First time trying 5x5

[soulpower]

i was passing through the stickies and decided to go through the "best of" series and one exercise that stood out to me was the 5x5. I had my doubts if this could really work but I just started this week with the program as stated in the sticky.

what a surprise. for doing so few reps i would sweat my b@lls off. This week I have went Sun/Tue/Thu and will go again on sunday. basically what I did was:

sun: squat, incline DB press, seated cable rows
tue: squat, dumbell military press, deadlifts (missed chins)
thu: same as sun.
sat: plan to do the curls i missed on tue, and do isolations such as curls, extensions, and calves.

i did change the bench press to incline db press for two reasons. 1. my upper chest needs help and 2. i want to take it a little easy on my joints for the time being, bench press can be hard on my shoulders.

the reason i do seated cable rows instead of bent-overs is because i think i stretched or slightly tore a tendon in my traps which hurts when i do bent-overs (as well as shrugs).

i thought i would add the extra workout on saturday. we'll see how that goes.

one thing i did find out though, there is a REASON to go light on squats the middle day. i was feeling good on tue. and thought wtf i'll just go heavy again. what happened was i was so frickin' tired after squats that i couldn't finish my deadlifts (only 4 real sets). and i was just not in any shape to do chins afterwards. i'll try to make that up on sat.

just my thoughts. any comments feel free.

SP

 

[Bob Smith]

Keep us posted on your progress with 5x5.

 

[adjutant]

I love 5x5! I do it right when I come off cycle for that 3-4 month period between cycles. It really helps me keep my gains, and preserves most of the strength I had gained while "on"

 

[eleven11]

Was thinking of trying 5x5 myself. Been doing HST most of the year and it's time for a change............11

One more thing, I noticed there's no bicep or tricep work in 5x5, why is that?..........11

 

[soulpower]

started week two.

sun. was nice, feeling good and upped the weights on incline press and seated rows. not ready to up the weights on squats yet. my last set of 5 i do get 5 but #5 is shaky. i'm back in the gym tonite, i'll make sure to do light squats this time, perhaps go 20-40lbs lighter. hopefully i won't drain myself by deadlift time.

SP

 

[soulpower]

Week 2 Mid-day

just completed the "light" day, happy to say that i was able to finish everything this time.

i squatted with 40lbs less weight, i think this made the difference because i was done quickly with them and didn't tire my back out too much.

i got to deadlifts, and here i have to give props to phreezer. i read his sticky on deadlifting, and the point about pushing forward with the hips made all the difference. last time i found my legs fully extending first then my back pulling the rest up. with the focus on hips the deads became much more smoother.

unfortunatley i was lazy with chins and only used my body weight. there are no chain belts to attach weights to at my gym so i said f*ck it.

one thing i did notice is that i gained a kilo (2.2lbs). i doubt this though because i usually weigh myself after doing cardio and this night i had no time to do cardio.

 

[soulpower]

Week 2 done

just starting week 3.

weight went back down to normal. but that 's ok...

felt like a tiger at the gym today so thought i'd see if i could up my weights a bit.

squat- went up 10lbs on the last set of 5. just for shits and giggles but threw up the weight no probs. will try adding 10 from the beginning and see what happens.

incline bench- decided i could handle going back to the barbell, but no weight gaing here. i feel this is going to take some time as it is a weak point.

wide-grip cable lat pulls- decided to go with wide grip, using standard pulldown bar. found that the weight i was doing was not enough so i thought i would see if i could do a 6th set at a new high weight and, no problems. whether this is due to strength gain or change in grip who knows.

i will say this- the middle day is a bitch. after deads i am hurting for days. i had absolutly NO energy the days after that workout. i think i will have to up the protein and glucosamine on those days.

so far feeling great. weights keep going up with the exception of inclines, deadlifts and chins (since i do not use weights on chins).

all for now.

SP

 

[Texas Renegade]

Well.....

This is like watching a mystery and the cable goes out, lol.

Keep us posted!!! How is everything going with the 5x5?

 

[soulpower]

f*cking business

ok, this week i go on a business trip for most of last week, and I think aw f*ck this is going to f*ck up everything... but maybe i can find time to go to another gym where i was going to be at... but my beeotch boss has us doing meetings all day and has us out all night after the gyms close and drinking with clients. god i wanna strangle her!

so i only get my sunday in for last week.

so yesterday i go back after basically a week off. put the 10 lbs on from the very beginning in squats, no problems at all. last set was wobbling a bit on #5 but I think i'll take a chance adding 10 more on thursday.

inclines: still didn't up the weights yet. i am still wobbly on the very last rep so i still feel kinda iffy upping the weight yet.

cable rows: f*cking blast! still using wide-grip bar, upped the weight 2 plates on the machine and still went through the motions. i think i have hit my target weight for now since last set was struggling with the last rep.

so it looks like i haven't missed much. incline still not improving enough for a weight jump yet but will see how i feel on thu.

next is middle day. ugh. we'll see if the week off affected my deadlift strength.

all for now.

SP

 

[johnsmith182]

99% of the time, if you dont succeed on this program, it means you started TOO HEAVY. if you cant comfortably increase the weight each week for the first 3 weeks, you started too heavy. you have to get your body used to it, used to the volume of work on those exercise, and used to weekly increases, if you do then around week 3 or 4 when yo pass your old poundages, youll just keep right o n going up. if you start too heavy youll feel like shit and hit a wall.

i havnt read the sticky in a while, but as i remember, i was fairly detailed on how this program is supposed to work. it really, honestly, will work if you do it right. i would urge anyone trying to do it to really read about it, and at least the first time through, really try to follow all the recomendations. i didnt put them up there just becasue i did it that way once and it happened to work. i am in the unique and lucky position to have been able to experiment with and use this this training style with literally hundreds of lifters, from football players, to olympic lifters, to beginners just wanting to get bigger, and even strongmen and other sports. the recomendations about starting light are there becasue over lots of time and experimentation i have found that this WORKS.

Well.....

This is like watching a mystery and the cable goes out, lol.

Keep us posted!!! How is everything going with the 5x5?

 

[soulpower]

do you mean that i should drop the weight on my inclines (and perhaps deads) then?

SP

 

[Starkraven]

is this program good for a bodybuilder? it seems geared more towards PL. i always use compound movements. when off gear, i go one bodypart once per week but havent been on in a while and i think once per week maybe a little long for each part when i go back on.

 

[soulpower]

middle day done.

this time i decided to change the order and did it this way:

deads,squat,dumbbell shoulder press, chins

i felt a bit stronger doing deads since i was fresher. i think this is a better way to go because once i got to squats i found myself having to use more effort to get up the lighter weight, since i had already done deadlifts. this is fine with me since more effort=more gains.

i was a bit worried since my lower back was bothering me- perhaps a sign that I went too heavy on cable rows the session before. however no probs getting the weight up.

on deads i got all 5 sets of five done with no problems so i will try to bump up the weight slightly, maybe 10lbs and see how i do next week.

one thing was that i was so damn tired I almost didn't finish chins. and I could only get one rep on my last set of shoulder presses. possibly because i really put a lot of effort in deads and squats back-to-back, something i don't normally do... hmmm...

weight went back up a kilo (2.2 lbs) after falling back to original weight. i have not changed my diet all that much, except for holding back on eating rice (hard to do in Japan). i wonder if it is time for an extra protein shake during work hours.

at any rate i can't believe how much fun I am having doing squats and deads again.

SP

 

[soulpower]

last day done

last day of this week done.

great news with squats- i felt kinda iffy about it but I went up 20lbs on the squat from the beginning, and i was still able to get 4 reps in the last set so it looks like i'm movin' on up again in the squat column! f*ck yeah! only problem is i am beat today and my knees are killing me.

incline bench- good news here too, went up finally 10lbs from the start and got thru all 5 sets of 5. last set as usual shaky but everything went right up. this is great since i really need to have my incline catch up to my regular bench weight.

cable rows- this time had to use a narrow grip because some dunce was using the lat machine too long. i went down a plate from last time and i was much more comfortable doing that. last time i was having to lean back to bring myself into start position, this time not so much until the last set.

what i am finding is that it gets tricky to judge when to up your weight, since really the weight you were doing on your usual 5th set becomes your 4th. so this time on squats i got to the 4th set weight (usually the 5th set weight, and about as much effort) and thought oh sh*t am i going to be able to put up my 5th set? i thought i was going to f*ck up and drop the sh*t but i did manage to get 4 good reps up. same thing on the incline. one thing i think i have to do is on days that i use a new weight i rest longer in between the 4th and 5th set. i think this made all the difference.

all for this week, start 4th week next week.

SP