Are there any popular workouts that you find overused and not very effective? (

Are there any popular workouts that you find overused and not very effective?

5 day BB splits

canned tuna said:

5 day BB splits

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Why?

I wondered why someone would say that too. 5 day BB splits usually quite effective. Isn't CT a beginner and young, prolly needs more frequency?

I found it a great way to ignore a muscle group that recovered 1,2,3 or 4 days ago, simply because its not 'chest Monday' again yet

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He's been at it at least 2-3 years. He should've advanced from beginner by now.

Basically all the really popular cookie-cutter strength programs that everyone has a hard-on for over at bb.com. SS, SL5x5, Madcow's 5x5 (and the Bill Starr program that it was ctrlC+V'd from), 5/3/1. I did find the Texas Method worked to some degree when I was doing it, although not more effectively than simple linear periodisation.

I've briefly expressed my issues with SS and SL recently already, so I won't get into that again, other than to say that what's in those programs is good, but they're missing important stuff making them imbalanced, and being short-term beginner programs doesn't make that okay in my books.

Madcow/Starr 5x5 suffers similar issues to SS and SL. It also lacks sufficient volume, in my experience. When I've attempted it, my strength actually went backwards. In order to make it work, I had to add extra top sets on the heavy day, and turn the back-off set on the medium day into AMRAP, which meant doing widowmakers and anywhere between 15 and 30 reps of bench press.

5/3/1's a funny one. It allows a much more balanced approach than SS/SL, which I like. It also tends to promote plenty of volume, with the traditional assistance programs being stuff like BBB, which means doing 5x10 (no arguing that that's not enough volume). The problem I had with it when I gave it a run for its money was that all the volume is in the lighter work -- there's not enough practice in the actual focal point of the program, which meant that my strength endurance went right up during it (which was thoroughly needed after a long time grinding against the brick wall that is the above 5x5 type programs), while my top end strength stagnated. In essence, my issues here come down to application of the SAID principle.

What defines a beginner?

I personally never found body part splits effective.

canned tuna said:

I found it a great way to ignore a muscle group that recovered 1,2,3 or 4 days ago, simply because its not 'chest Monday' again yet

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Prob not training hard enough then haha

PHAT.by layne norton, kunce think they will become layne by doing this, beginners get burned hard, this program worked for layne, not you,

5/3/1 simple yet effective, yet kunce bastardize this so much it becomes 5/3/1 6937930, adding unneasscery work therefore turning a strength program into a bb strength and endurance style shit, yes before some kunce makes a smart remark, i was one of them couple years back got me nowhere lol

RyanF: did you ever look at 5/3/1 variants such as 8/6/3? Usually most of the criticism is aimed at Wendler's vagueness about assistance work, or that the progression is 'too slow' (i personally don't agree if you derive your TM from your true 1RM).

I found doing 5 day body part splits totally ineffective as a rank beginner; I got more strength and better looking legs from squatting 3 times a week rather than doing leg curls, squat, leg extension, leg press, seated and standing calf raises on 'leg day', which not only gave me crippling DOMS the next day, but didn't seem to really make any difference week to week.

Any ridiculous "movie star" workouts which are usually a variation on the junk in muscle mags

The routines that the "PT"s at the gym hand out, which are all on Nautilus machines followed up with db curls, db flyes and shoulder press. No barbell work at all.

Rugby88 said:

Prob not training hard enough then haha

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Perhaps not

My primary focus is getting stronger, and I like to focus on things that work for me.

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What level of muscularity / strength does someone need to have to actually benefit more from 5 day isolation splits rather than focusing on the things that make the most difference?

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canned tuna said:

What level of muscularity / strength does someone need to have to actually benefit more from 5 day isolation splits rather than focusing on the things that make the most difference?

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A person on gear hoping to be mr olympia

canned tuna said:

What level of muscularity / strength does someone need to have to actually benefit more from 5 day isolation splits rather than focusing on the things that make the most difference?

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Anyone can do a 5 day split, just like anyone could do a 3 day or 4 day split - just because its 5 days doesnt mean its isolation based - I dont think anyone who has any idea how to train would simply do isolation movements - your always going to have your core lifts in there like bench, deadlift, squat, mil press, bent over rows, db rows, db bench, etc etc - its not about designing a split around the cable machine haha - alot of strength athletes and powerlifters will still do a 4 or 5 day split with "bodybuilding" movements in there - I dont think a strength athlete should shy away from thoughs movements nor should a bodybuilder shy away from those core movements - you'll find the most succesfull lifters will normally have a good mix between the 2.

And at the end of the day its what you put into a program that will = the results you get out of it....

bozodos said:

RyanF: did you ever look at 5/3/1 variants such as 8/6/3? Usually most of the criticism is aimed at Wendler's vagueness about assistance work, or that the progression is 'too slow' (i personally don't agree if you derive your TM from your true 1RM).

I found doing 5 day body part splits totally ineffective as a rank beginner; I got more strength and better looking legs from squatting 3 times a week rather than doing leg curls, squat, leg extension, leg press, seated and standing calf raises on 'leg day', which not only gave me crippling DOMS the next day, but didn't seem to really make any difference week to week.

Any ridiculous "movie star" workouts which are usually a variation on the junk in muscle mags

The routines that the "PT"s at the gym hand out, which are all on Nautilus machines followed up with db curls, db flyes and shoulder press. No barbell work at all.

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Never heard of 8/6/3. I don't think that variant was in circulation back when I gave 5/3/1 a run for its money. *looks up 8/6/3* Okay, at a cursory skim, that seems to be more or less the same thing, just with slightly lower starting weights. Same method, though. The original program's designed so that realistically you could get about 10/8/4-5 on the top sets of the first cycle, so this doesn't look like a significant enough change to be particularly noteworthy. If I were to do anything like 5/3/1 again, I wouldn't worry at all about the details on the sets leading up to the top set. I'd just warm up for the top load and go for it. But I would use those lower percentages to reverse pyramid down after the top set. So, instead of doing 65%/75%/85% in week 1, I'd do 85%/75%/65%, and I'd treat all three sets the same way Jim Wendler recommends treating the top set. Of course, that means that if I were to do 5/3/1 again, I actually wouldn't do 5/3/1. But I'm okay with that.

I don't mind the "vagueness" about assistance work in 5/3/1. After being engorged in Riptard culture where so much as a set of bicep curls (not hidden away on a Friday night when no one's in the gym to see it) will ruin everything, I appreciate that he offers various assistance templates and lets you use your brain to determine what assistance exercises you should plug into those templates. Since the average person doesn't know how to program their training, this could arguably be giving too much power to the uninitiated, but since I came to 5/3/1 with years of programming knowledge under my belt, that wasn't an issue. As I said before, I found that following the main lift templates and assistance templates given meant a lack of progress on the main stuff and all my progress was on the assistance stuff. I saw the potential for that to be the case, and running the program confirmed it.

I made no progress on the top end stuff in 5/3/1, so anecdotally I would confirm that the progression is too slow...because not improving from month to month and making no progress is definitely too slow. However, the reasons most people give for the progress being too slow are retarded. The program allows both rep and weight progression. In theory, you could do 10 reps of the top set in cycle 1, week 1, then 13 reps of the top set in cycle 2, week 1. Because of the autoregulation on reps, it's not really a hindrance that you're only adding 2.5/5kg to your training max each month. Although if you do find your reps on the top set getting higher than you feel they should be, you could always increase the monthly weight increment to keep your reps within a certain range. So, I found that the program simply didn't drive progress the way it was intended to, which is insufficient progress; the average person's criticism about progress on the program on the other hand is just a misunderstanding of how to use both weight and reps to progress.

Movie star workouts are the lol. Nuff said.

Your gym has some fascinating PT's. Every gym I've been a member of, the PT's have been too insecure to give clients machine exercises, because "If they know how to use machines, they won't need me. I need to teach them free weight exercises because they're harder to learn, and so I'll be needed for longer, and will get more pay for more work." The only trainers I've known to give out lots of machine exercises were ones who were getting paid by the hour to be there and had a half hour programming appointment with a member (not a client), and so instead of being worried about the member not coming back for another session in 2 days time, they didn't want to have to tell the member anything for another 6 weeks.

RyanF said:

The problem I had with it when I gave it a run for its money was that all the volume is in the lighter work -- there's not enough practice in the actual focal point of the program, which meant that my strength endurance went right up during it (which was thoroughly needed after a long time grinding against the brick wall that is the above 5x5 type programs), while my top end strength stagnated. In essence, my issues here come down to application of the SAID principle.

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What are your thoughts on Beyond 5/3/1 where Wendler introduces the concept of joker sets and 1 AMRAP down set which addresses both top end strength and strength endurance work? The Down Sets are for adding some high rep work but not necessary if you're doing high rep assistance. Joker Sets are awesome though, I try to do them every day and love it.

Rugby88 said:

Anyone can do a 5 day split, just like anyone could do a 3 day or 4 day split - just because its 5 days doesnt mean its isolation based - I dont think anyone who has any idea how to train would simply do isolation movements - your always going to have your core lifts in there like bench, deadlift, squat, mil press, bent over rows, db rows, db bench, etc etc - its not about designing a split around the cable machine haha - alot of strength athletes and powerlifters will still do a 4 or 5 day split with "bodybuilding" movements in there - I dont think a strength athlete should shy away from thoughs movements nor should a bodybuilder shy away from those core movements - you'll find the most succesfull lifters will normally have a good mix between the 2.

And at the end of the day its what you put into a program that will = the results you get out of it....

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Good post, and I agree with what you're saying.

By '5 day bb split' I'm referring to what you'll see in most magazines, training one muscle group each day in the split.. isolation focus. Found it to be ineffective myself hitting muscle groups with once-a-week frequency

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Jungman said:

What are your thoughts on Beyond 5/3/1 where Wendler introduces the concept of joker sets and 1 AMRAP down set which addresses both top end strength and strength endurance work? The Down Sets are for adding some high rep work but not necessary if you're doing high rep assistance. Joker Sets are awesome though, I try to do them every day and love it.

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I haven't read Beyond 5/3/1, I've just got the original manual. I'm googling this, so hopefully the descriptions I'm getting accurately reflect Wendler's intention. From what I'm gathering, Joker sets sound like something I do on occasion, typically when I've been dikking around in the gym for a while and, after doing my work sets for an exercise, decide I need to do something to refocus. 1 AMRAP down set sounds a lot like what I would do if I were ever to give 5/3/1 another run.