My goal is to build a considerable amount of strength without gaining too much size as i am as big as i wish to be currently. My first cycle will be 400mg Test E/WK & i am wondering what strength program you would recommend for my cycle. I am currently running 5/3/1 but feel that the program does not move fast enough for the sudden strength gains my first cycle will provide. I have also run 5x5 in the past. Any suggestions?
I want to bring up my bench press the most by far btw. Bench is my weakest of the main 3 by far.
In Mark bell’s voice “How much ya bench?”
Lolol. Do not judge as i have had dislocating shoulder issues in the past which have held me back & i doubt i come close to any of you folks that have ever powerlifted before. but here are my lifts…
Bench - 240
Squat - 415
Deadlift - 435
Body weight - 180 lbs ~13% body fat
I’m no expert, but honestly I don’t think you’re strong enough to worry about running gear aside from philosophical issues.
How tall and old are you, and years training?
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You will gain size if you take test. I’d suggest go educate yourself a LOT more before you run anything.
If you wanna get stronger without size; singles, doubles and triples.
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Well, 5/3/1 is autoregulated to some extent so if you jut use “joker sets” on a regular basis that would make room for sudden strength gains, you could follow that up with the standard AMRAP set. Maybe don’t do singles for the joker sets either, 5’s and 3’s could work too.
Also, you aren’t particularly strong at the moment and I’m willing to bet you don’t have great technique. 5’s progression is another option. You do 5’s for all the work sets and you can make 10% jumps beyond that for sets of 5 up to a heavy top set for the day. Then you could go back to your planned top set and do 5x5 or something like that for some extra volume. If your maxes move up significantly in a short time then increase your training maxes at the end of the 5/3/1 cycle.
Any other options that don’t require a coach would either involve RPE or you would have to be able to write your own program, which probably wouldn’t work too great at the moment.
If you want bench gains more than anything then bench twice a week (or more). OHP is not a competition lift, don’t treat it as such.
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As if anyone is as big as they wish to be lel.
Your first cycle is gonna make you bigger and stronger. By how much we can’t really say.
If you truly want to stay the same size-ish but get stronger than this is the wrong approach. Look at better programming, improving technique and optimizing recovery/diet instead
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I agree with the others, the test is going to be good for adding size and strength.
You are fairly lean if what you say is true. You can get a bit stronger by becoming more efficient, but long term you will need to get bigger to keep getting stronger.
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So open question.
If you don’t have enough training experience under your belt to know what kind of training does and doesn’t work for you / for your goals, are you really in a place where you should be considering a cycle?
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What’s wrong with just continuing to lift naturally and let the strength gains come that way? Why are you in a hurry? Do you just want to be able to say “I bench (insert random number here”? Is it simply to feed your ego?