Does anyone even do the one muscle group a week anymore?

[silver_shadow]

everyone i know.... to lose weight, to gain weight, to cut up, for fitness.... if i ask them about it, they say their trainer told them to do this routine. it's hilarious actually... i just tell them "ok you just go ahead and do whatever it is that makes you happy".

 

[nelmsjer]

I believe the vast, vast majority still do one body part per day training. Like AB said, it is not optimal for MOST people's goals, at least not for ALL of their training time.

 

[Protobuilder]

I won't knock volume training b/c it seems to work for some people and there's some science supporting it, but personally, I enjoy the 5x5 "style," meaning that I like focusing on a few major compound exercises and targeting pretty much the whole body each workout, splitting the workout volume over several days (e.g., 5 sets for "chest" on 3 days of the week) rather than cramming it all into one day (e.g., 20 sets on "chest day"). It just "feels" better to me and fits my schedule better.

 

[blut wump]

I lost count doing 5 reps on deadlifts yesterday, I still don't know whether I did 5 or 6 reps. With my attention span these days, it's handy to have the 5x5 just so that I can drop down to 3x3 for the second half of the p

 

[emptywallet]

I've been doing the same routine, yet changing the exercises completely. Basically I've been doing the one day a week thing, yet adding or taking away cardio, and completely changing all the exercises for the week...for a few years now. I'd like to start something different. I don't completely understand the different loading (?) and deloading phases, but I'm reading and getting the hang of it.

 

[djeclipse]

I've been doing the same routine, yet changing the exercises completely. Basically I've been doing the one day a week thing, yet adding or taking away cardio, and completely changing all the exercises for the week...for a few years now. I'd like to start something different. I don't completely understand the different loading (?) and deloading phases, but I'm reading and getting the hang of it.

You may ba able to get away with the single factor 5x5 where you will be making Pr's weekly instead of breaking it up into phases.

 

[swordfish151]

Ive done the 5x5 before and love the program....im going to run it when i start my next cycle...but my question is this...is the 5x5 more for a powerlifter then a body builder routine? The program emphazises alot on the weights you lift..and meeting personal goals....I know alot will say with strength comes size...but im not really sure why the question "popped" into my head...Is the 5x5 more for the "natural" bodybuilder then the "juiced" bodybuilder?

 

[Madcow2]

Training is training. Hypertrophy is the body's response to increased heavy work demands which can be quantified by volume and intensity or workload (obviously the range is not super wide before you get into endurance but each variable has a fair amount of leeway). Progression in the lifts is what builds muscle over time, there's really no other way people have been able to quantify it. And really, what's the first thing you notice when you jump on the juice - you are able to lift more weight, perform more reps in a workout, and train more frequently and then suddenly you start growing. That right there should clue every roid user in the world into effective training and the value of progression and workload but BBing is still in the voodoo stage.

So it depends on what you want to do with your cycle. I consider heavy isolation focus as specializing on aesthetics while core lift focus as driving overall muscle gain. If you want the most muscle - you move to one side of the spectrum. If you want to work on detail, you hopefully go into maintenance and move to the specialization side. That's it in a nutshell. If a BBer wants to get big, his program can look like a 5x5. If he wants to maintain and really focus on bringing up weak points and perfecting symmetry, it might look quite a bit different.

Now as for something being a BBing program or not - well, if you want to do what most BBers do, you'll probably need a lot more drugs to help get the muscle on you since most retard the effectiveness of their bulking programs by layering all kinds of specialty isolation work on and not thinking about progression and driving it. Or - you can say that you are a bodybuilder because you are putting on muscle as quickly as possible, and you don't have to do their shit.

 

[swordfish151]

I like bringing out madcow...Im not knocking the program..it worked for me...I was just wondering this: isnt bodybuilding all about aesthetics? and powerlifting about power and strength? So if someone wants to carve detail by doing curls, extensions or whathave you is that wrong? At the end of the 5x5 you may have a wide back, big chest and great big legs but no detail...Im curious to know how many have done the 5x5 while cutting...either way madcow i love the program..maybe im thinking to much into it...

If a BBer wants to get big, his program can look like a 5x5. If he wants to maintain and really focus on bringing up weak points and perfecting symmetry, it might look quite a bit different.

How would the above be different?

 

[Madcow2]

There is no carving detail. Bodybuilding is about having nice shape and proportions, as much muscle as you want, and low bodyfat. The shape thing is basically all genetics. If you choose a nice assortment of exercises that develop the entire body, you'll almost certainly be about 90% or better - all you have to do is keep an eye out and focus on weak points or whatever every now and then. There is no carving detail - details is about having a lot of muscle (training) and low bodyfat (diet).

Powerlifting is about 1RM performance and that has a heavily neural component. It's not that very heavy weights are bad for hypertrophy - it's just that you can't do enough of it. But do not think that neural components cannot work synergistically to facilitate hypertrophy (this is the whole reason behind the infamous newbie gains). And in PL out of necessity there is higher rep work with more mechanical load because they can't only do 1RM stuff.

Hypertrophy is all about expanding the capacity of the body's musculature. This is why so many BBers make the switch to WSB or another dedicated strength program (well beyond 5x5) and experience much better gains. The reason is that, even though they aren't dedicated hypertrophy programs, they get the #1 hypertrophy thing very very right - get stronger at big lifts progressively. This is where the BBer fufu shit breaks down because so many people are doing all kinds of speciality work when the main goal in their head is to purely get big (granted some just want to refine what they have and get everything in 100% proportion - or do what they are able to with their genetics anyway).

You don't get bigger without getting stronger (a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle - it is adaptation to increased loads so obviously you need to focus on getting stronger albeit not necessarily 1RM but certainly 5RM or 5x5 or 10RM or 8RM or whatever). You can get stronger without getting bigger. Increase weights in big lifts and eat - this is all you need to build muscle over your whole frame. Everything else is minutia.

I think you need to look at these pictures to better understand that training is training. There is no special BBer training. It's all very much the same the same ballpark. Some guys want to hit home runs while others want to look pretty running bases in their thongs, both must learn to bat and hit the consistently or they will be sitting in the dugout. http://www.midwestbarbell.com/totalelite/index.php?showtopic=1110

So it's not about 5x5 vs. something else. I'm just not sure you are understanding the hypertrophy mechanism and that bodybuilding is basically strength training (albeit not 1RM focus) with a diet component.