Thanks for the info re:5/3/1 schedule.
“It’s also possible to set the routine up so that you’re doing the main lifts on standard 5/3/1 frequency but your assistance work traines half the body every session, roughly, so that you get higher overall frequency per bodypart.”
What sort of scheduling would that entail?
Thanks.
[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
A little higher overall frequency might get you big faster though… If you’re up for 6 days a week, head to the BBB thread and either grab a copy of the BBB ebook or use that slide-share link.
Do you have any problems with the 4 days/week option?[/quote]
I don’t like day 3 and 4. Too much in one day imo, but it’s worked for people who couldn’t fit in the 6-day template. Better the 4-day than doing the 6-day but missing workouts all the time.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
A little higher overall frequency might get you big faster though… If you’re up for 6 days a week, head to the BBB thread and either grab a copy of the BBB ebook or use that slide-share link.
Do you have any problems with the 4 days/week option?
I don’t like day 3 and 4. Too much in one day imo, but it’s worked for people who couldn’t fit in the 6-day template. Better the 4-day than doing the 6-day but missing workouts all the time.
[/quote]
Hm, I was actually going to try and be conservative by going with the 4-day when I eventually try it but it seems many are favoring the 6 day.
[quote]tokon wrote:
Thanks for the info re:5/3/1 schedule.
“It’s also possible to set the routine up so that you’re doing the main lifts on standard 5/3/1 frequency but your assistance work traines half the body every session, roughly, so that you get higher overall frequency per bodypart.”
What sort of scheduling would that entail?
Thanks.[/quote]
Something along the lines of (assistance work obviously depends on strengths/weaknesses, preferences, injuries and whether you’re lifting equipped or raw)…
Example: (bis+legs+abs on 1 day, rest of upper body on other day):
Squat day
-bicep/brachialis exercise (doesn’t take much out of you and warms up the elbows some, better to do this first compared to last or else you won’t be able to do it any justice)
OHP Day
-5 3 1 OHP variant
-Back exercise(s), either 1 or two (i.e. pullups + machine rows or some such… Backwidth and thickness… I wouldn’t do krocs on this day, you want to be able to lock out your deadlifts on dl day after all)
-Tricep work ala board presses, in-humans, SWRGB’s, PJR’s, Dead Extensions, Bent-Over Overhead Extensions, whatever… Basically where your fatigued shoulders won’t interfere much and)
Deadlift day
-5 3 1 pulls
-quad exercise (leg presses, hack machine facing the back pad, leg extensions, whatever floats your boat and doesn’t involve much low-back)
-Bicep/brachialis exercise (pinwheels, alt. hammers, alt. offset curls… Those are pretty much the only exercises I’d suggest for a powerlifter for the arm flexors… Shouldn’t bother the wrists or anything compared to bar curls and pinwheels are to curls what kroc rows are to rows)
-weighted ab exercise, you know the deal
(Could add some ham exercise if for some reason deads don’t do much for your hams)
Bench day
ok, two variants depending on what you chose as your 5 3 1 exercise:
either
1
-5 3 1 bench/incline
-Tricep exercise (bent-over overhead rope extensions or PJR’s or dead extensions or whatever, could also be a press if you feel like doing that much heavy pressing per week, in-humans and swrgb’s help in that case as your shoulders aren’t stressed as much)
-back work (1-2 exercises, width+thickness or just thickness… You can do kroc rows here since you’ve got DL’s out of the way)
-laterals if you want or some machine overhead work, but I’d not overdo the pressing
OR
2:
-5 3 1 CGP or other tricep press/lockout excercise
-DB chest work
-Back work (1-2 exercises as above)
-Laterals if you want
Sets/reps on assistance work… Whatever you want, I’d go with
-1 top set for moderate to high reps if you want to give your joints/tendons a rest (also works very well in general imo, saves time too)
or
-2 top sets at different rep ranges (heavy+light, like 6-8+9-12 or whatever)
-DC rest-pause, but don’t use it on everything… RP rep range and which exercises you can use it on = same as in DC, read stickies on intensemuscle forum → doggpound
-3x5 or the usual crap, just rather err on the side of low volume than high.
-1 top set of whatever, followed by another heavier set if you made your rep goal on the first, or keep the weight the same for the second set if you didn’t get enough reps on the first.
Just some suggestions. The routine above may work a little better for assisted guys than raw people, raw may need more off-the-chest-strength work and perhaps more quad and ab work, depends.
( I forgot to mention, pinwheels are done with straps)
Wouldn’t the straps take away from the fact that it’s a good forearm exercise?
hm cough about that cluter pull up post cough cough…
[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Wouldn’t the straps take away from the fact that it’s a good forearm exercise?
hm cough about that cluter pull up post cough cough…;)[/quote]
not trying to answer for CC, yet I think most would know it’s common knowledge some peoples grip will fail before their forearms are exhausted 100%.
[quote]Carlitosway wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
Wouldn’t the straps take away from the fact that it’s a good forearm exercise?
hm cough about that cluter pull up post cough cough…
not trying to answer for CC, yet I think most would know it’s common knowledge some peoples grip will fail before their forearms are exhausted 100%.
[/quote]
Yea but my point is that grip is being worked also. You think deadlifts don’t work forearms?
hey C_C, I’m doing a standard 4-way split which I’m going to start doing 5/3/1 for my 4 main lifts. Do you recommend deloading every 4 weeks, or could you go a few cycles before deloading ?
[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Your reps are supposed to go down as you add weight. This is not a fixed set/rep scheme.
Btw, did you go to failure on any of those cluster sets? I hope not, because you’re not supposed to (that’s the difference between cluster training and rest-pause, mostly).
Well none were to failure but many were at a point where I couldn’t have gotten another rep if I tried. It seems weird that reps would go down every time though, I mean when you think of a normal routine you often expect to get maybe 3x5xweight and then the next week get 3x5xweight+5
As fatty said, you start with roughly 60 percent of your estimated/tested 1RM and add weight from there, he at first did 50 total reps per session 5 times or so per week. Then had to cut that down to 25 as 50 was probably a little too much.
I do think he stayed with his bodyweight at first though instead of adding weight… Until he could do sets of 10 or so? Not entirely certain, might wish to ask him.
Hm well thats the problem with me on pull ups. 60% of my 1rm would be like 40lb. less than I weigh. Pronated grip I could get maybe 7 when I started, probably still 7 now. Used to be 12 when I did them 4x a week but clearly have gone down since. My BW is probably closer to 80% of my 1RM
Anyway, I suggest you do pullups 4 times per week then maybe (careful though, don’t bust your bi tendons) and at first just try to get 25 total reps per session with your bodyweight in as many non-failure sets (rest as needed, longer the more weight you’re using later on in relation to your 1RM) as you need.
Maybe increase weight once a week, or perhaps twice if your reps are shooting up, but just do that first week with no more than your bodyweight.
I think this may be a big problem with what I was doing. I was only doing them once a week. The problem though is that I’m doing 5/3/1 right now so would that interfere with it? I’ve heard SandBlaster over at IronAddicts.com say he incorporates upper back work in some way every time he trains but I’m not sure if this is the same.
Also if I did do this what would you suggest I do at this point? Currently I’ve been doing 1 time a week and as I said I’m already at 4,3,3,3,2,2,2 with added weight which took like 15min. alone. If I started doing 4x a week (again IF thats ok with 5/3/1) where would I start with regards to weight/reps/sets since I’m already at this point?
Ok, let’s see how that works for you. Fatty has the exact protocol, ask him if you need more details. I used the above, but not for long (just didn’t fit into my routine back then and I also needed a break from training, but it did get my pullups up from a puny 5-6 [hey, last time I did them was at 210-220 or so] to 12 in a little over a week…)
Wow just a little over a week? Thats pretty good, like you I went from 6 or so to 12 when doing them 4x a week but then was stuck at 12 for a long time and never could get 13 with decent form. I think adding weight and staying in the lower ranges would help my BW numbers though (thats what happened with dips, I stuck with BW and couldn’t get past like 8 then by the time I was adding 60+lb I could rep out 16).
As for FattyFat, I PMed him about a month ago and he never replied.
[/quote]I guess he doesn’t have much time to spend on the site or so, no idea. He doesn’t post all that often.
I suggest you just do those pullups 4 times a week whenever you want, though perhaps not the day before a deadlift day. (are you doing 5/3/1 with it’s standard frequency of 4 workouts over 3 days per week, rotated?)
Just use your bodyweight until you can get non-failure sets of 10 or more. Then add weight.
At some point you’re going to be close to your old 1RM or beyond it (that would be great, of course). Might really want to terminate the cycle then though, depending on how many reps you’re getting per cluster. Probably only 1-2 or so. You’ll see.
Then you restart the whole thing but not with your bodyweight alone.
Idea is to do something like (totally simplified and all numbers hypothetical)
BWx6,… (25 reps total)
Bwx7… (25 reps total)
…
Bwx10… (25 reps total)
Bw+5x8 (25 reps total) (you may be able to increase the weight more than once per week, but be conservative imo)
…
Bw+25x2… (25 reps total or maybe just 20 if this is very close to your old 1RM)
restart cycle (can also restart early if you find that with the low reps and heavy weight you’re using your arms a lot rather than your back)
BW+10 or whatever(want to start with a higher base weight now)x12 (25 reps total)
…
Quite a few advanced PL routines and peaking cycles are set up so that your reps (or sets) decrease while the weight increases from very low to beyond your old 1RM (or similar).
Like,
setsxrepsxweight
5x5x100
5x5x110(only got 4 reps on the last set or whatever, in this method you ditch 1 set every time you didn’t manage full reps on a set the last time)
4x5x120 (didn’t get full reps in some set)
3x5x130
3x5x140 (lacked some reps)
2x5x150 (again)
1x5x160 (restart cycle with higher baseweight or deload or continue cycle, but this time dropping reps)
1x4x165
1x2x170 (didn’t manage 3)
single at 175, new 1RM, restart cycle with higher base-weight or deload
This is just an example of course.
Also, the problem may have been you eating too little and yes, the method has produced it’s great results on fatty (and me, to some extent) only on a higher frequency basis.
[quote]Zhelezen wrote:
hey C_C, I’m doing a standard 4-way split which I’m going to start doing 5/3/1 for my 4 main lifts. Do you recommend deloading every 4 weeks, or could you go a few cycles before deloading ?[/quote]
If you cram all 4 lifts into 1week waves rather than the slightly slower standard frequency, then I would suggest deloading every 4th week.
If you’re doing standard 5/3/1 frequency, try deloading every other cycle… But at some point, you may have to do it more often.
This is a bit like a DC blast, at first you feel fine and think “I could train much more often/do more”. But fatigue creeps up on you and your joints over the course of the blast and suddenly you don’t want to do anything but lay down and sleep for 2 days straight.
What I mean is, you may not feel the need to deload after your first 1-3+ cycles of 5/3/1, but not deloading may catch up to you later and cause some trouble.
Many guys on here who skipped deloading all the time because they hate it now suddenly feel it in their joints or are only getting 2-4 reps on wave 3 (last set) rather than the usual 5-10.
[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Carlitosway wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
Wouldn’t the straps take away from the fact that it’s a good forearm exercise?
hm cough about that cluter pull up post cough cough…
not trying to answer for CC, yet I think most would know it’s common knowledge some peoples grip will fail before their forearms are exhausted 100%.
Yea but my point is that grip is being worked also. You think deadlifts don’t work forearms? [/quote]
Grip work and forearm work are not the same thing.
Pinwheels are a forearm(brachioradialis especially) and brachialis exercise, so primarily for the arm flexor part of the forearms (ok, the brachialis sit on the upper arm though). The finger flexors (grip strength) still work, even with straps… But it’s just a lot easier to concentrate on your forearms/brachialis and actually go to failure or close to it when you don’t have to worry about dropping 2 135 lb db’s on your feet because your grip slips.
Also… Your grip is worked on almost every exercise there is. Overdo it and you’ll end up with elbow and/or wrist pain due to tight finger extensors (which get practically no training at all)… Or you’ll end up pulling less on deadlifts or similar exercises because your grip is still exhausted.
So, straps do not really interfere with forearm growth or strength per se, they just affect the finger flexors.
You get the idea.
You are doing 135lb pinwheel curls? Fuck man.
Question for you: if you’re German then why is your English better than mine?
[quote]Zillah wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:2 135 lb db’s
You are doing 135lb pinwheel curls? Fuck man. [/quote] I’d be happier if I could actually progress to the 140’s without my form going to hell and my reps needing a parachute, but that seems to be impossible. Kind of like no one uses 'bells bigger than the 100’s for regular alt. curls
(I do cheat via traps on the 135’s on pinwheels, of course. That’s one of those nice things about pinwheels, no low-back in there at all and you can actually get a decent trap workout at the same time)[quote]
Question for you: if you’re German then why is your English better than mine?
[/quote]
We’re preparing for an invasion and so I had to learn your language?
CC, two questions
1)are there pictures in this thread?
2)if not, why the hell not, get some up damnit
HA
I don’t post for 2 days 4 more pages appear, good god.
They paying you for this yet ?
But anyway life is good… very good actually for me at the moment -_-
Even better now i know ze Germans are coming again, don’t think ye could POSSIBLY do a worse job than our own idiotic government at the moment.
What are you doing program wise at the moment ? Still relegated to the crappiest gyms due to you using baby weights eh ?
Jeez Pumped between hounding CT and now Ceph how do you still have questions to ask 
End up paralysis by analysis if you keep it up, it’s a nasty disease suffered by the vast majority of the gym going population ^^
Holy shit I didn’t even think that would be possible, 135lb. pinwheels lol wow. This guy is pretty close DC Training/Pinwheel Curls - YouTube I think my form has been toogood lol
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
If you cram all 4 lifts into 1week waves rather than the slightly slower standard frequency, then I would suggest deloading every 4th week.
If you’re doing standard 5/3/1 frequency, try deloading every other cycle… But at some point, you may have to do it more often.
[/quote]
I do all 4 lifts (and rows) over 1 week so I guess I should deload every 4th week. Do you suggest deloading EVERYTHING every 4 weeks or just the 5/3/1 lifts?
I have some pretty deep polish heritage, I’m not afraid to call on a few 5th or 6th cousins to do a private op mission over to germany.
Watch your back every time you take a bite of a bratwurst, every sip of a beer…you never know.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
I suggest you just do those pullups 4 times a week whenever you want, though perhaps not the day before a deadlift day. (are you doing 5/3/1 with it’s standard frequency of 4 workouts over 3 days per week, rotated?)
[/quote]
I’ve been doing all 4 workouts every week.
So if I’m only increasing the weight 1x or so per week what do I do the other 3x? Like say the first workout of the 2nd week I now put 5lb on my and did 7,6,5,4,3 then what do I do for workouts 2-4 of that week? The same thing? Trying to get it done in less sets (so also getting closer to failure)?
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Also, the problem may have been you eating too little
[/quote]
Maybe. I was coming off a cut and only eating ~2300 calories up until this Saturday where I upped it to 2700 because I started the AD. I figured that wouldn’t be a huge deal since fattyfat was doing this while cutting weight.
[quote]and yes, the method has produced it’s great results on fatty (and me, to some extent) only on a higher frequency basis.
[/quote]
OK. I know SandBlaster over at IA’s thought this would be too much on the CNS but at the same time it clearly worked for you guys.