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Another stronglifts question

McKwl said:
Looks like tradition as much as anything else, to me. Starting Strength only has 1x5 for deadlifts too.* So does that "Reg Park" routine on a few websites (that one's 3x5 for deadlifts, but the first two are warmup or ramping sets, just like the 5x5 lifts are actually 3x5 + 2 warmup or ramping sets).

Is there anything in particular that's wrong with 5x5, 0ni? It's not what I do, but it's sort of similar enough, that I'm curious. :)


* + warmups, like with most routines, right?
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No there is nothing wrong with 5x5
I just do not like low volume training systems and never really made progress on them
It also doesn't often give people decent bench presses. It is a complaint I often see
 
Being 65kg dripping wet at 5'10" probably has more to do with slow bench progress then any training program you've followed Oni lol
 
0ni said:
No there is nothing wrong with 5x5
I just do not like low volume training systems and never really made progress on them
It also doesn't often give people decent bench presses. It is a complaint I often see
Click to expand...
know that feel bro haha
 
Oh okay, I thought you might "hate" 5x5 for some other reason than it just not working for you. :)

Bench... I could see 3 times every 2 weeks not being enough, if benching was a priority. That would be the case with 5x5, or Starting Strength, or GSLP, etc., etc.

I do my benching twice a week, incidentally. Been there with the 1.5 times a week, and no, it wasn't enough for me either.
 
The Hamburgler said:
Being 65kg dripping wet at 5'10" probably has more to do with slow bench progress then any training program you've followed Oni lol
Click to expand...

As I said it's a common complaint I see lol. Never really seen a big bencher that attributed their success to 5x5. They mostly do lots of reps

McKwl said:
Oh okay, I thought you might "hate" 5x5 for some other reason than it just not working for you. :)

Bench... I could see 3 times every 2 weeks not being enough, if benching was a priority. That would be the case with 5x5, or Starting Strength, or GSLP, etc., etc.

I do my benching twice a week, incidentally. Been there with the 1.5 times a week, and no, it wasn't enough for me either.
Click to expand...

I'm going to go ahead and rustle some jimjams saying that 5x5 isn't a powerlifting program but rather a "general sports performance / full body strength" system suitable for contact sports. Great for building a strength base prior to dedicated powerlifting training. It will get you good at pressing things but not really good at one particular event
 
Oni , Cheers for the links mate I'm reading through them now ..

Pretty confused after this and reconsidering doing SL , In january I did vince del montes skinny guy routine for 3 months which I saw good strength gains from , Then went onto an all compound 4 day split doing 3x8 and saw decent gains with that also until I hurt my RC .. I might just continue on with this getting rid of the "shoulder" day ..
 
Follow the program as its written...

If your squatting three times a week and using linear progression you don't need to dead lift at all...

1x5 dead lift is more then enough.... The squat will have strong carry over...
 
Starting Strength > Texas Method > Sheiko is a good way to go tbh
Hard to stuff that up really, you don't even need to think until you're a CMS rated lifter... just follow Medvedyev's recommendations lol
 
I've been using 5x5 with good results on bench and chin ups as a rep scheme. But I'm fairly strong in those lifts, I definitely wouldn't be doing it as a beginner, not needed. Something like Bazz said - 1 hard working set will keep you progressing a while I think.

I like to change to sets of 3s and 2s after doing 5x5 for a little while though, if only so when you go back to 5x5 it feels light and you can smash it. To put my money where my mouth is I've been adding 5kg to my bench each month this way for 4 months.
 
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Some people like myself seem to find deadlifts disproportionally hard to recover from, therefore better progress is made doing them less. Finances of recovery. Of course, this probably only applies if you are doing sufficient squatting.

Despite DL being my best lift, a few sets with decent intensity or rep volume leave me feeling a bit 'beat up' for a few days. Squats I can hit 90+% for multiple reps, or do a tonne of volume, and then do it the next day without a massive decline in performance.

Seems the key to progressing on DL for some like myself is to as less DLing as possible.

Cool story right?

0ni said:
I'm going to go ahead and rustle some jimjams saying that 5x5 isn't a powerlifting program but rather a "general sports performance / full body strength"
Click to expand...

Agreed. I think the key to 5x5 stuff is not it's outright effectiveness, but it's broad appeal and approachability. It's very simple and not particularly demanding mentally or time-wise. It works well for the average person lacking in passion, dedication or intelligence to wish to train in a more specialised and demanding manner. So for the average joe where it's a case of following 5x5 reasonably, or nothing, 5x5 wins.

IMO in the long run, if you wish to excel at having a bb'ers physique or a PLers strength, you are better off doing more specialised training.
 
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I really like 5x5 as a rep scheme to use in a workout.

A lot of strength programs seem to make you lift the same weight for a number of sets for a prescribed number of reps till you can't do it anymore, and they work really well.

I do 5x5, then 6x3, then 7x2, or something close to it, and I've made good progress. Because I am sad and have nothing better to do on a friday night I did a quick picture to illustrate the idea. You can adapt this to any 6x3 7x2 or whatever rep scheme.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/8152/5x5.png

I find doing the same weight every set and making the reps very demanding. I got from a 100kg bench to 125kg in ~4 months so it does work. It seems like a very good program for an intermediate lifter to me.

If you look at Ed Coan's routine's they do a similar progression - http://www.joeskopec.com/edcoanbench.html
 
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Just pulled a new fast easy DL PB - 180 x 3 @ 77.5kg (fasted)

Checked my log, havn't touched a DL or anything remotely similar in 4 weeks. Training deadlift by not deadlifting just proved via broscience.
 
All the best deadlifters train deadlift multiple times a week
A 180kg triple at 77.5kg body weight does not prove shit lol, no offence meant
 
0ni said:
All the best deadlifters train deadlift multiple times a week
A 180kg triple at 77.5kg body weight does not prove shit lol, no offence meant
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None taken, it's not particularly impressive. My point is I make ok progress on DL not doing any DLing, whereas I've had a few goes at doing it for volumefrequency it plateaus or even declines, something isn't right there.

I will investigate high frequency/volume DL programming again at some point, perhaps I will try using a belt and/or pulling sumo.
 
If it declines with extra frequency your programming and/or recovery probably sucks. As opposed to you getting worse at something the more you do it
 
Maybe you were using too high of a percentage. I just do a morning and evening session on wednesday and its normally sets of three or four at 75-80%
 
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