hello all.....question

[letsgorangers]

hi well i was wondering....ive been lifting for like 6 months, no huge gains, lost some fat and got a little tighter and stronger but nothing great....i posted pics a couple days ago so anyone who saw those knows what my body looks like....what would be more effective a 5x5 intermediate from madcows or a the rippletoe thing for beginners?

 

[Czar87]

Run rippetoe 1-2 times and then move on to MC2 5x5
Their both pretty much the same but Rippetoe allows you to add weight more frequentley to the bar. You get your base from ripps and then you can move on to 5x5

good lucks, both are great programs

 

[letsgorangers]

Run rippetoe 1-2 times and then move on to MC2 5x5
Their both pretty much the same but Rippetoe allows you to add weight more frequentley to the bar. You get your base from ripps and then you can move on to 5x5

good lucks, both are great programs

so start on the ripptoe and move on to the 5x5? how long should i do the ripptow for? will i see as good results as if i went right into a 5x5? or better?

 

[petpre61]

so start on the ripptoe and move on to the 5x5? how long should i do the ripptow for? will i see as good results as if i went right into a 5x5? or better?

keep going with Riptoe's program as long as you hit PRs every workout

 

[Czar87]

Go for rippetoe til you stall on majority of your lifts.
You will see great results with both if you train hard, but you will see better strenght gains with rippetoe cause you can add weight to the bar every workout.

Take this:

Rippetoe- Faster progress cause you are beginner and far from your limits
5x5- Slower progress but still good results

i mean say you squat right now 150lbs, but can potentialy squat 200-220lbs so when on rippetoe you add 15lbs per week, on 5x5 you'll add 5lbs per week. With ripps you'll be there alot faster.

 

[letsgorangers]

other opinions?

 

[blut wump]

Always use the simplest and most productive workouts that you can to make the most progress in adding weight to the bar. As your strength and conditioning improve, it becomes ever harder to continue to make progress. Eventually, you'll get to a stage where you'll be planning entire two and three month periods just to add a couple of kilos to a lift and view it as good progress.

If you can make good progress with the Rippetoe program then run it until it stops working for you. You'll then need something a little more structured, such as the Madcow Intermediate 5x5, where you'll aim to progress week by week rather than session by session. You should be able to use the Intermediate, adjusting and reseting in various ways, for a good many months.

Eventually, even weekly gains just don't happen any more and you need to plan your programming in ever greater blocks of time and the Dual Factor (Advanced) version is needed. You'll then be looking at month-long loading phases followed by recovery phases and be measuring progress in months at a time.

Always take the simplest option that still works for you. After a layoff, you might even find that you can go right back to the Rippetoe for the first month of getting back into things, even after a few years of working out.

 

[anotherbutters]

As BW said. The speed at which you are capable of making progress will start off very high as a beginner, but it will reduce over time as you get closer and closer to your genetic potential. Some 'programs' take advantage of how quickly a beginner can set new records and thus are best suited to a beginner (e.g. Rippetoe's 3x5). Other programs have much more complexity because that's what it takes to eek out new records in a more advanced lifter that's capable of much slower progress (e.g. the dual factor 5x5).

The advanced lifter wouldn't be able to make progress on the Rippetoe 3x5 because they need much more training complexity. Similarly, whilst the beginner would make progress on the dual factor 5x5, it would be slower progress than on the Rippetoe 3x5 because the dual factor 5x5 is aimed at people that are capable of slower progress.

In fact, the Rippetoe 3x5, single factor 5x5 and dual factor 5x5 can all be thought of as the same workout program, but at different points in someone's ability to make progress. You'll make the fastest progress by choosing the workout that best matches your current ability to make progress.

In a nutshell, run with the Rippetoe 3x5 until it stops working for you (maybe 3-4 months), then move up to the single factor 5x5.