however is to alternate exercises...your example of BB curls is a valid one...picking from a pool of 2-3 compound exercises will prevent stagnation a whole lot faster than if one did the same exercise everytime

Alternating exercises also allows for greater strength gains....which is the key to growth IMO..

 

[wnt2bBeast]

im not too sure i agree with this "shocking" thing either..stagnation occurs because you are unalbe to increase the load..lets face it how much can you really add to bb curls using half way decent form?hence when you change exercises you may be able to increase the laod on the muscle and thats where this new growth comes from..its not really a shock..im all for changing exercises once it become difficult to add even the slightest amount of weight and or add 1 rep per workout..

 

[Tactile]

I've been doing 5x5 for a couple of months now, and I've been making some good, consistent gains with it. I don't see it being a choice between 5x5 or 10x3 because your main exercise is the 5x5 one, and you choose two supplemental exercises with an 8-10 rep range. The logic being that you're working both types of muscle fibres within the same workout.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

on the lines of "shocking muscles" or "confusing the muscles to grow" (thats a good one!) i agree that muscles only see resistance. they can see resistance in different positions, though. so when you change from palm down curls to palm up curls for example, the bi's will be closer to full contraction during the midpart of the curl where its hardest. my point is that muscles get used to a range of motion or path of motion as quickly as possible- AKA muscles get efficient with a familar ROM. for hypertrophy of muscles, this is not good. more efficient muscles need less mass to do the same work. i have experienced this personally with biking and climbing. after efficiency sets in, the only thing to keep the size up is to try new things the muscles (and more importantly the CNS) have not adapted to. up the weight, change the ROM, change the load angle, etc.