What program to follow to increase my 1RM, build muscle, size, athleticism?
I’m following the Push pull legs to build muscle, but for strength running the 5x5 program on compounds:
Depending on where you are in your journey (I’m guessing you’re a relative beginner), any program is going to do all of these to some extent.
You’ll typically be better served to choose a primary goal and maybe a secondary, non-competing, goal.
For instance, building muscle and size will, obviously, trend well together. 1RM training isn’t going to do a ton for your hypertrophy goals, and is likely even to conflict - you can’t recover from everything.
Do you mean you’re doing essentially two complete programs simultaneously? That’s a recipe for accomplishing nothing. Think about if you really like turkey pot pie, but you also want a cake. You wouldn’t just throw all the ingredients in a pan and stick them in the oven - that just wrecks two good recipes.
Anyway, I’d figure out your goals. I’ll make some assumptions based on what I read:
- I don’t think you have any powerlifting competitions coming up, so you don’t really need to specifically train 1RM
- It doesn’t sound like you’re currently in a competitive sport, so you probably just want to feel/ move a little more athletically - you can take a minimalist concurrent approach here
- You’re looking for muscle and size (more or less the same goal in this context) and you’re already asking about hypertrophy programs - I’ll call this your main goal
If I were in your shoes, I’d pick either the 5x5 or PPL, or CT’s new hypertrophy program on this site, and just run those. To meet the secondary athleticism goal I’d either
- Do jumps and throws before the main lift with some hard conditioning after or
- On one or two off-days per week do a circuit of power movements (jumps, throws, speed lifts, maybe eventually oly lifts) and then some hard conditioning (sprints/ sled pushes)
If you ever sign up for a powerlifting meet where your 1RM matters, you can run a peak to practice that skill on your way into the competition date.
1 Like
So i can’t do both powerlifting and bodybuilding, powerbuilding?
Say if my main goals were to get stronger with compounds whilst building muscle + size, not competing just testing 1RM for fun. I’m currently doing:
I’d start my session by strength training, then move onto bodybuilding movements:
Pull - Deadlift(Medium) 5x5 pause reps
Push - Bench & OHP(HEAVY) 5x5,4,3,2,1 - shown in the article above
Legs - Squat(Medium) 5x5 pause reps
Rest
Pull - Deadlift(HEAVY) 5x5,4,3,2,1
Push - Bench & OHP(Medium) 5x5 pause reps
Legs - Squat(HEAVY) 5x5,4,3,2,1
Afterwards do bodybuilding movements to build muscle. What do you think? I mean there’s at least 48-72 hours before doing lifting again.
Of course powerbuilding works, but building strength and practicing a 1RM are not precisely the same thing.
I don’t know what you’re doing for the bodybuilding work, which could either be a ton or a little. I don’t like doing barbell lifts with that kind of frequency anymore, because I’m old, but it’s not an inherently bad approach - I think you just have to be a little smarter with it than the old-school once a week. It also doesn’t address athletic movement, which I thought was a priority for you. I don’t see a ton of specific 1RM work, though, so we may be talking different concepts there. If you just mean you like to lift heavy with compound movements to build muscle, that’s a great approach.
Bottom line: if it’s working for you and you like it, keep at it. When you get to a point where you want to change something, I’d recommend taking out rather than adding in.
1 Like
Have you ever heard of this guy?
