I have been lifting consistently hard for about 5 months now and I am trying to gain mass. I have been hammering down the calories and doing quite well. I have put on around 12 lbs of lean body mass. I am now stronger than I have ever been in my life. I have been cycling Mag-10 and Tribex (2 week cycles) for around 2 months. The past two weeks I have been off Mag-10 and have been taking Tribex and my strength has just disappeared. I know that Mag-10 will help with recovery, but I went from doing 5x5 bench of 245 lbs to barely able to do 3x5 of 225 lbs. Between my other cycles before I never had this dramatic of a drop in strength. I don’t believe I am over training, because I usually lift only four days and allow my body to heal for three. Has anyone else ever experienced such dramatic loses in strength?
My typical workout looks like this:
Monday (chest and back)
Bench 5x5
Incline DB presses 5x5
Cable Flyes 5x5
Cable rows 5x5
Lat pull downs 5x5
DB rows 5x5
Tuesday (shoulders)
DB military press 5x5
Shrugs 5x5
Upright Rows 5x5
Front lateral raises 5x5
Rear delt raises 5x5
I would try changing your supplement cycles, now try doing three weeks of mag-10, follwed by 2-4 weeks of Tribex, give your body a little bit longer to recover endogenous T levels, just an idea. Try doing 2 weeks of mag10 followed by up to three weeks of just 4ad, or 5 weeks of Tribex and methoxy and creatin, etc.
Also, try changing your workouts, 5x5 is great for a while, but change it up after that, try EDT, full OVT, King workouts, even try some olympic lifting for a few weeks, then go back to your splits and I bet your stregth will really recover a lot. Especially check out anything from Chad Waterbury!!! You could just be overtraining, and some of his principles/rep ranges/training schemes will be a nice surprise to your body and keep it growing, leaning out, and strengthining…
35 sets for arms, and 25 sets for shoulders!!!??? Good GOD man. Significant hypertrophy can be acheived in these muscle groups with no direct training. WAY to many sets per workout. Back off on the volume and increase the frequency.
As mark just said, you’re doing way too many sets. You’re also setting yourself up for a major imbalance. YOu have a total of 90 sets for upperbody and only 20 sets for legs.
Thanks for the info. I guess I didn’t make myself as clear on the cycles as I thought. I take 2 weeks Mag-10 and then 2 weeks tribex.
Also I do incorporate some Power cleans, Clean and Jerk as well. Also I like to do Pull ups and chins on some days in place of some of the other exercises. Just depends on how I am feeling. I definetly try cutting back on the sets.
Marc, I know this sounds like a lot for arms, but I have tried not doing as much and my arms never seemed to grow. So I experimented with different sets and weights over the past couple of years and this seemed to be the best for making my arms grow.
Yeah I think you may have been doing the Mag-10 for a bit too long as well. Coming off of it will make you temporarily loose a bit of strength. Try some Power Drive before your workout and see if you can still pound out the weights without andro, if you can I’m betting it’s just a matter of feeling “on”. Even with creatine I’ve noticed that strength gains need to be kicked in the ass with a little will-power and grit to get them to solidify. I’m doubting you lost anything though.
30 sets of chest and back on monday followed by 25 sets of shoulders on tuesday. I’m thinking that might be a bit excessive. Also as someone pointed out, that is a huge arm workout. You have a few quality exercises, but get rid of the kickbacks, and try doing shorter more frequent workouts instead of trashing each muscle group once a week.
Dude… don’t ask why, just drop your current program, pick one from this here magazine and do it. Any program that looks interesting to you–I don’t even care.
Man, you must be fried after your workouts my man. I can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said. Squats AND deadlifts back-to-back. Good God, I puke just thinking about it!
Tone it down. Waaaaaaay too much volume. Look into Joel Marion’s 12 Week Maximal Size program or something…this is just crazy