Plateaued- Can't do 5x5

[Loner]

I am 6'0, 185 Pounds and 19 years old. Was doing the 1 BP a day thing for the last year which kept me looking and fealing pretty good at first but with no gains it was easy to loose inspiration. I am probably about 10-12% BF right now I know I can loose some fat pretty easily. I have creatine and I know how to diet and eat right. I'm trying to find or figure out a good workout plan that will keep me lean and make some gains without making me starve for everything I can see. Snowboarding season is about to start so I want to stay very flexible and well balanced. 5x5 looks great and I want to do it in the offseason next year but I know I will gain alot of weight doing it. I want to stay below 180. Also trying to keep a 6 pack, got the 4 thing goin right now; and I know its mostly diet.

I was thinking something like

mon. Chest/Bi's/Abs/shrugs Heavy
Tues. Back/legs/tris Heavy
Wends. Chest/bis/abs/shrugs light 'mostly to gain bench strength'
thurs. Back Medium
Friday Shoulders/Legs/abs Heavy
Saturday probably wont want to go to the gym
Sunday probably some shoulders forearms or something like that.

I've generally learned shrugs every other day is the best way to get good delts. Also I'm in college and plan to snowboard pretty much every day so with that and sometimes needing to study more than others I will probably be skipping days here and there..
If anyone has experience keeping people flexible strong and lean/light this is what I want! Any advice would help.. thanks

 

[tay1506]

5 x 5 wont necessarly make u gain alot just eat less. Sure the gains wont be nearly as much but it will probly be better than what ur doing now also u can even drop some bf if u do that so it wont work out that bad.

 

[Madcow2]

So this is classic inseason vs. offseason whereas offseason you'd maybe use the 5x5 but inseason your concerns preventing you are desire to keep weight low, lack of emphasis on building strength but more maintenance for sport and health, flexability, and balance. That's the issue in a nut shell.

Well, although I can certainly see your desire to avoid a heavy weight training program or emphasis, I can't understand why you want to involve so much of your time in a shitty workout. Just because gaining and strength isn't a priority that doesn't mean you default to some whacked split and isolation routine. Don't use the 5x5 or whatever, but don't employ a shitty methodology to stall your progression and waste your time.

You still use solid training fundementals in your weight program but with lower workload and frequency just using basic exercises emphasizing full body strength. Maybe 2x per week full body workouts (like M/R or M/F). Now, with the time and recovery that frees up, you include activities that are helpful to your inseason goals stretching, yoga, endurance, sprinting, snowboarding whatever.

Point being, more time in the gym using a less efficient and poorly designed program to mitigate strength and size gains is a bad way to go about this. You keep training optimal but tailored to the goal (maintenance so even 2x per week just full body basic exercises), watch your diet if need be, and use the extra time and capacity for your sport or other activities that improve your sport or life over the period.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

You won't gain weight unless you eat an excess of calories, no matter what program you're on.

 

[raze]

muscle burns fat even while you are doing jack all like anthrax said you will only gain weight if you eat a excess of calories

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Muscles doesn't burn fat...

Muscle burns calories. Fat burns calories. Eat adequate protein, and sub-maintenance calories (to a moderate degree) and then lose fat. Lose stubborn adipose tissue through HIIT & special dieting approaches.

 

[Micker]

mon. Chest/Bi's/Abs/shrugs Heavy
Tues. Back/legs/tris Heavy
Wends. Chest/bis/abs/shrugs light 'mostly to gain bench strength'
thurs. Back Medium
Friday Shoulders/Legs/abs Heavy
Saturday probably wont want to go to the gym
Sunday probably some shoulders forearms or something like that

That routine looks pretty awful to me. Chest, heavy tris and then chest again the next day???? If you want to overwork your chest/tris then go for it, but I doubt you will see any gains doing that, probably lose strength over time. MORE DOES NOT=BETTER!! If the more you worked a muscle, the faster it grew, then everyone would be doing full body workouts 7 days a week.

You need to balance your workout more. If you want to work chest two times a week, thats fine, but space it out a bit. Do chest on Monday and again on Friday. Your body needs time to repair the muscle. If you tear it down too often, it can't keep up. Doing heavy tri work in between chest days is NOT a good idea. You use tris a lot benching and they won't need much more stimulation. Do a couple of closegrip bench sets after your monday chest workout or somehting like that. Your gonna smoke your tris otherwise. Look at some of the pre-made routines like the single factor 5x5 etc.. Why do more work when you will get less results??

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

The body won't repair the muscle even in a week. You can train daily, but you just have to manage the other variables. Not meaning to nitpick - good post otherwise, Micker.

 

[coxman]

Anthrax is right..you dont grow in the gym..youre basically breaking down tissue ..proper rest and diet will cause growth after your muscles have been properly stimulated. If you want to get stronger you may want to try weight training no more than three times a week, ecspecially if you snowboard daily...that alone will zap your bodies recouperative resources.

 

[tay1506]

as long as u deload and have very high testosterone it would actually work im not sugesting it though however i did it for awhile and i was going up very fast however i deloaded the 3rd week not on purpose just couldent really work out do to a hurricane and i was doing great but around the 6th week i felt like i was falling apart but in those weeks i gained almost 60 lbs. on bp and lost 5 lbs. but i wasent doing legs much except i road the bike on high settings for about an hour which hurt for awhile id say more than squating now im starting the 5x5

 

[anotherbutters]

Hey tay, someone stole all the punctuation keys from your keyboard

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Hey tay, someone stole all the punctuation keys from your keyboard

 

[tay1506]

lol no they dident . , ;:' "! ? see i was just typing how my mind works to busy trying to think than worry about punctuation!!!!!!!!

 

[Loner]

Sounds like a good idea to me switching to full body work outs thanks guys.