Just wanted to say that if you haven’t tried the 5-4-3-2-1 rep scheme that was in an article a few days ago, you should. I put it into my workout just for fun yesterday, and I was pretty impressed.
I know you’re not supposed to judge a workout by how sore you are the next day, but if you ache all over, you know you must have done something right. I’ve been lifting for quite a while, and I don’t think I’ve been this sore in years.
Anyways, I did front squats with 245, incline with 190, and weighted pull ups with 25 lbs. For each, I did two sets through with a few minutes between each set. I know it’s not a ton of weight, but it pretty much kicked me in the butt.
Honestly, I haven’t maxed out in forever, so I couldn’t tell you exactly what percentage I did. Just now, guessing at what my maxes are, I figure both front squat and incline was between 70% and 75%. On all three of the lifts, I could probably do somewhere between 6-8 reps.
I’d recomend doing this directly in front of a clock (I did). It’s amazing how fast 10 seconds rest goes.
Yea I tried this for the first time the other day too and it kicked my ass. I did weighted pullups with 60 lbs and weighted dips with 90.
Definately plan to include 5-4-3-2-1 in my workouts more.
I tried 6-12-25 for cable crossovers, cable tricep pushdowns and cable bicep curl.
I was so sore at my chest that I thought I was growing tits! They are still a little sore and it’s been 5 days! Triceps were burning mad, never burned like that. Not much soreness though.
Biceps are something else. 6 was easy (could probably up the weight), but 12 was alomst impossible (cheated a bit) and for 25, I had to stop halfway through to take a breath or two between each rep… Seems like my biceps have poor muscle endurance, or are really fast twitch dominant.
I really like the idea of combining strength parameters, hypertrophy and endurance (and lactic buildup as well) in the same set.
I really feel it has its place in an hypertrophy specific program, but I’ll be beginning kickboxing classes (again) and I’ll be concentrating my workouts around explosive strenght and muscular endurance.
Ive used 6-12-25 rep scheme for fly’s and for Flat DB presses…I liked the feeling. the 25 portion is really wierd…its such a light weight but the muscle really fatigues.
I did the 5-4-3-2-1 one the other day as well, while doing front squats and certainly deadlifts, my I was gasping for breath, 10 seconds goes by really quickly.
Hi guys. I have been looking for some variation with my workouts and the two recent rep schemes look promising indeed.
I started out using one from a Waterbury article I believe it was:
4/5 sets @ 5-6 reps
3/4 sets @ 8-10 reps
2/3 sets @ 12-15 reps
The actual number would of course depend on the person, their endurance levels, muscles worked, and exercises in question.
I want to incorporate the 5-4-3-2-1 too and wondering what would be a good way to do so. Perhaps one week using the above rep schemes, and then one week which incorporate one or two 5-4-3-2-1 sets per exercise (the rest regular 8-10 rep sets or warmup sets)?
I just tried the 5-1 scheme myself but can’t tell yet what it will yield for me. I’ve used a 3-2-1-1-1-1-1 with 15-20 sec rest periods before and definitly saw progress in both strength and size.
Xen, keep a log of your weight & rep numbers. Stick with one scheme as long as you find yourself surpassing your previous workout’s performance. Once you find that you’ve plateaued, switch up. That seems to work for me.
I have been doing the 5-4-3-2-1 as my finishing set for leg press, RDL, pull ups or chins. If my workout had been slacking that day this definitely puts it back on track at the end, I like it.