My goal is 2 plates shoulder press, 3 bench, 4 squat, 5 dead all for 3-4 reps and low body fat like 11%, aesthetics and strength/size. I’d like to remain athletic.
The 20 years has had three gaps, 4, 4, and 2 years where working out was an afterthought at best. I’ve been back at it for 1 year since last 2 year gap.
Also looked into the 531 and I’ll try it but don’t really like going so low of reps for joint health
That is why ai suggested the “idea” or philosophy around Wendler’s 5-3-1 program you could do sets of 8 reps, e.g.
Bench Press
Week 1 185lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 2 195lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 3 205lba for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 4 165lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 1 195lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 2 205lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 3 215lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 4 165lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
Week 1 205lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps, and so on
Once you cannot perform 8 reps on the first set of a Week 3 workout, change to 4 sets of 6 reps in like manner. Start a little low so the first four week block is fairly easy.
Then go back to 3 sets of 8 reps.
(These are working sets. All warm up sets are not counted.)
You’re not gonna hit those numbers or, as you say, plates doing high reps. There’s a reason why strength is (mostly) best built by doing sets of 5 or lower. You can increase intensity without muscle fatigue being the main limiting factor. Also, you’re body will not want to lift heavy weight if it’s not accustomed to doing so.
Your joints will be fine and likely get stronger if you have your form nailed down.
…
So, uhh, what is “low reps” to you?
Just use percentages to calculate what his any weight at any rep. Using 2% per rep, which is typical for non powerlifters. If a person can squat 400lbs for 10 reps it can easily be calculated what he can do 5 reps. It would calculate to 450lbs for 5 reps, or a max single of 500lbs.
Spot on and I can vouch. My leg days includes squatting 405x10 and any given week I can single 500lbs.
I’ve done 2, 4, 5, and 6 for one rep. A little more on 5 and 6. For me, I’ve found using different rep ranges helps. My ohp is weak lol, but I haven’t trained it much compared to bench.
I do find that low reps don’t help me as much as others. Low reps being 4 and below. I’ve got 1 rm PRs during volume phases (6-10 reps), I was being stupid and hitting a max, haha. I still think low is worth while from time to time.
Part of this game is finding what works for you. Some do well with low, some medium, some high, and some combo. I sounds like based on your posts that some lower would help. Even medium (5ish).
I’ve never found that this method works for me and a bunch of other guys I trained with. Basically if all I was doing were reps of 8+, when I tried a calculated 1rm I was not mentally prepared for the feel of that weight on my back or in my hands. The adaptation just did not translate to my 1rm.
What I basically do now is a series of reps in the hypertrophy range (8-12) and a few in the ‘strength range’ (3-5). For example, yesterday on bench I did 2 sets of 5, 2 sets of 7 and one set of 9 (obviously lowering the weight for every other set). Similar goes for squat and deadlift. I keep machine work and other isolation work anywhere from 8 to 12 reps. This is seemingly working for me and I’m seeing an increase in numbers and aesthetics.
I guess 4 is low reps 
I feel I do well with 8-10 hard and 4-6 to failure
Thats impressive as fuck!!
I think your cycle lay out is way too complicated. It does not make sense to switch in between.
Second, if you’ve not been training properly and you want to gain back and lose some fat, there’s no need for this many compounds. Do a test only cycle in that case, it suffices and spares your health.
I don’t know what you mean by all three receptors.
So… at my peak my metric for bench was
“good”
Squat between “decent” and “good”
Deadlift was “great” (with straps), “good” without
Dips were “great”
I suppose these standards are acceptable, but I’ll give you my brief perspective. As of 2022 it is an undisputable fact that anabolic steroids are pretty bad for you.
They’re particularly bad for your heart, kidneys, liver (orals) and brain, though some genetic anomalies can get away with extensive abuse and get out unscathed. I’d be willing to wager 99% of T-nation members do not and have never made a significant amount of money through their physique or degree of athletic prowess nor are they involved with any sport on a professional level.
With this being said, the vast majority of use falls into the “recreational” category. From MY perspective, if someone is asking for validation from others over whether to pull the trigger for this then they aren’t ready. However, the fact that people do come on these types of forums asking for validation isn’t a bad thing as many haven’t the slightest clue as to what they’re actually doing. Asking on these forums can prevent a lot of undue damage.
That is all, I could go further but I feel bad for derailing this dude’s thread.
Whenever someone asks me about anabolic steroids in person, almost irrespective of who they are I pivot towards telling the individual to stay away from them as the juice probably isn’t worth the squeeze. MOST people with a relevant knowledge base as to how bad anabolic steroids actually are for you won’t want to take them.
Those who still wish to go ahead, great. It ought to be known the most common first presentation of serious toxicity induced by AAS is sudden cardiac death in otherwise previously asymptomatic people.
He’s probably thinking about the classes of compounds
Assuming he wants testosterone, 19-nor/19 nor derivative and perhaps a DHT derived oral.
I like your whole comment on this, and i agree with your way of thinking, and i also agree with the end of the comment which i quoted as the last quote.
I however land on the other side of beliefs. As of 2022 absolutely everything is bad for you. You have a deep interest in AAS field but i know people with similar interests in different things like foods and natural supplements, all the woman-beauty stuff, tanning, etc. Everyone will say how much different stuff kills you and you probably, without knowing, regulary do or consume a few of these “deadly” things or substances.
We had this huge BOOM of “E-thingies” that are added to foods and explaining how many of em kill you, give you cancer or whatever. For a few years, everyone in this country walked around with a list of deadly “E’s” and comparing that list to everything they buy. I believe even some toothpastes were super unhealthy because of something they had in em and how that thing absorbed through your gums and kills you.
So my problem with this is that we concentrate on steroid topic, but for example, we ignore the “E’s” or toxins in some vegetables and many people believe that they kill you just as much as steroids do. So which one actually did it?
As far as i know in my experience, doctors like to blame the “muscle stuff”. My ex GF was a doctor and she actually did study in one of the best medicine school in Europe. She comes home one day and says how the doctor in the lecture said how he saw a bodybuilder with ruined liver because of protein powder.
When i was a kid, we had this one crazy dude who wanted to do an experiment, and he went to a doctor and said he is losing eyesight and he is taking Stanazolol. Doctor immeditelly said he has to stop the stanazolol because that is why he is going blind.
Well, sure he wasnt going blind nor he was taking stanazolol. The doctor didnt even care, he just found the element he tought is the easiest to blame even tho steroids should have nothing to do with eyes.
Its like saying i broke my leg but i have been eating 50 carrots a day lately, so i probably broke my leg because of the unnatural amount of carrots in my diet. Medicine works this way - they shoot for the biggest target first.
I am sure all the shitty studies done are based on principles like these.
In 2022 there are more people taking steroids than ever. I have never in my life known anyone who has had any problems or knows anyone who has.
I was just googling for statistics and couldnt find any. Some study said - 19 steroid related deaths, but i didnt really understand it so whatever.
Anyways, from all the people who take steroids…all the hundreds of thousands of people who take em… how many % of them are dying?
In fact, a known strongman in here died the night after covid vaccine and they actually did blame the vaccine, even tho steroids could have been just as much of a reason, but…his wife didnt mention em, so must be the vaccine.
Statistically, sooner or later, everyone who had the vaccine will be dead. Does it mean that their cause of death is because of the vaccine?
Anyways i agree with you telling people not to take stuff. I also do that, i just have different reason - i believe most people are not serious enough to gain anything from it.
Statistically, smoking kills the most people. Even if steroids were tied with smoking, i dont think it is enough reason to not take em, if you want to, because even tho smoking related deaths are the highest amount, i know lots of smokers, my parents included who still live in their 60s without any problems and i actually dont know anyone who has died because of smoking. So the probability of ever being connected with a steroid related death is even lower.
edit, just googled stuff :
" Over an average follow-up of 7.4 years, there were seven (1.3 percent) deaths among users of androgenic anabolic steroids"
“The study of more than 200,000 people, published this week in BMC medicine, found about 67 percent of smokers perished from smoking-related illness”
1.3% vs 67%… Doesnt this mean that you would most probably die just by working somewhere where some people smoke, than you would if you blast gear for decades?
Could you link that study? It looks interesting.
II just googled either “% deaths steroid users” or “% deaths smokers”…Didnt go much deeper, i just wanted approximate numbers. Even if the steroid users die twice as much, and smokers twice as less, it still doesnt make that a serious problem.
For most all exercises but the deadlift, this is an easy fix using accommodating resistance. Example: The Squat: occasionally add 10 to 20% of your target weight in chains and/or bands to a weight that gives you a little over the target weight you want to hit for a max. When you pull the weight out of the rack you will feel more weight than your target weight. Granted the resistance decreases as you descend, but the shock of the weight is removed. You will be accustomed to it.
The deadlift is different in that you start from the floor. In that case rack pulls can help with holding heavier weight than your target deadlift max.
Lots of ways to skin that cat. Holds with squat or bench can work. Some people do things like a high box squat or a board press to get the feeling of more weight. As you said, accommodating resistance.
These type of things are very rough for me though. My body just becomes very awake if I do things to overload a lift. I bought a slingshot for benching and I couldn’t sleep basically every time after using it. Kinda sucks. I only got like 3 uses out of it. I just have to stick with getting stronger by using volume, or lift a lot earlier in the day (which is tough with a day job).
If I max out on a lift, I have like a 25% chance of being able to fall asleep that night.
@anon18050987 do you happen to have any data on how many % of all long term steroid users have serious issues?
Most studies i have seen focus on small focus groups or just horror stories about 1 individual. It would be more useful to know actual % of deaths, like we know how it is with smoking, so we can compare it.