veruvius,
welcome! Well, you’ve hit on some basic principles for developing strength–using multiple sets of low reps, heavy weight, compound movements with an emphasis on the eccentric portion. Be careful, however, not to develop strength/muscular imbalances by concentrating on certain muscle groups to the exclusion of others.
depending on how new you are to weight training, some people might advise that you stick primarily to these parameters (5X5). If you’re relatively new to training I think it’s true that your best gains will be made sticking to heavy, low rep, compound movements (movements involving the use of more than one joint and lots of muscle, as opposed to single-joint isolation movements). However, having said that, you do need to throw in some sessions of higher rep training (e.g., 3-4X8; 2-3X12-15) in order to more fully train different motor qualities.
Different motor qualities may mean nothing to you now, but for the sake of better strength, mass, and nureal efficiency I’d throw in some higher rep training sessions–perhaps one a week.
For a number of reasons I’d suggest you use a TBT (total body training) type of workout rather than the traditional bodybuilding split. You’ll train your whole body 3x/week. Look at Chad Waterbury’s “Total Body Training” workout. I’d use his basic plan , but do two of your workouts with the 5x5 parameters, one with one of the higher rep parameters. Sandwhich the higher rep session in between the two lower rep sessions.
Well, I hope that helps. Congrats on your accomplishments, and, again, welcome to T-nation. Use the search feature to find a treasure chest of cutting edge information from some of the best trainers in the world!
P.S. at your age your testosterone levels are naturally high (besides, you haven’t stopped growing yet), so you really shouldn’t mess with steroids or pro-steroids. However, some Alpha Male to boost T levels into the high-normal range could increase your gains.
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