I’ve been doing a 5x5 program (day on, day off) for about a month and a half and I feel my strength gains have about topped out as several of my lifts are now stalling. I’m considering keeping the same basic program only dropping my weights and switching all lifts (except DL) to 5x10 (and adding 500-1k cals a day) in hopes of greater hypertrophy gains. Would 5 sets of 10 reps be good to continue adding size in my situation?
I originally got the idea from Reg Park’s 1951 Mr. Olympia workout, because it consisted primarily of full body workouts using 5x10. I do realize, however, that he was quiet a bit more experienced than I.
what are your lifts? 5x10, in my opinion, can be good for hypertrophy. it really depends where you are. I have been using the Wendler 5/3/1, and 5x10 is the suggested accessory template for hypertrophy. I tried this, but felt that if I was using a weight that I could lift for 5x10, I was short changing myself with regards to the weight I could use (and subsequent muscle trauma and growth). I instead opted to do my accessories (the lifts you do other than your main lift of the day e.g. deadlift/military press/benchpress/squat) in a 2-3 warmup set fashion, then a rep max set.
what I just described, albeit somewhat awkwardly, is called “ramping”. you pick a weight to warm up at. then you increase the poundage and do another set. you can go up in weight something like 2-3 times, until you come to your heaviest set for that exercise, which is called your “top set” or “work set”. you do as many reps as possible at this weight.
here’s an easy example. for something like DB benchpress, you might pick 45 pounds to start, and do 10 reps. seems easy enough, so you go up 20 pounds to 65 pounds. you do 8 reps at that weight. by this time you will be able to gauge how much you have left in the tank. you decide to go up to 85 pounds. you get into position, and complete 5 reps, and almost get the 6th rep up. some would say try and get another set of 85 pound presses.
hope that helped or gave you something to think about with your training.
5x10 is great. I don’t think it should be the sole staple all the time, but for many exercises and as already mentioned, particularly accessory exercises, it is good as a frequently used method, and for almost any exercise it can be a good changeup.
On whether ramping or using straight-weight, myself I use straight weight, unless for reasons of not regularly doing a given thing I started with what becomes clearly too light a weight.
This is because I use only 60 seconds rest with this format and so fundamentally what is being accomplished here is not training with relatively heavy weight anyway. That is (for me) something to be done with other protocols. And, past a brief warmup, I don’t need to work up to a weight that I can handle for 10 reps on the fifth set with the fairly short rest. I can handle it fine, to say the least, on the first set without needing that set to be lighter.
However, I’m not knocking the ramping approach. Obviously it could be useful as well. I just wanted to make clear what I was referring to in my own case.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
On whether ramping or using straight-weight, myself I use straight weight, unless for reasons of not regularly doing a given thing I started with what becomes clearly too light a weight.
This is because I use only 60 seconds rest with this format and so fundamentally what is being accomplished here is not training with relatively heavy weight anyway. That is (for me) something to be done with other protocols. And, past a brief warmup, I don’t need to work up to a weight that I can handle for 10 reps on the fifth set with the fairly short rest. I can handle it fine, to say the least, on the first set without needing that set to be lighter.
However, I’m not knocking the ramping approach. Obviously it could be useful as well. I just wanted to make clear what I was referring to in my own case.[/quote]
I would also like to add that it is probably also exercise dependent, as well as your strength levels. If the exercises is leg extensions or flyes, doing straight sets would be the best, but if we’re dealing with a squat variation or bench press variation, especially if the person can lift a substantial amount, then I’m sure the ramping method would be better.
to echo what jasmincar said, I agree (in my limited experience) with the idea of driving up weight for your ‘money’ exercises, and then for your accessory (as in, extra volume or feel or whatever) do what you gotta do to get the volume or feel you want to achieve (not that these weights may not be going up in time)
I like to use have more than one basic exercise where I’m focussing on increasing the weight first however, (but I’m coming off a long injury layoff and am in physio, so I am not pushing everything fully yet
Once I am working with appreciable weights, I’ll have to see where my recovery stands after I’m in a groove and adjust as needed
I’m in the same boat as the others. I ramp my first main exercise, and maybe if I have another big exercise (rack pulls, then front squats) I will ramp that up as well. But when it’s time to move to one more smaller…no warmup…just straight sets.
Or if I do heavy bent over rows and ramp up…then I’ll go over to DB rows and do a few sets of 8-10…straight and heavy for some extra work.
Could really do that with anything…make sure you consistently try to add weight as well though to those straight sets so over a period of a month of you have some increase in strength in that as well.