Thread: Changing routine - advice!

For about 3 to 4 months now I've been training for pure strength gains - all exercises at 4 - 6 reps on as heavy weight as I can take. I train 3 times a week using the push/pull/legs split.

In this time I've seen good improvement in strength, and some increase in size. However, I now want to focus on muscle growth - i.e. looking bigger - and want some advice on:

1) What reps/sets/rest should I be looking at.
2) How long should I do this new program before going back to strength training?

To try and answer my own questions:

1) I was thinking 12 reps per set (keeping the 1 warm-up and 4 working sets that I've been doing so far). Obviously the weight will have to come down a bit so I can achieve this - any ideas roughly how much it should be reduced? I'm also going to reduce rest between sets to around 60-90 seconds, from 2-3 minutes I take now.

2) I was going to keep this new program for about 6 weeks, then go back to a modified strength program. Is this long enough/too long?

I have two main objectives here:
a) I'm going on holiday in September and would like to look as good as possible for it - I'm quite strong now for my size (6'2 170lbs), but not really that toned.
b) The swimming club I used to train with (I'm now 'retired') have asked me to help them out with 3 events at the end of the year (Oct/Nov and Dec). I'm a sprinter so strength is key here. I do aerobic work occasionally (running and swimming) so should survive in that aspect, I want as much power as possible.

Would appreciate some constructive tips. I think I do all the 'right' exercises on each day, so no worries there

Sticking to 1-5 reps for months at a time is very dangerous...espically if you train to failure. I do not beilive in training for size without power, muscle hypertrophy is both and any other opinion on that is just pseudoscience. Train in the 5-15 rep range, best to mix it up like gopro does in his program but to keep it simple you need to do some reps after months of 4-6 rep work so keep it in the 10-12 range for a month or two then change up the reps again.