What did you decide to do?
Are you immensely huge yet?
Two-a-day workouts.
In short, I decided to decrease frequency, add volume, and increase the intensity on single joint arm movements.
I switched from Full 3xweek to Full/Arms/Full. On full days, 3 major lifts as before, but increased volume to 5x5 vice 1x5. On arms day, I superset BB Curls and Overhead DB extensions for 5x10 each with a very slow rep speed. The arms day is brutal.
Only two weeks in, positives are body weight +3lbs, arms +1/8”, bench +5 lbs, Squat +10lbs, deadlift +25 pounds (my low back has GREATLY appreciated the reduced frequency and rewarded me with more pulling power).
Negatives so far are A LOT more daily fatigue. And my shoulders are SCREAMING about the 5x5 twice a week (Bench Monday, OH Press Friday), and I do not enjoy 5x5. I MUCH prefer working up to one top-end set. Christian Thib’s neurotype survey says I’m a 1A, so no surprise there. I also absolutely hate the arms day. That style of training completely wipes my CNS out. The only reasons I’m doing it are because a friend of mine told me my arms were a weak point and said to give them their own day and destroy them.
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How does 5x5 make you feel? Is it boring or does it kill you (mid-season lethargy). If boring, try 1-6 contrasts. If it grinds you down mentally then I’d either sustain it for a little while if it serves a purpose or swap it out to a 5/4/3/2/1 if you want to retain the same number of sets.
If you don’t like your training (even more if it’s that draining) it won’t be optimal.
He only has four weeks remaining. He’ll be fine.
I’m experiencing two problems with 5x5.
- It burns out my CNS and leaves me extremely fatigued for hours. Luckily, I have optimal recovery conditions right now and I just take a long nap to bounce back.
- It’s too much volume for my shoulder joints. They are screaming for a week off, but now is not the time.
I have no idea how people stay on 5x5 long term. I’m gonna stick with it as long as my shoulders can hang in there because its way too soon to start changing things.
Generally, I’d agree with you. But I’m slightly crazy and my current dose of Test takes me to a whole new level of masochism. If I did not have the optimal recovery conditions that I do right now, I would not be training like this. This is a short stent of seeing how hard I can push, and what kind of gains I can squeeze out of it.
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I’ve recently figured out how to modify my training without completely overhauling things. How do you feel about dumbbells? My shoulders like them better.
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I know others have had a worse time with their shoulder, but one thing that worked really well for me is 3x10-12 of a dumbbell incline press first with a slow eccentric and a pause in the bottom. It fatigues me just enough that I still get to perform at a decent level in the bench press without setting me up for long-duration pain.
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Which 5x5 template -the classic 70s/Bill Starr ones have a ‘heavy-light-medium’ setup which usually keeps you fresher
Also warm up with band pull aparts and generally do extra rear delt work and mobility etc if shoulders killing you.
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Do FST-7
Are you doing any mobilisation work or recovery to help them? I wouldn’t take time off but I’d look at starting my shoulder work with some lat stretches,Ws rotations, cheer leaders and pull aparts (with light bands and 10s pause and hard squeeze at peak contraction).
This makes an enormous difference to me.