[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
[quote]ScholesGoals wrote:
I was just wondering what people thought of this kind of training mentality and whether anyone had ever trained like this.[/quote]
“That’s the best strength gains you can get. Sets of 5 … That’s what we got Kirk [Karwoski] on.” - Ed Coan.
So we can chalk that up as two ginormous votes against higher rep training for strength. However, with that said, keeping the majority of your training in the 5-15 rep range (which is still a really broad range and doesn’t mention sets per exercise or total volume) is a nice, tidy, general idea that “should” be fine for most goals.
Total volume will have a bigger influence than just looking at rep range, so that’s how you can kinda tweak a given method more towards strength or more towards size.
5/3/1 has its one big PR set fall within that rep window, week in and week out, and, despite whatever Leeman said about the program, plenty of guys seem very satisfied with their strength gains on it.
That’s tricky to say, because old school guys (if we’re talking Golden Era, '60s-'70s) did generally focus on higher volume, moderate rep range stuff with plenty of sets and multiple exercises per bodypart (it’s one place we get the idea of “stereotypical bodybuilder lifting” from), but there was more emphasis on hitting muscular failure and/or going past it, which isn’t what we want to pure strength gains.
Also, there were still plenty of top guys who intentionally kept heavy/lower rep work as part of their program. Or at the very least, it gets muddy because you have guys at that time who got into bodybuilding after already building a major strength base with lower rep lifting.[/quote]
Apparently George starts to lower the rep ranges he uses as a meet approaches. So for example his usual training session will look like this (from his log)
so i took 3 days off, and it seemed to do the trick
incline bench
135x15
225x23
no bouncing, all controlled reps, i stopped most of them like 1 inch from my chest because they were so light. not a PR, but i cant complain considering its only my second workout on them, no lift off, elbow sleeves, wrist wraps etc.
pause bench (had a shoulder/chest pump from the high rep inclines)
135x5
225x4
315x3
370x6 5lbs on last time, probably do 385x6 fresh, and 405x6 with a lift off and elbow sleeves, belt, stickum for my arch, chalk etc.
dumbell incline
100x5
125’sx10 3 rep pr
dumbell flat
100’sx5
125’sx9 3 rep pr aswell i believe
incline dumbell fly
35’sx10
50x15 20lb pr
dumbell flat fly
50x11 20lb pr aswell i believe
i decided against doing hammer strength decline, i think my chest will get worked enough just doing that workout alone. i gotta start doing less chest/shoulder work because it overtrains my shoulder joint.
wide stance parallel/bellow parallel box squat. my hip crease is bellow the top of my knee…
135x5
225x3
315x3
405x2
495x5 had 10, next time 545x5
romanian deadlift
225x5
315x5
455x10 next time 495x10
calf raise
dc method
t-bar pulldowns
stack x 3x8
rear delt fly’s
3-4x??
curls
20x10
30x10
40x10
50x5
65x5
100x1 all the reps / pulldowns tired me out. I didnt rest much between sets
incline dumbell curls
20x10
30x10
40x5
hammer curls
20x10
30x10
40x10
50x10
75x10
standing calf raises
4-5x?
cable rotator cuff work
4x?
standing calf raise shrugs
3x?
standing dumbell rotator cuf work
15x15
22.5x10
30x7
35x4
decent workout, next time more on everything, or more reps.
Another example of his training
While I have no plans to immitate George and his style of training I don’t think the fact KK likes sets of five exclusively discredits George who is pulling 900+ at like 22 years old. For example Mark Rippetoe is a set of 5 guy and he has never shown extroadinary feats of strength comparable to Leeman.
Also Leeman does use alot of sets of 5, just not exclusively.
As a beginner i am not stupid enough to think I know more than either three of the guys named above, but I think all of them seem to have success with different training styles.