Thread: advice please

Originally Posted by Andy_E

my diet isnt great at the mo and im on a tight budget these days

This is the problem. Simple answer, if you aren't eating good healthy nutritious food in large enough quantities you won't get any bigger no matter how hard you try in the gym. My advice, being a student on a typical student budget while training, is to buy in bulk. Take advantage of special offers, or get a few friends together and go to Cost-Co or some similar food wholesaler type store. Don't buy major brands either, frequently the budget brands are actually healthier anyway!

As for the training, how often in this last 5 years have you changed what you've been doing? And i mean really changed it - not just changing from 3x10 to 3x12, or adding a few lbs to the bar every now and again. Do you use periodization? Do you log your workouts? What is your training program right now?

buy the sounds of it then im not changing much at all i stick to the same things all the time just change the excercise a bit here and there and try to add weight now and again, i dont log my routine either.
ill sort of do chest and bicep on monday, back and tricep tuesday, legs and shoulders thursday, i stick to 3 sets of 6-8 on most things and ill do the odd drop set or super set.

Originally Posted by Gazhole

Don't buy major brands either, frequently the budget brands are actually healthier anyway!

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Gazhole again."

I've found that budget brands are more likely to use sugar than high fructose corn syrup. They're also less likely to use trans fats.

Aside from your diet, which is always the most important thing in gaining weight or cutting fat, it sounds like you have totally adapted to what you're doing in your training and thats another reason you aren't seeing gains you're happy with.

Have a look at these articles and see if they give you some idea of where you should be going with your training:

Designing training routines by Cowpimp

Developing your training program

*** READ ME FIRST - Homework #1 for Newbies ***

getlifting.info » Introduction to Periodization

They give you a good basic overview of different styles of training, meeting your goals, and implementing some form of training periodization.

Originally Posted by DOMS

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Gazhole again."

I've found that budget brands are more likely to use sugar than high fructose corn syrup. They're also less likely to use trans fats.

I found exactly the same thing, we even did a comparison in a nutrition lecture not so long back. On almost every comparison the budget brands had less trans and sat fat, less HFCS, less salt, and were at most 2/3 of the price, haha.

thanks guys for the info ill take a look tomorrow im off out now to a bbq see you soon thanks again

Your body reflects your lifestyle - the program and diet you've been using for all these years has produced exactly what you have as a result. I think you'll find if you modify you're diet to build you'll get a change in strength.

Whatever you're eating now, take a typical day's meal plan & put it into a food counts program like FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal. It will give you the REAL quantification of what you're eating in terms of total calories, and macronutrient breakdown - % and grams of protein, fat & carbs. Not that there's a "right" or "wrong" but rather just so you have an idea of what you're really eating. If you can post that, I'm sure we can make some easy adjustments to get you some changes. Generally if you want to grow, you have to eat. I spend a lot of time competition cutting so I'm on restricted calories, but when I increase my calories and carbs, I have significant increased in strength.

Also I don't know what you're following now in terms of lifting, but sounds like a change is due. I wanted to suggest something that has a long progression so you have a lot more than just a set of muscle group exercises that you flip around every now & then. 5x5 is a foundation program for strength & hypertrophy.

The Bill Starr/Pendlay/Rippetoe 5x5

Madcow's Geocities Site - A great resource for anyone interested in training for functional strength. Read as much of this as you can digest.
Madcow's Site on Stronglifts.com

[QUOTE=sassy69;1994299]

The Bill Starr/Pendlay/Rippetoe 5x5

Madcow's Geocities Site - A great resource for anyone interested in training for functional strength. Read as much of this as you can digest.
Madcow's Site on Stronglifts.com



My reading list for the weekend. Thanks Sassy.

Originally Posted by Built

My reading list for the weekend. Thanks Sassy.

Ditto, lol!

Originally Posted by Built

My reading list for the weekend. Thanks Sassy.

These is a fantastic foundation program and gives you a great variety of progression and also incorporates periodization so you're not just forever lifting thru the same sequence of exercises and getting bored.

thanks alot ill get reading

the links for intermediate and advanced dont work?

So i set it up like this what do you think?
workout A
5x5 squats
5x5 bench press
3x5 deadlifts
3x8 dips
workout B
5x5 squats
5x5 military press
5x5 bent over rows or power cleans
ill alternate A and B from one workout to another.
but there still seems to be something missing?
???

You should balance your gym activities and eating the right amount of food needed to ensure that you get the desire results in body building. I guess even without saying a word, you know what the real problem is. I hope you can find the needed money to nourish yourself with the right quantity of food. Anyway, you are not far from it, and you can achieve it in no time.
Goodluck.

Originally Posted by Andy_E

So i set it up like this what do you think?
workout A
5x5 squats
5x5 bench press
3x5 deadlifts
3x8 dips
workout B
5x5 squats
5x5 military press
5x5 bent over rows or power cleans
ill alternate A and B from one workout to another.
but there still seems to be something missing?
???

Personally, I would add or replace the bent over rows/power cleans with pull-ups or some variation of the pull-up.

ok will do thanks.
And what sort of weights should i do? fail on 5 with a spot or fail earlier with spot to 5

I would say fail on the last set.

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

I would say fail on the last set.

last set or last rep?

some of those links,dont work.if i would decide to do one of these programs.how would you lay em into some sort of a peroidization program.curious.

Originally Posted by diablomex

some of those links,dont work.if i would decide to do one of these programs.how would you lay em into some sort of a peroidization program.curious.

Got rid of some of the dead links - it doesn't matter - its all on the stronglifts link.

Originally Posted by sassy69

Got rid of some of the dead links - it doesn't matter - its all on the stronglifts link.

gracias

Originally Posted by Andy_E

last set or last rep?

Last set. In others words if you're getting 5 on the last set, move the weight up. I wouldn't get too concerned with making sure you get 4 full sets of 5 either. Suppose you move up weight and can only get 3x5 and say 4 and 2. That would be fine with me, gives me room to improve and challenges me to do better next time. The goal is to use heavy weight and challange yourself, not to get an exact amount of sets and reps.

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

Last set. In others words if you're getting 5 on the last set, move the weight up. I wouldn't get too concerned with making sure you get 4 full sets of 5 either. Suppose you move up weight and can only get 3x5 and say 4 and 2. That would be fine with me, gives me room to improve and challenges me to do better next time. The goal is to use heavy weight and challange yourself, not to get an exact amount of sets and reps.

Exactly.

ok thanks for the advice ill put it all in to action tonight, im actually realy looking forward to the gym tonight more than usual as there is something new for me to do with this new workout which is realy different than what im used to. thanks Andy.

So this is where the 5x5 program does get a bit confusing for me at least, so maybe PushPull and Built could help me out. Is the goal of a 5x5 routine to start high getting 5 rep set and move the weight down in order to continue to get your 5 reps or to build up the weight and not really worry about getting the a full 5 reps in sets 4 and 5? Example I have is what I have been doing:
1 x 135 WU
1 x 225 WU
2 x 385 x 5
2 x 365 x 5
1 x 345 x 5

or should I change this to:
1 x 135 WU
1 x 225 WU
1 x 345 x 5
1 x 365 x 5
1 x 385 x 5
1 x 395 x ?
1 x 405+ x ?

Thanks,

Those are really big numbers. Looking at your journal, i'm having a really hard time figuring out what lift you're referring too?

I'm asking about the 5x5 method in general. How it was taught to me is that you warm up and go right to your 5RM number and decrease the weight as needed to continue to maintain 5 reps. What I took from your earlier reply was that you set the weight and do all 5 sets with that weight even if your 4th and 5th sets are not 5 reps. Once you can do 5 sets of 5 reps you move the weight up and continue to challenge yourself.

I was running a journal back in January when I was doing a PRRS routine and had great gains off that. I wanted to change things so after a week off I went to a 8 week 5x5 which I just completed. I felt I had better gains with the PRRS overall and had less join pain and fatigue. The 80% RR week and 70% S weeks I felt helped more than just going 90-95% every 5th day. In my last week of bench, those are the numbers I was able to do with 4th set at 395 for 4 and then 405 for 3.

Originally Posted by aja44

I'm asking about the 5x5 method in general. How it was taught to me is that you warm up and go right to your 5RM number and decrease the weight as needed to continue to maintain 5 reps. What I took from your earlier reply was that you set the weight and do all 5 sets with that weight even if your 4th and 5th sets are not 5 reps. Once you can do 5 sets of 5 reps you move the weight up and continue to challenge yourself.

As far as the 5x5 method that's on that website goes, I haven't read it. Personally, when i did a 5x5 scheme I stuck with the same weight ( no pyramid ) Nothing is set in stone, even the 5 sets of 5 before you move up. If you're making good gains and say you get 4 sets of 5 and one set of 4, IMO, that's good enough and you need to increase the weight. You should be able to get that one more rep the next time without much of a challenge, so why not move up? Even worse, you could have a bad day, not get that last rep and that could fuck with your head, leading you to lift that same weight again the next time. Bad progression.

Originally Posted by aja44

I was running a journal back in January when I was doing a PRRS routine and had great gains off that. I wanted to change things so after a week off I went to a 8 week 5x5 which I just completed. I felt I had better gains with the PRRS overall and had less join pain and fatigue. The 80% RR week and 70% S weeks I felt helped more than just going 90-95% every 5th day. In my last week of bench, those are the numbers I was able to do with 4th set at 395 for 4 and then 405 for 3.

From Jan to now you gained approx what, a 100 pounds to your bench? Since you're 39 I take it that was alot of muscle memory? Either way, with those kind of gains, I wouldn't have stopped/switched nothing.