Split decision

[JohnRobHolmes]

Im getting back into weight training again after a spotty 06. I dont remember ever sticking to weights for longer than 6 months at a time. At the moment I cant decide whether to stick with the HST style high rep schemes for a few more months or go back to a 5x5. One side of me wants strength and the other side wants to be bigger first, strength later. I almost feel as if I cannot work each muscle group enough for hypertrophy on a madcow 5x5. I used it last time I worked out and the strength gains were pretty fast, but my body didnt hardly change a bit size-wise. Who has an opinion on this?


And yes, I know I need to eat more

 

[2horns]

for your situation i would with out a doubt go 5x5...build your strength up first while putting on size too...i love it...

 

[coolcolj]

you can do both at the same time, size makes you stronger, getting stronger make you bigger. A bigger muscle is a stronger msucle etc

just alternate between a strength session and then the next time do a size session - sorted

it's not complicated or rocket science!

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

Today I mixed it up a bit. After reading some of Lyle McDonald's stuff about maintenance level work, I decided to work at both volume and strength in the same workout.

Goals- I want stronger traps, levators, chest, and tris. I am already doing a push/pull split so I think this will be easy to accomplish.

Todays workout:
Pullups- total volume of 27 BW pullups. Started with a wide grip and ended with a narrow hammer grip. I am just doing these to exhaustion until I can get a consistent 5x5 with my BW. Then I will start weighting them, then doing a final few sets unweighted.
Rows (nautilus machine)- 3x10 with 90 then 3x5 with 140. I should have done this the other way and worked strength before the higher reps.
DL- 95lbs 5x5. Been a long time since I have done these. I dont want to go and hurt myself doing something stupid that my lower back wont like.

Seemed like a good workout with enough volume to get me where I want to be. Im still working back up to past PR's, so any workout is still better than none.




Tomorrow is pushing day. Bench is my emphasis. Should go a little something like this..

Bench- Warm up, 3x3 heavy workset, 4x10 lighter workset
incline bench- 3x3 heavy
CG incline- 3x10 light
tri pushdowns- 3x12 I feel like I need to improve my mind connection to these guys. I cant really flex my tri's like I can flex all my other muscles.
Squat- 5x5 going light.


Then one to two days of rest. Once I start getting heaver weights involved, I will probably start alternating intensity of dl's and squats since this routine has me working my legs 50% to 66% of the total days in a week. Feels good to bump up the pounds every two workouts on an exercise, and I really seem to respond better to higher frequency and lower volume workouts.

 

[Guinness5.0]

I want stronger traps, levators, chest, and tris.

 

[jackangel]

although i agree with the notion that strength and size will always go hand-in-hand, if you want to give one even a slight preference, go for strength.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

Levators http://www.buckheadbodyworks.com/images/article/library/1/lev.jpg

I should have mentioned the rhomboids and supraspinatus as well. My shoulder girdle is out of whack in general.

 

[blut wump]

JRH, no offence intended in any way but it always amazes me that the guys weighing 120-150 know a lot more about the different muscle groups and how to work them than the guys weighing 224+ (that was going to be 230+ but I had to adjust it for the new, svelte BiggT).

I know that some of us seem to grow just from thinking about the gym door and others have to slave for every scrap of muscle but there really are few details to worry about at our stage of development. Just work the compound exercises and make progress on them while eating and resting enough.

You can't effectively chisel muscle until you've grown a decent amount and you can't flex bone. Work to get strong and eat to grow while getting enough rest to permit recovery. There are no other details worth worrying about for almost everyone who is likely to read this.

 

[BiggT]

haha, BW's right.

5x5 build lots of muscle....I don't understand why guys have such a hard time with this. Do your big lifts then 1-2 sets of 8 to backoff if you want (you'll still grow just as fast without them).

If you want to peak your strength, you'll have to use 1-3 reppers, but at this point, after a layoff and never having trained more than 6 months straight, you can get a hell of a lot stronger without ever doing anything lower than 5 reps.

Unless you want to peak your strength to compete, you don't need ''mass'' workouts and ''strength'' workouts.....hell, you can do singles, doubles, and triples and backoff with 2x 8-10 and get big and strong......don't overcomplicate, this is EASY....hard work, but easy in concept.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

Im not trying to chisel my levators etc, LOL! Im trying to prevent shoulder dislocations and fix imbalances that are already there. I have to know about all the little muscles because they have given me big trouble in the past. Two shoulder dislocations and a pinched thoracic nerve would make anybody want to know what the hell was going on.


Im wanting to peak my strength so I can ride my bike with less effort. I want at least 2 days a week of riding at the same time. When I was on the Madcow 5X5 I always felt like I was either recovering from lifts or hampering lifts with my riding. If anybody has any suggestions for tweaking my rep ranges post it up. Since Im still green to lifting I feel that higher rep ranges are good to get the CNS programmed as quick as a 5x5 would. I dont want to totally ignore the strength aspect either, so 3x3's have been thrown in to get me used to heavier weights without going too far on the volume.


This is how I ride, but Im not as good as Danny (yet) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYIKfEU8yl8 Im still working on getting my hop above 2 feet. His hop is above 5 feet

 

[Cynical Simian]

Im wanting to peak my strength so I can ride my bike with less effort. I want at least 2 days a week of riding at the same time. When I was on the Madcow 5X5 I always felt like I was either recovering from lifts or hampering lifts with my riding. If anybody has any suggestions for tweaking my rep ranges post it up. Since Im still green to lifting I feel that higher rep ranges are good to get the CNS programmed as quick as a 5x5 would. I dont want to totally ignore the strength aspect either, so 3x3's have been thrown in to get me used to heavier weights without going too far on the volume.

If by the part in bold you mean 'increase neural efficiency,' you're incorrect: reps at a high intensity (%1RM) are what increase that capacity the most. If you're coming off a layoff, IMO the best thing to do is a basic linear program that will quickly get you back to your previous strength level. 5 reps provides a decent blend of neural adaptation and (with proper diet) hypertrophy; the fact that it has you track your poundages doesn't make it a "pure strength" program. In terms of work set volume, the linear 5x5 really isn't that demanding, since you're only doing one top set for each exercise, and the volume can be reduced further by eliminating backoff sets if you're prioritizing riding over lifting and don't want to have too much weekly tonnage.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

I am really referring to my mind/ muscle connection when I refer to CNS programming. My tri's just dont flex like I know they could. Am I wrong to assume that more repetitions = faster mind/ muscle connection? If I bunnyhop 10 times a day vs 5 times a day wouldnt I learn to use my bunnyhop muscles faster?


Keep the crits and thoughts coming. This is good.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

Just a thought here, I havent really been considering a linear 5x5. I have been considering 5x5 @ work load for the work set. Linear progression would be a lot less demanding since I would be warming up to the maximal set of 5 as part of the work load.

Now is the time to get all this stuff straight. Like yall said, it isnt rocket science. Im just trying to make it a science project.

 

[Cynical Simian]

It seems like the linear 5x5 has everything you want: rapid progress, low work set volume, and plenty of opportunity to work on form and increase efficiency/familiarity with the movements (since you'll have 4 submaxmal/warm-up sets of 5 for each lift).

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

After a long hot shower and plenty of time to think it over, I will just go back to the linear 5x5. I do have detailed journals from '05 to refer to and base my PR's from too, since I stuck to a linear 5x5 for about 3 months that year.

Thanks for the insight guys.