Bill Starr's 5 x 5 program... Variation per Madcow2 (thanx) So here it is! K up now!

[Madcow2]

The best way to navigate this thread is through the Table of Contents in the very first post on page 1. Everything major that's been written is indexed up to around page 20.

I have two versions here. These are the master posts for each although the dual factor one includes 2 more explanations that you've like run into just from reading. The one linked below and now appearing first on the TOC is the most straightforward and comprehensive. Rather than me filling in all the spots (it's late and your post is a bit hard to follow), why don't you compare your understanding to it and see if there is anything left to clarify. It's a much much better explanation.

This is a dual factor periodized version:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4764723&postcount=381

The one in the Bill Starr book is a single factor program similar to this one: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4497774&postcount=15

To be honest, depending on your experience the single factor may work just as well. It's only after you get to the point where you aren't progressing anymore or very suboptimally using those programs that something like dual factor really shines and that tends to be for fairly experienced athletes. To be honest, look at all the people here who get stronger in the first 4 weeks of the dual factor volume stage - for an experienced lifter, this should not happen so either workout would have probably worked fairly well for them. But as they progress, they'll need to rely more and more on proper periodization and programming.

 

[|D_J^B_J|]

Absolutely, increased neural efficiency is probably the biggest. Most BBers or those training with similar BBing style programs have a massive margin for improvement here - probably years worth. For very experienced PLs or OLs these gains will come much slower as they've been working on this for the duration of their involvement in the sport.

Are you serious? So you are saying that one's strength has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of calories ingested?

 

[blut wump]

Are you serious? So you are saying that one's strength has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of calories ingested?

I don't see where he wrote or suggested that.

You certainly can get stronger on a restricted diet along with losing weight. It does help to be portly at the time. You can even grow muscle while slimming. The body is constantly breaking down and recreating muscle; it's part of the stasis system. Building muscle consists of getting the body to work harder on the building than the destruction. Anabolic vs catabolic. The fatter you are the easier this is.

Don't forget that strength increase also comes from the CNS being able to recruit more muscle into an exercise than it previously could. Thus it's even possible to lose muscle and be stronger.

 

[Madcow2]

Re: Bill Starr's 5 x 5 program... Variation per Madcow2 (thanx) So here it is! K up n

Are you serious? So you are saying that one's strength has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of calories ingested?

As blut wump said, neural efficiency has to do with the CNS and ability to recruit and generate maximal force. Strength relates to calories very indirectly in that additional weight/mass/fat can improve leverages and hypertrophy is correlated to strength over the mid-to-long term. Hypertrophy and strength don't always track each other in a perfect linear fashion over shorter time frames. One frequently finds strength increasing for a period and then hypertrophy showing up at different intervals. Over longer periods this relationship holds nicely though. So there are different ways to increase strength; hypertrophy (related to caloric intake) and neural efficiency (related to CNS) are the main two.

As an example there are several people who have used this 5x5 program and not had a caloric excess in their diet. They have gotten significantly stronger but weight gain has been very minimal along with body composition change. In the case of one of the very recent posters in this thread (I think 10-15 posts back) you'll find he's down 3lbs thinking he lost muscle (there is a major issue that I addressed) and is much stronger in all the core lifts. Obviously, strength is up but caloric intake is neutral to down in all cases and significant new hypertrophy is not present.

 

[blut wump]

Another, misleading, way, in the short-term, also springs to mind and that's technique. An increase in strength isn't necessarily represented by being able to lift more. You may simply be performing the lift better and being able to do more weight because of the improvement in technique. This can be important for a competing lifter who has to try and maximize all aspects of his lifts.

 

[Madcow2]

Actually the amount of weight lifted and handles plays a huge role in the hypertrophy equation too. Both technique and neural efficiency are often overlooked by BBers but they will absolutely play a large part in success if improved upon.

 

[|D_J^B_J|]

Okay, that makes more sense... sorry about my misunderstanding earlier.

One final question relating to diet which has been on my mind for a while:
Earlier on in this thread, it was said that in order to build muscle, it doesn't matter how often you eat, as long as you are in a sustained caloric surplus throughout an extended period of time. However, I was told that in order to grow, it is necessary to feed the muscles every 3 hours or so? Is this correct? Or will my muscles still hypertrophy if I ate enough calories to grow but ate every 6 hours rather than every 3 hours (i.e. if I ate more with each meal but went without food for longer)?

 

[Madcow2]

Re: Bill Starr's 5 x 5 program... Variation per Madcow2 (thanx) So here it is! K up n

Okay, that makes more sense... sorry about my misunderstanding earlier.

One final question relating to diet which has been on my mind for a while:
Earlier on in this thread, it was said that in order to build muscle, it doesn't matter how often you eat, as long as you are in a sustained caloric surplus throughout an extended period of time. However, I was told that in order to grow, it is necessary to feed the muscles every 3 hours or so? Is this correct? Or will my muscles still hypertrophy if I ate enough calories to grow but ate every 6 hours rather than every 3 hours (i.e. if I ate more with each meal but went without food for longer)?

Okay - this is the type of diet minutia stuff that I don't want to get into but I'll answer this one quesiton and then I'll go back to my previous stance of only covering training.

Who said 3 hours is required for growth? 6 will work fine. Perhaps it's more optimal every 3 but to the degree this will affect hypertrophy, not really too sure since your 6 hour spaced meals will be twice as big and take longer to fully digest thus spreading calories a bit anyway. There are obvious implications for possible insulin spikes and fat storage that might show up a tad (i.e. might not be hugely significant either) but as to hypertrophy specifically I'm not sure it would be noticable at all (maybe it would but probably not significant - over a very long period then yeah, you might notice a difference). Basically, over a short term this factor isn't so overwhelmingly huge (like training and caloric excess) as to drive or significantly hinder your progress. It's a question of optimality that will show up over much longer periods but might not be noticable at all in the short run.

So that's the end of diet. There's a whole diet forum and an entire world of diet information and misinformation to navigate as well as a ton of diet obcessive people running around. It's nothing against you or anyone else, but training is enough of a hassle and you can micromanage diet until the cows come home. My advice is to make sure it's balanced, wholesome, reasonable, and if you want to grow make sure there's caloric excess. If you choose to eat every 3 hours on the dot, measure your food and fluid intake, count every bit of vitamin, macronutrient, and trace mineral, and believe in some of the more exotic stuff than so be it. Maybe some of it will help, maybe it won't matter at all. However, if you don't have a training program that can allow you to make consistent gains over the course of a year and don't consume a caloric excess - you can forget about putting on muscle.

 

[Topside]

starting week 7 and I miss squatting on wednesday. Anyone else miss it?

 

[blut wump]

starting week 7 and I miss squatting on wednesday. Anyone else miss it?

Soon enough you won't even remember it.