Bye-bye BBing BS: Journal of my 5x5 a la madcow2

[blut wump]

Good point. When weight is your measuring stick, it's easy to let the numbers dominate your thinking.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Good point. When weight is your measuring stick, it's easy to let the numbers dominate your thinking.

Plus 405 looks BAD ASS sitting on the floor. It'd look even better about three feet off the floor though

 

[Guinness5.0]

Week 3

FRIDAY

Squat 1x5: 225, 275, 315, 335, 355
Bench 5x5: 275
Row 5x5: 245
abs

Comments:

-Squat was great. I missed it last week but got it no problem today.

-Bench was great. For some reason the first set was the toughest. I guess I just nutted-up for the next four sets. So much of my lifting success depends on my mindstate. I really wonder how much potential I have just in terms of focusing more, or perhaps just being confident that the weights will move. Deep thoughts

-Rows were no problem with straps. Probably could have used last weeks 1x5 weight.

-I can't freaking wait to deadlift again. I'm gonna get 375 5x5 and then be on pace to triple 405 by week 9. Hopefully I'll have some rubber coated bumper plates by next week- my gym only has those damn hexagon shaped plates which blow if one lands on a corner and pitches forward/backward.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Week 4

MONDAY

Squat 5x5: 345
Bench 1x5: 185, 225, 245, 275, 295 x 2 then 3 forced
Row 1x5: 185, 205, 225, 245, 255
abs
BB curls: 100x10, 110x8, 100x9

Comments:

-Squats were great.

- Bench sucked. Worse than last week. Very dissappointed. Though the guy spotting just barely helped at the bottom, it's still a failure. Last week I got four with ZERO help.

-Rows were good, but I didn't move up. I probably should have at least tried but I though two failures in one day would be worse than not ramping.

- I did curls becasue my arms have clearly gotten smaller since I started this. Loved the pump (had to say it madcow, hehe).

 

[Madcow2]

Direct arm training is fine. Although your arms will get smaller they will come back bigger provided you get bigger. You loose the maximized, flushed out look but it won't impede long term upper arm development. This will be especially true for those whos biceps/tricepts might have been overdeveloped relative to their bench/rowing power. It also sounds like you could use with some deloading soon. Lucky it's week 4.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Yes, I'm glad it's week 4 now. My hips and low back are fried. I'm still a little up in the air on how to handle the intensity phase. I know I'll deload at 2x, and I'm thinking I should probably do intensity at 2x, but the thought of working out twice a week borders on sacrelige in my head. Maybe I just need a push...

Hey blut wump, you did 3x during intensity and wish you had done 2x, right?

 

[Madcow2]

If you want to do the 3x - most people are fine in week 5/6 (you can even keep the weight constant or even an incremental decrease/increase in week 6 for some extra recovery). It's when it gets out to the next set of heavy loading in weeks 8/9. Some people may not have recovered enough to push that hard again and keep intensity scaling.

You'll be beaten by the end of week 4 - and that's good. The deload even at 3x is going to seem like a vacation and you'll begin to get your snap back fairly soon. Maybe see how it goes and then make the decision on whether or not to further decrease frequency further out. A few people who enjoyed the top sets of 3 (i.e. 1x3) just spread the final two weeks over a 3 week period or some such. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[blut wump]

Yes, I'm glad it's week 4 now. My hips and low back are fried. I'm still a little up in the air on how to handle the intensity phase. I know I'll deload at 2x, and I'm thinking I should probably do intensity at 2x, but the thought of working out twice a week borders on sacrelige in my head. Maybe I just need a push...

Hey blut wump, you did 3x during intensity and wish you had done 2x, right?

I did 3x per week and was happy with it at the time. I was fried again at the end, though, and got through week9 mostly on willpower. This time I'm running the deload/intensity at 2x per week but only started this week so can't really comment on it. I know what you mean about it seeming like too little but I'm planning to get more cardio in this time.

I did toy with various plans of mixing up 2x and 3x to keep my shots at the 1x3 lifts but I decided against messing around and the experience will be valuable. I know GhettoStudMuffin and BionicBC each did the 2x and had great gains. I might run a stage3 couple of weeks to get some max lifts in at the end.

GSM has his log here:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=346149
He started the 5x5 sometime late January, I think.

BionicBC didn't run a log on here but posted a few times in his last couple of weeks in the 5x5 motherthread. I think he finished sometime around the end of March.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Hmmm...

Now I'm thinking:

deload at 2x, then weeks 6 and 7 same weight/moderate increase, then spread 8 and 9 over three weeks. Damn madcow that's good stuff.

 

[Madcow2]

You won't need to deload at 2x, you can use the 3x - you'll be fine (trust me - keep week 6 modest just in-case you need some extra). It's the final one's you might want to space.