Stephan Korte's 3x3 First Week Progress and Apologies to All!

[blut wump]

Long-term you want something like rows and overhead work to balance the shoulder out (especially some rows for the same plane of motion).

That said, this is a base program concentrated only on the core lifts. For most mortals doing this program there is no room for assistance work. You just don't run something like this all year long without ever doing some maintanence work on your body and addressing weaknesses through assistance work.

Do you think these programs were designed with testosterone, or similar, supplementation taken for granted? I guess the program is probably fine for anyone with decent conditioning and if you have supra-human recovery then you can extend it with assitance work.

I've read reviews of the Smolov routine which have pretty much said forget any idea of attempting the full program if you're natural.

 

[Madcow2]

Work capacity varies drastically and most people have none or train fairly infrequently and don't put much volume into the big lifts so they lack conditioning. I've done the 3x3 natural and although hard I never thought of quitting it (except during the deads) and it worked well. Many others have done the same. Super_Rice isn't exactly a world level lifter and aside from conditioning in his lower back he made it through with hard work - actually I thought it was too much for him to bite off at this stage so I am really impressed and obviously he's reaped the rewards from it. The 5x5 can be racheted up magnitudes harder than I have it set and combined with all kind of other overlay work - this is tolerated fine by well conditioned naturals (visit www.midwestbarbell.com forums sometime and check out Glenn's posts in the OL forum his lifters backsquat and frontsquat quite a bit and the classic lifts are trained with high volume and hammer them too and this involves a lot of deep squat recoveries - probably more than I can or ever was in shape to handle though). I've tried an OL program straight from a world champ who ran it natural without issue - I was dead in 2 weeks even scaling it back a good amount, literally no point in going on.

So the Smolov is really hard, plenty of well conditioned naturals have done it (I haven't run it myself). Probably have to benchmark what else you can do besides the squatting fairly carefully depending on the individual. The fact that some say you have to be on drugs to do it is more indicative of the level of general conditioning in most trainees today. Probably the best in our country are our top olympic lifters and let me tell you, when some of our up and comers have visited former Soviet and Eastern European countries - they are awed by just how damn hard those guys train and what they can do both drugged and non-drugged. This is not a rare reaction and it's not like these aren't some hard working guys already. They know how to train and they bust their ass. They've spent years increasing their capacity and workloads (a foreign concept to most trainees). Most people don't know how to train and have only busted their ass in the parameters of low frequency programs where a lot of the volume lies in lighter assistance work. They go in and hope that by doing some random crap they'll get stronger. They never think to systematically alter the load and scale it over time or spend their time on the exercises that really matter.

Am I surprised to hear this reaction, no. Do I agree with it, no. Do I think the people who have this reaction lack a reference for what the human body can handle, yes. Should these people be doing this program, no.

 

[BiggT]

Excellent post Madcow.

What people don't understand is how to develop their capicity for work. the base shouldn't only be expanded vertically to use more weights, it must be expander wider. Adding more sets, more volume.

Most people with a 405x5 squat would do something like this/.....135x10-225x10-315x5-405x5.......the only set worth a crap for a 405 squatter is the last one. This is fine as an 'amping-up' phase or a deload phase or a phase of reduced volume or whatever........but most trainees keep volume this low all year, never expanding work capicity. And, like Madcow said, they only thing they pound away with set after set after set is accessory stuff. In a loading period, I recently did an OHP workout, where 4x5 was my warm-up, I then did 5 singles, and then 3x5 as backoff sets. I don't and certainly can't do that year round, but at times limits need to be pushed, the base must be expanded not only up, but out.

People need to get out of the mindset of this...."okay, bench today.....135x8-225x8-275x5-315x2, then a bunch of flyes and hammer strength machines for 2 hours". .........It is okay to hammer away at the core lifts.

I don't want to rant, but this country is so brainwashed and misguided as a whole when it comes to strength training. there is just no access to good info. and therefore, a lack of interest in it. You can't walk into the supermarket and see MILO on the newsstand, but if you want FLEX, you've got your pick of the last 3 month' issues.

Point being, naturally, the body is capable of so much more than people think. Assisted, the body is capable of so much more than people think.

 

[super_rice]

A lot of expanding work capacity has to do with expanding mental capacity and perspective. During the second week of Korte, I felt like I was in way over my head, but as third week rolled around, and I began to adapt, I was actually thinking of ways to increase the volume and scale up (which I did).

Rodney Wood brought up running another cycle right afterwards to really acclimatize, but since I will be a freshman in university come September, I decided to "scale down" with 5x5 and assistance work. Since Korte's, 5x5 really is not that hard the way it is written.

My point is, work capacity is as mental conditioning and perspective as it is physical conditioning. As you guys pointed out, we need to change the way we think and approach training.

 

[blut wump]

Indeed, I see that a lot in the gym. There's one guy who benches exactly the same every time he's in: 135x5, 225x5, 315x5. He then moves to the machines. Last week he was complaining bitterly that he can't make six reps. I've seen him doing that same bench pattern for four months since I joined the gym.

Still, putting your rant aside, I'm still surprised that hardcore-seeming sites would fall into that mindset. My surprise is probably mostly a testament to the expectations that madcow has opened up on this forum, though. I spent a year having only 60 minutes to reach the gym do everything and get back to work. The compound exercises were too clearly the best bang for the buck not to spend most of my energy on them.

Thanks for the info madcow. Unless work gets in the way, I think I'm going to be starting the Korte after next week. My question was more geared to the Smolov than the Korte but even the Korte offers ranges of sets to play with for individual tolerances. The Smolov looks truly brutal but I think that six months ago I might have said the same of the Korte. The 5x5 felt uncomfortable when I first started to experience the five sets of five.

 

[Madcow2]

Excellent post Madcow.

What people don't understand is how to develop their capicity for work. the base shouldn't only be expanded vertically to use more weights, it must be expander wider. Adding more sets, more volume.

Most people with a 405x5 squat would do something like this/.....135x10-225x10-315x5-405x5.......the only set worth a crap for a 405 squatter is the last one. This is fine as an 'amping-up' phase or a deload phase or a phase of reduced volume or whatever........but most trainees keep volume this low all year, never expanding work capicity. And, like Madcow said, they only thing they pound away with set after set after set is accessory stuff. In a loading period, I recently did an OHP workout, where 4x5 was my warm-up, I then did 5 singles, and then 3x5 as backoff sets. I don't and certainly can't do that year round, but at times limits need to be pushed, the base must be expanded not only up, but out.

People need to get out of the mindset of this...."okay, bench today.....135x8-225x8-275x5-315x2, then a bunch of flyes and hammer strength machines for 2 hours". .........It is okay to hammer away at the core lifts.

I don't want to rant, but this country is so brainwashed and misguided as a whole when it comes to strength training. there is just no access to good info. and therefore, a lack of interest in it. You can't walk into the supermarket and see MILO on the newsstand, but if you want FLEX, you've got your pick of the last 3 month' issues.

Point being, naturally, the body is capable of so much more than people think. Assisted, the body is capable of so much more than people think.

So that post and this whole section is going into the 5x5 thread and indexed.

It represents a paradigm shift in how most people think about training (which is sad because this isn't rocket science, this is foundation/must know stuff). Hence people's reaction to the Smolov or initially even the reaction here to the frequency of the compound lifts in the 5x5 - which I think at this point enough people have gotten good gains and seen others routinely make solid progress (and more than a few have said the best progress of their lives) that they realize it not only can work for them but is pretty tolerable for just about the whole population providing it is setup correctly.

A) You don't need 7 days of rest before training a muscle again (Although there are times in a macro plan when such frequency can serve a purpose)

B) You don't hold volume constant and only play with intensity.

Granted it's easy to make cookie cutter programs geared to the workload tolerance of the least common denominator (LCD), because only varying intensity has a smaller effect on workload and tolerances to workload vary widely with experience and between individuals of the same experience. But this is a shoddy way to coach because it's only optimal for the few who are the LCD and the goal is to get optimal performance out of each individual - and you don't get that with cookie cutters even though it might be nice to sit on your butt and not have to do your job.

Now as an individual, it's even worse because YOUR optimal performance really matters to YOU and you are then playing the odds in hope that you are the LCD or not very far away from it. God forbid you are experienced with a high tolerance and complain because the built-in defense mechanism is to say "Well, look at these guys - they did great. You need to work harder." Obviously this goes the other way in people taking on a program that is too much for them and you get "Those guys are on drugs. Nobody can do that. I tried it and overtrained."

 

[Guinness5.0]

Hence people's reaction to the Smolov or initially even the reaction here to the frequency of the compound lifts in the 5x5 - which I think at this point enough people have gotten good gains and seen others routinely make solid progress (and more than a few have said the best progress of their lives) that they realize it not only can work for them but is pretty tolerable for just about the whole population providing it is setup correctly.

Amen. I've said this previoulsy but it bears repeating- I'm stronger now than six months ago when I was ON A CYCLE OF AAS. There is SO MUCH more to training than I previously believed. I've barely scratched the surface of "real" training and I'm continually making progress at a level that is past where I ever thought I'd be (meaning I never thought I personally could hit 250 pounds, let alone keep gaining beyond it).

 

[super_rice]

Hey, just wondering, how many of you guys have done cycles (of AAS) and are not resorting to better training systems? WTF, am I the only natural person here? :S

 

[blut wump]

Natty here. Well, I ran a low-dose three-weeker of pro-hormones back in January. It might have helped me in my first run of the 5x5. I cycle creatine.

I am tempted often, though, but a lot of that is the andropause.

 

[Madcow2]

I am tempted often, though, but a lot of that is the andropause.

I hear they have these manual pumps that still allow for erection and performance....






-actually I knew an old guy (late 60s) who had one. It broke and his insurance company would only put in a cheaper different model. Well the new cheap model malfunctioned all the time on him when he was getting ready. He had to appeal to the insurance company and was just so damn bitter for like 6 months until it could be swapped out. So damn hilarious. He was a friend of my fathers and my father would relate all of this to me as it was going on (including the intimate details of it failing on him) and just have me rolling on the ground laughing until I had strained everything in my midsection. I still laugh about it today.