Madcow Not Working

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

Hey guys. So I have been trying to do Madcow 5x5 for at least 4 weeks now and I haven’t made any gains on it at all for my bench press, rows, and OH press, and deadlift. Actually my bench press, rows, deadlift and OH press have gotten a little worse.

I am 5’9" body weight: 155 lbs.

Squat PR: 295 lbs. x 5

Row PR: 155 lbs. x 5 (now I can only do 150 lbs. x 5)

OH Press PR: 127.5 x 5 (now I can only do 120 lbs. x 4)

bench press PR: 190 lbs. x 5 (now I can only 185 lbs. x 4)

Deadlift PR: 365 x 5 (now I can only do 355 lbs. x 5)

I don’t know what to do and I can’t keep wasting anymore time.

Please help me as soon as you can. Thanks!

2

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
Hey guys. So I have been trying to do Madcow 5x5 for at least 4 weeks now and I haven’t made any gains on it at all for my bench press, rows, and OH press, and deadlift. Actually my bench press, rows, deadlift and OH press have gotten a little worse.

I am 5’9" body weight: 155 lbs.

Squat PR: 295 lbs. x 5

Row PR: 155 lbs. x 5 (now I can only do 150 lbs. x 5)

OH Press PR: 127.5 x 5 (now I can only do 120 lbs. x 4)

bench press PR: 190 lbs. x 5 (now I can only 185 lbs. x 4)

Deadlift PR: 365 x 5 (now I can only do 355 lbs. x 5)

I don’t know what to do and I can’t keep wasting anymore time.

Please help me as soon as you can. Thanks!

[/quote]

How is it that you squat very close to 2x your bw for reps and still ask questions like this?

3

Nope, not getting sucked in to this one again.

4

Did you start 20kg below your squat/dl maxes and 10kg below your bench/press maxes?

5

Start eating in a caloric surplus.
You have been on this site for 3 years, you should know this by now.

6

I feel like I observe significantly greater rates of failure than success with pre-planned intermediate programs like Madcow and the Texas Method.

But refusing to gain weight at 5’9 and 155lbs won’t help most programs.

7

Its not the program, it’s you.

The reason intermediate programs “don’t work” is because people are not upping their game. You want to get bigger, faster, badder? Up your intensity, food, attitude, etc.

And yeah, not getting sucked into the BS (pun intended) vortex of clusterf***.

8

[quote]JFG wrote:
Its not the program, it’s you.

The reason intermediate programs “don’t work” is because people are not upping their game. You want to get bigger, faster, badder? Up your intensity, food, attitude, etc.

And yeah, not getting sucked into the BS (pun intended) vortex of clusterf***.[/quote]

I don’t know why the f*** some of you keep saying to up my intensity and attitude. I alway give it my all and beyond in every program. Also, I know that after sticking to a program for a while, that strength gains no longer primarily comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency in the muscles, but instead switches to coming primarily from muscular hypertrophy. However, I already switched to a new program over 4 weeks ago. Therefore, I shouldve already made more strength gains primarily from comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency again. Furthermore, it is always possible for an experienced weightlifter to continue making strength gains while staying in his or her weight class.

9

You have no muscle. “Strength” acquired from forcing neural adaptations from specific exercises goes away when you’re not constantly forcing yourself to peak. Someone who had spent the last 3 years gradually gaining weight on a balanced program would be much bigger than you at your level of relative strength. Now you don’t even know your body well enough to know how to make changes because you had everything planned for you within a limited range of rep schemes and exercises.

Well, you can stick with the current dogma since everyone else is parroting the same shit:

Now that you have acquired a base of strength, you can do a hypertrophy program! Yay!

10

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:

[quote]JFG wrote:
Its not the program, it’s you.

The reason intermediate programs “don’t work” is because people are not upping their game. You want to get bigger, faster, badder? Up your intensity, food, attitude, etc.

And yeah, not getting sucked into the BS (pun intended) vortex of clusterf***.[/quote]

I don’t know why the f*** some of you keep saying to up my intensity and attitude. I alway give it my all and beyond in every program. Also, I know that after sticking to a program for a while, that strength gains no longer primarily comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency in the muscles, but instead switches to coming primarily from muscular hypertrophy. However, I already switched to a new program over 4 weeks ago. Therefore, I shouldve already made more strength gains primarily from comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency again. Furthermore, it is always possible for an experienced weightlifter to continue making strength gains while staying in his or her weight class.[/quote]
You are not aware that such neural improvements are MOVEMENT SPECIFIC?

11

[quote]dt79 wrote:

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:

[quote]JFG wrote:
Its not the program, it’s you.

The reason intermediate programs “don’t work” is because people are not upping their game. You want to get bigger, faster, badder? Up your intensity, food, attitude, etc.

And yeah, not getting sucked into the BS (pun intended) vortex of clusterf***.[/quote]

I don’t know why the f*** some of you keep saying to up my intensity and attitude. I alway give it my all and beyond in every program. Also, I know that after sticking to a program for a while, that strength gains no longer primarily comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency in the muscles, but instead switches to coming primarily from muscular hypertrophy. However, I already switched to a new program over 4 weeks ago. Therefore, I shouldve already made more strength gains primarily from comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency again. Furthermore, it is always possible for an experienced weightlifter to continue making strength gains while staying in his or her weight class.[/quote]
You are not aware that such neural improvements are MOVEMENT SPECIFIC?[/quote]

Again, there are weightlifters who are able to continue gaining in the same specific movements while staying in their weight class. So I still don’t see how your answers are relevant to my question.

12

[quote]JFG wrote:
The reason intermediate programs “don’t work” is because people are not upping their game. You want to get bigger, faster, badder? Up your intensity, food, attitude, etc.
[/quote]

I definitely agree with that observation. I feel like a lot of it stems from too much focus on programming manipulation. This idea that, when you change the sets, reps and frequency around in some specific manner, it magically makes you progress in a different way, so all you need to do to train as an “intermediate” is do XYZ.

It’s one of those chicken/egg sort of things. I imagine real intermediates just figure out what principles work for them and apply them, while the self-proclaimed ones follow intermediate programs and do crappy. It’s why I started saying there is no such thing as an intermediate lifter, haha.

13

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
Again, there are weightlifters who are able to continue gaining in the same specific movements while staying in their weight class. So I still don’t see how your answers are relevant to my question.[/quote]

You are not those weightlifters, so I do not see why this comment is relevant to your question either.

14

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:

[quote]dt79 wrote:

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:

[quote]JFG wrote:
Its not the program, it’s you.

The reason intermediate programs “don’t work” is because people are not upping their game. You want to get bigger, faster, badder? Up your intensity, food, attitude, etc.

And yeah, not getting sucked into the BS (pun intended) vortex of clusterf***.[/quote]

I don’t know why the f*** some of you keep saying to up my intensity and attitude. I alway give it my all and beyond in every program. Also, I know that after sticking to a program for a while, that strength gains no longer primarily comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency in the muscles, but instead switches to coming primarily from muscular hypertrophy. However, I already switched to a new program over 4 weeks ago. Therefore, I shouldve already made more strength gains primarily from comes from improvement in neuromuscular coordination and efficiency again. Furthermore, it is always possible for an experienced weightlifter to continue making strength gains while staying in his or her weight class.[/quote]
You are not aware that such neural improvements are MOVEMENT SPECIFIC?[/quote]

Again, there are weightlifters who are able to continue gaining in the same specific movements while staying in their weight class. So I still don’t see how your answers are relevant to my question.[/quote]
That’s because you have the intellect of a dildo.

15

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
Again, there are weightlifters who are able to continue gaining in the same specific movements while staying in their weight class. So I still don’t see how your answers are relevant to my question.[/quote]

You are not those weightlifters, so I do not see why this comment is relevant to your question either.[/quote]

Okay, well a certified Personal trainer at my gym who is much stronger, more muscular, and more experienced than I am told me that I didn’t need to eat more to gain strength because if u think about it, how do tons of highly experienced weightlifters who are not heavyweights or SHW can still lift tremendously more than I can.

16

Just to interject here for a moment…

Regarding the program Madcow specifically. You say you have not made any gains using Madcow in “at least” the first 4 weeks of the program. If you do Madcow correctly, then the first 4 weeks are working up to your rep maximum that you enter into the percentages of the program… so either:

A) You calculated the wrong percentages for the first 4 weeks
or
b) You are not as strong as you think you are and you should reevaluate your true strength level.

So in other words, the first 4 weeks of Madcow should be cake-- it is essentially a warm-up to start setting “PRs” or breaking new ground after that period.

17

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
Again, there are weightlifters who are able to continue gaining in the same specific movements while staying in their weight class. So I still don’t see how your answers are relevant to my question.[/quote]

You are not those weightlifters, so I do not see why this comment is relevant to your question either.[/quote]

Okay, well a certified Personal trainer at my gym who is much stronger, more muscular, and more experienced than I am told me that I didn’t need to eat more to gain strength because if u think about it, how do tons of highly experienced weightlifters who are not heavyweights or SHW can still lift tremendously more than I can.[/quote]

Do you have any idea how much time, work and effort these really strong and really talented lightweight weightlifters have put on their training? Probably not.

Most of the population does not have the time, talent and passion (and drugs, cliche…) that these top level weightlifters have. So gain some muscle. You’re not going to look some bulky bodybuilder by accident, so don’t worry about that.

If you want to be like them, lift twice a day/6 days a week for +10 years.

And one more relevant question: How often lifter fail to progress because of the program (done correctly)? Most of the reasons of plateauing come from weak points (such as mobility, leverages etc.), poor executions of lifts= lack of form, lack of recovery, lack focus and discipline etc…

i’m not a fan of 5x5 intermediate programs, but they do surely work if everything else works also.

18

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
Furthermore, it is always possible for an experienced weightlifter to continue making strength gains while staying in his or her weight class.[/quote]

Aaaah, the special snowflake argument. “Well, it works for SOMEONE, so it has to work for me as well!”

Listen. Neither are you likely to have the genetic potential of these lifters nor do you use their workout plan, so your argument is moot. The easiest way to get your lifts up will be to eat more.

19

This is for the benefit of any beginner confused by all of this. I do not expect Bro_Scientist to comprehend any of it since it would require video proof for me to believe he can tie his own showlaces.

  1. Weightlifting requires a far higher level of profiency in terms of technical skill and neuro muscular coordination. Hence, the longer process of adaptation. Strength, in the end, is also dependant on muscle size. That’s why there are bloody weight classes and the lifters are fucking lean because you want to maximise muscle mass while fitting in the weight class unless you’re a SHW.

  2. If you have ever trained in a REAL weightlifting facility, you will see lifters doing stuff that looks nothing like what you will expect from reading shit online. 5x5? Bollocks. Try 20 fucking singles working on just one portion of the snatch, and another 20 working on another portion. This is why there are DIFFERENT PHASES, because you do shit like that for a year even with gear, your shoulders will be screwed for life.

This is “strength training”. If you are not doing bloody complex movements(no, the deadlift is not a fucking complex movement), don’t do fucking online programs under the idea that you are “training for strength” UNLESS you are peaking for a meet. Fucking EAT ALL THE TIME. Gain a base of muscle early while perfecting technique. This will ensure long term progression or you will just stall like Bro_Scientist when your neural gains run dry. You CAN EASILY CUT later if you want to fit into a weight class and end up leaner and stronger than before.

That being said, don’t be an idiot and do a fucking dreamer bulk. Please…

20

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
Again, there are weightlifters who are able to continue gaining in the same specific movements while staying in their weight class. So I still don’t see how your answers are relevant to my question.[/quote]

You are not those weightlifters, so I do not see why this comment is relevant to your question either.[/quote]

Okay, well a certified Personal trainer at my gym who is much stronger, more muscular, and more experienced than I am told me that I didn’t need to eat more to gain strength because if u think about it, how do tons of highly experienced weightlifters who are not heavyweights or SHW can still lift tremendously more than I can.[/quote]

That was a very cool story. Thanks for telling it.