training frequency (3 x week vs 2x week)

[Alpha Moth]

main goal is to bring up bench, rest is just focusing on rep tempo/tension/etc for hypertrophy..

thoughts on these two workouts? upper/lower x 2 week vs full body 3 x week
bench is set up so i ad a set each workout and after 2 weeks i reset the sets and add 2.5kg similar to hepburns.

week 1
monday

bench 3 x 5 +2.5kg previous max
DB row 3 x 6-8
DB press 3 x 6-8
chins 3 x 6-8
bis 2 x 10-12
tris 2 x 10-12


wed

deadlift 1x5
squat 3 x 6-8
calf raise

fri

bench 4 x 5
DB row 3 x 6-8
DB press 3 x 6-8
chins 3 x 6-8
bis 2 x 10-12
tris 2 x 10-12

sat

squat 3 x 6-8
trap bar 3 x 6-8
calf raise



week 2

mon

bench 5 x 5
DB row 3 x 6-8
DB press 3 x 6-8
chins 3 x 6-8
bis 2 x 10-12
tris 2 x 10-12

wed
squat 3 x 6-8
trap bar 3 x 6-8
calf raise

fri

bench 6 x 5
DB row 3 x 6-8
DB press 3 x 6-8
chins 3 x 6-8
bis 2 x 10-12
tris 2 x 10-12

sat

squat 3 x 6-8
trap bar 3 x 6-8
calf raise



or


FULL BODY mon/wed/fri

bench 3x3or5/4x3or5/5x3or5/6x3or5/7x3or5/8x3or5 over 2 weeks, reset, add 2.5kg , hepburn style
DB row 3 x 6-8
DB press 3 x 6-8
chins 3 x 6-8
squats 3 x 8/trap bar 3 x 8/deadlift 1 x5 rotated each day
bis 2 x 10-12

(ill note im happy with the size of my wheels, trying to bring upper body a bit lol)

 

[Goosey]

I like the look of the FB moth.

 

[Alpha Moth]

would you suggest sets of 3 x 5 reps or the 5 x 3, increasing sets, for bench press?

 

[0ni]

Bench press responds best to lots of volume from what I've seen. Not really seen many people get incredible results from 45 reps a week on bench, that's practically a deload lol
I'd try to aim for 100-150 reps a week. I'm getting an average of 155 reps a week myself although my bench is not too good lol. I've seen a lot of people get good results doing something like:

1x5x50%
1x4x60%
2x3x70%
3x2x80%
2x2x85%
3x2x80%
1x5x70%
1x8x65%
1x10x60%
1x12x55%
1x15x50%
83 lifts

And then having a workout at a higher relative intensity 36 hours later. Maybe something like:
1x5x50%
9x3x80%
32 lifts

That's 115 reps a week. Now I don't have a big bench at all but this is the kind of training I see work for people all the time. Even a low volume program like 5/3/1 where you do a maximum of 30 reps a week has you doing 5x10 as assistance bumping it up to 80 reps a week which is a similar amount of reps to the first workout I posted and also a similar average intensity! No coincidence there!

 

[Alpha Moth]

im doing this for bench press
3 x 5-6
4 x 5-6
5 x 5-6
6 x 5-6
7 x 5-6
8 x 5-6
reset

= 84 or so reps per week, then + DB press. Thanks for the input though. Leaning towards the FB routine atm.

 

[KungFooGoo]

......Cant believe im going to say this but 0ni is more or less right about the volume side of things for bench. Doing more 'bro' style bench i.e high reps 8 reps per set minimum helped my bench a shit load. Worked a lot better then trying to bust out 5 x 5.

 

[Sticky]

My bench is going off at the moment. I do MAXIMUM 50 working reps a week.
Ive now dropped that to 30 working reps.

Oni out of your 83 reps, I think only 20 of them are going to contribute tp strength gains.

Any other gains Id put down to increased efficiency

 

[0ni]

My bench is going off at the moment. I do MAXIMUM 50 working reps a week.
Ive now dropped that to 30 working reps.

Oni out of your 83 reps, I think only 20 of them are going to contribute tp strength gains.

Any other gains Id put down to increased efficiency

Yeah, that's why I said it was including warm-ups and down sets
Ignoring the small session as you were pressed (ho ho ho) for time here are last wednesdays and mondays sessions:
Monday: 53 total reps not including bar
Wednesday: 48 total reps not including bar

So that's 101 reps a week, not including assistance so I would say that it is the low end of what I have noticed to work best

 

[Sticky]

Your including warm up sets though.... You need to be looking at working sets I think.

My bench is hammering because of my assistance work, not my flat bench work.

Also, my max bench is 152.5kg. The last session was 3s x 5r at 140kg....Thats 3 sets of 5 at 92%...

 

[KungFooGoo]

My bench is going off at the moment. I do MAXIMUM 50 working reps a week.
Ive now dropped that to 30 working reps.

Oni out of your 83 reps, I think only 20 of them are going to contribute tp strength gains.

Any other gains Id put down to increased efficiency

Could be wrong here but didnt you say PPP wasn't for you on bench because there wasn't enough volume?

 

[Sticky]

Yep that's correct.

 

[jj80]

Your including warm up sets though.... You need to be looking at working sets I think.

My bench is hammering because of my assistance work, not my flat bench work.

Also, my max bench is 152.5kg. The last session was 3s x 5r at 140kg....Thats 3 sets of 5 at 92%...

What assistance work are you focussing on?

Is there a minimum weight you should bench before you consider assistance work?
Any recommended exercises for particular weak spots? (Guessing... dumbells if chest is weak, skullcrushers if triceps are weak, shoulder laterals for front delts)

 

[NightFallTech]

What assistance work are you focussing on?

Is there a minimum weight you should bench before you consider assistance work?
Any recommended exercises for particular weak spots? (Guessing... dumbells if chest is weak, skullcrushers if triceps are weak, shoulder laterals for front delts)

On this... i'm currently doing 3x5 with a couple warm up sets

eg

1x5 @ 60
1x5 @ 80
3x5 @ 97.5

was my last workout (will be aiming for the same, but 3x5 @ 100kg on monday)

Would i want to finish that and then, on the same day, look at doing perhaps 4x10 @ 80?..

 

[0ni]

How do you define a work set

When I have been comparing routines I look at average intensity and total volume. I think this is a lot more reliable way to look at routines than trying to define what is a work set and what is not. Lots of eastern bloc routines will ramp up to a few sets of 2 at 80% then do assistance for example. You'd probably define the 2x2x80% as the work sets and everything before it a warm-up, but would the routine work as well if you just did the 2x2x80% with just enough warm-up to get them done and without doing the 5x10x50% afterwards? Are the sets of 10 ramping up to the 2x2x80% warm-ups or do they also contribute to the strengthening of the lifts? In my eyes it's too complicated to differentiate between what contributes to the advancement of the lift and what does not. This is why I look at total volume (number of lifts per session, week and month) and average intensity as well as total kilos lifted. Gives a better picture in my mind especially when comparing two totally different routines.

Another thing is that it makes planning training cycles a lot easier for me. If I know what volume I have planned I can make an educated guess on if I need more volume or less volume. Say in my next training cycle I want my volume to be 1000 lifts and I train each lift 3 times a week and for the sake of simplicity in this example each lift will have the same volume. 1000 split between 3 lifts would be 333 lifts each a week or 111 lifts a session. I will always ramp up to 70% first so I can take that out of the lifts (5x50%, 5x60%, 2x3x70%) to leave 96 lifts. I then know that I could do 5x10x50% after 9 sets of 5 at 75% and make my volume and average intensity roughly right. Obviously that workout would be ridiculous but it's just something I typed out in 5 minutes just to give a proof of concept lol

In Addition:
In Westside they are very clear to ramp up to the 1RM slowly and get in about 10-15 total sets with 3 reps over 90%. The total sets are counted from 50% so I would consider them all work sets as Simmons has stated that ramping up quickly does not work as effectively. Not saying your method is wrong, it's just different and I wanted to put across my particular viewpoint

 

[Sticky]

On my phone, so not sure if this will all make sense lol.

IMO, <70% is just a warm up, and wouldn't be on my radar in regards to strengh training.

Should <70% work be done/be of benefit? Of course, especially for novice/intermediate lifters. The more reps a novice does, the more efficient they will become in the movement, thus increasing the weight moved.

Anything >70% can be considered a work set, as long as the reps/sets/total volume is right. 5x3 at 70% I would not class as a working set, or enough of a working set to gain straight up strength.
My last set of 5x3 on squats was at 220kg. That's 88%.

Let's compare 3 different squat work outs... With my max, 250kg

A)
20kg x8
70kg x8
120kg x5
160kg x3
190kg x3

220kg x5
220kg x5
220kg x5

Total reps 42, total weight shifted ~5600kg
I define the last 3 sets as the work sets. The rest is just warming up.

B)
60kg x5
100kg x3
140kg x3
175kg x1

192.5 x5
192.5 x5
205 x3
205 x3
205 x3
217.5 x3
230 x2
230 x2
230 x2
212.5 x3
212.5 x3
187.5 x4
187.5 x4

Total reps 54 total weight shifted ~8600

C)
20kg x10
60kg x10
100kg x10
120kg x8
150kg x5
175kg x2
175kg x2
190kg x2

212.5kg x3
212.5kg x3
212.5kg x3
190kg x 6

170x3
150x5
100 x12

Total reps 84, weight shifted ~10 000kg

Ive left a space between what i class a warm up and what i class as a work set. Work out c's 3rd block is not a work set.

Workout A is my program.
Workout B is more how I train most others. It's actually the hardest week in a persons program. Every other session in much lower in volume.
Workout C is just a fuck ton of volume.

Workout A and B work. Our results speak for themselves.
I doubt workout c would work at all, even though it has the most volume.

I have no idea if this makes sense, I'm on a phone do probably didn't explain myself very well at all lol.

 

[MaxBrenner]

I love sticky and his posts on training...no homo

 

[0ni]

I like your training. What I find interesting is that we have two pretty different methods but arrive at a similar conclusion. Also on phone lol. I think I hit a similar number of total reps and average intensity for my squats

 

[0ni]

On laptop now. I don't really think C is very good either for the squat. I was more talking about the bench press lending itself to volume. My lowest volume squat cycle I've made up is an average of 60 total lifts a week with an average intensity of 70%. Going by your definition of a workset that is 59 reps over 70% out of 64 total reps. This looks like: 1x4x50%, 1x4x60%, 1x3x70%, 6x2x75% for paused squats (then benching) then front squats with 1x3x45%, 1x3x55%, 2x2x60% (based on back squat 1RM)

The highest volume squat cycle I've set up alternates between about 87 total reps and about 110 total reps a week (high/low/high/low). This would be a low of 47 worksets going by your definition and a high of 74 reps 70% and over. This looks like: 5x50%, 4x60%, 2x3x70%, 5x3x80% (then benching) then 5x55%, 4x65%, 5x3x75% (high volume week). The average intensity with this is lower though at 67% which implies that there is more volume under 70% than over (skills practising)

So yeah, pretty intredasting how we came up with very similar programming by following two different methods lol. Your 5x3x85% vs my 5x3x80% when you look at the "main" set. I tend to do doubles when I go above 85% at the moment though as I really need to keep form good. Got a few 6x2x85% workouts

 

[Alpha Moth]

any more thoughts on the FB training 3 times a week?

was thinking of doing in this order:
bench
chins
squat or other leg movement.
DB press
DB row
bis

thoughts?

 

[Sticky]

Depends on the level of the trainee, but I dont see a drama with it.