StrongLifts 5x5

thkelly

Now, I don’t want to open up the bicep can of worms again, but you don’t have to train in isolation to work biceps/triceps. chin-ups and dips would be a much better alternatives for those specific muscles and would provide additional benefits since they are still a compound movement.

Read an old article by Rippetoe on T-Nation (great site, btw) and I get the feeling that he's not really a fan of curls. The workout he was suggesting included deadlifts & chins for bicep work with (surprisingly) no bent rows (power cleans were substitutes to help deadlift). He made a comment to the effect of "if you HAVE to do curls (implying it was more of an ego or a 'want' vs necessity thing) do them at 'x' time and get them over with."

He makes similar comments in Starting Strength. And no he is not a fan of barbell rows, I think they balance out the bench press nicely though since it is the exact opposite movement pattern.

Agreed. I have no problem with power cleans either but I'm getting enough workload from this program so I'm not adding them.

Power cleans are fantastic and are a great way to increase your deadlift. The power you build from cleans will translate into slower movements but the strength you build with slower movements does not translate (as mush) to faster movements.

i love power cleans, but they are definitely an exercise where you need to get your technique down before you can increase your weight. i don't feel like you can make gains at the same pace as you can with the other lifts.
it also helps to have an olympic platform. i notice once i get over 185 lbs it's pretty taxing to lower the weight in a controlled manner if i'm not using a platform that i can just drop the weights from shoulder level.

myofibril

Hahahaha...lifting "bro-grams"

Gotta love 'em:

thkelly

Hahahaha...lifting "bro-grams"

Gotta love 'em:

this place is so full of broscience it's an epidemic some days.

typical forum post
OP
"i need help with "X" can anyone help me?"

Helpful Poster #1
"i don't know the answer, but my guess would be "blah blah blah"

Helpful Poster #2
"well my cousin's brother's friend is a trainer and he says to do this, this and that"

then finally someone comes in with some correct advice and 20 posts later some idiot comes in and offers the same bro science advice that posters #1 and #2 offered.

myofibril

this place is so full of broscience it's an epidemic some days.

typical forum post
OP
"i need help with "X" can anyone help me?"

Helpful Poster #1
"i don't know the answer, but my guess would be "blah blah blah"

Helpful Poster #2
"well my cousin's brother's friend is a trainer and he says to do this, this and that"

then finally someone comes in with some correct advice and 20 posts later some idiot comes in and offers the same bro science advice that posters #1 and #2 offered.

Yeah mate, it's a tough one. It's made all the more difficult in that most people seem to judge the post not by the quality of the advice given but rather the popularity of the opinion (which in many cases is sadly lacking..)

There's no answer to it. Still at least threads like these which support solid, well establised, training principles are knocking about and hopefully people will question whether what they have been told is actually right by seeing them.

"The Strongest Shall Survive" You better believe it...

End6ame

this place is so full of broscience it's an epidemic some days.

typical forum post
OP
"i need help with "X" can anyone help me?"

Helpful Poster #1
"i don't know the answer, but my guess would be "blah blah blah"

Helpful Poster #2
"well my cousin's brother's friend is a trainer and he says to do this, this and that"

then finally someone comes in with some correct advice and 20 posts later some idiot comes in and offers the same bro science advice that posters #1 and #2 offered.

This is so true. I get so irritated with all of the bro-science on here. The worst part is that some of it comes from certified trainers. I am at the point where the only certification that I respect is the CSCS.

Furrytreats

Switching over to SL5x5 from the New Rules of Lifting program. NROL lifts were getting way to gimmicky moving through the stages.

Back to absolute basics (that WORK).

I've been doing NROL as well and came upon this. I'm going to read into and think I may switch at some point. I am enjoying NROL, but I think doing this one will help me track my progress better.

tgh1914

Thanks Grg, for pointing me to this thread. I am about to start the SL5x5 method soon. I asked Mehdi a couple questions but haven't heard back so I thought I'd post em here for y'alls response. I gonna just straight paste it below:


1) How do I eat??? I've read thru the 5x5 report, at least I think I covered it all so if I just missed something I apologize. But I don't see where it really talks about how I should eat. I just see references to guys saying be sure to drink your milk. And I see some recommendations to eat at least 3,000 cals. Isn't there more to the eating than this? And I'm not sure how I feel about a one-size-fits-all 3,000 cal number. I've been counting cals, & macro nutrients, for quite some time now and I do realize that I need to be in a caloric surplus to gain size & bulk like I'd like to only eat as much as I have to & keep the leanness I've reached over the last year. But do you have any nutritional instruction anywhere? Am I just not seeing it?

I also went back to your site & read this link: http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-diet-muscle-gains-strength-building-fat-loss/ . It's good info, but I guess I was thinking there'd be more instruction like a chart or calculator to determine how much I should be eating. Is there anything like that?

2) Can I do some cardio? For quite some time now I've been doing running about 3x per week & basketball once or twice per week and I just finished my 3rd round of P90X. I love the cardio I've been doing and would have a hard time completely giving up B-ball & running. What do you think about me playing Bball once a week & running maybe once a week, on off days? Would that hinder me much? I REALLY don't want to lose the cardio conditioning I've gained. I'm signed up for a 10 mile obstacle course race in October (toughmudder.com) and want to be very ready for it.

Your responses are appreciated.

chrisdavey

tharrop:
1.If you have lost weight already, then check the reports for your gross and net cals to find the average. Basically add some back in, depending on the results and the avg. weight loss you achieved. If you know your maintenance cals with minimal exercise then this will help. Anything above that is required to gain weight. Obviously you don't want to gain it back too fast as the body can only create a certain amount of muscle and the rest will be fat gain. I personally think 1lb per week is a good goal.

2. Other cardio is fine and IMO should be done as well for general fitness. If you wanted to be a powerlifter then it wouldn't make too much sense but for the majority of people it's fine. And if you want to gain weight, then remember that you can eat more on these cardio days also.

I am pretty big on carb cycling so I like to increase carbs on workout days (mainly post workout) and limit them on off days. That is what works for me.

End6ame

Thanks Grg, for pointing me to this thread. I am about to start the SL5x5 method soon. I asked Mehdi a couple questions but haven't heard back so I thought I'd post em here for y'alls response. I gonna just straight paste it below:


1) How do I eat??? I've read thru the 5x5 report, at least I think I covered it all so if I just missed something I apologize. But I don't see where it really talks about how I should eat. I just see references to guys saying be sure to drink your milk. And I see some recommendations to eat at least 3,000 cals. Isn't there more to the eating than this? And I'm not sure how I feel about a one-size-fits-all 3,000 cal number. I've been counting cals, & macro nutrients, for quite some time now and I do realize that I need to be in a caloric surplus to gain size & bulk like I'd like to only eat as much as I have to & keep the leanness I've reached over the last year. But do you have any nutritional instruction anywhere? Am I just not seeing it?

I also went back to your site & read this link: http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-diet-muscle-gains-strength-building-fat-loss/ . It's good info, but I guess I was thinking there'd be more instruction like a chart or calculator to determine how much I should be eating. Is there anything like that?

2) Can I do some cardio? For quite some time now I've been doing running about 3x per week & basketball once or twice per week and I just finished my 3rd round of P90X. I love the cardio I've been doing and would have a hard time completely giving up B-ball & running. What do you think about me playing Bball once a week & running maybe once a week, on off days? Would that hinder me much? I REALLY don't want to lose the cardio conditioning I've gained. I'm signed up for a 10 mile obstacle course race in October (toughmudder.com) and want to be very ready for it.

Your responses are appreciated.

As far as nutrition is concerned focus on eating clean whole foods. Try and get at least 1g of protein per 1lb of lean body mass. Eat pleanty of fruits and vegetables, ideally with every meal. And drink your milk. 

As far as calories, use MFP (they use the Mifflin formula which is fairly accurate) and set it to gain 1 or 2lbs per week, which every you feel most comfortable with. 

A little cardio is not going to hurt you, I would try and keep it to no more than 30 minutes though and basketball once or twice a week shouldn't be a big deal either. 

For all of the above the best advice it to just experiment. Start with a small calorie surplus and slowly increase it and do your cardio until you notice it impacting your recovery then back it off until both are in balance. It is really a game of trial and error. 

End6ame

I am pretty big on carb cycling so I like to increase carbs on workout days (mainly post workout) and limit them on off days. That is what works for me.

I second this. I only eat fruit, vegetable and milk carbs on off days and reserve starches and grains for workout days, ideally post workout only. 

hroush

tharrop

This link is also helpful:

http://stronglifts.com/fat-loss-101-how-to-lose-fat-fast-with-free-fat-loss-diets/

If you check out #5, it mentions a cardio routine, which I started to follow.

This page also mentions carb cycling as well and is what greg describes.

BR1986FB

I believe Mehdi is either on vacation or not fielding questions for awhile. Saw that posted somewhere.

hroush

I believe Mehdi is either on vacation or not fielding questions for awhile. Saw that posted somewhere.

Yes, he's taking the summer off, only maintaining the site, and maybe answering a few questions. It's in the "I quit" message on the website.

lclarkjr

I've just completed my 2nd week of SL 5x5 and I am really enjoying doing the compound lifts. I started with only the bar on all the exercises except the deadlift as I wanted to start slow in order to learn the proper form. Of all the exercises in the SL 5x5 routine, I would have to say my favorite is the squat. Maybe it's because you squat on each workout day, but I always feel good doing them. On top of the SL 5x5, I have been doing my usual running. With my schedule now, I run after I lift weights. Since the squats are taxing I have noticed that my running mileage has decreased these last two weeks since I started SL 5x5. My total weekly mileage is at about 88% of what it was before and my long run mileage has decreased to only 75-85% of what is was before. Of course I could always slow down to get more mileage, but that's really not my goal at this time. After these two weeks, I am thinking I can get through the end of August before I will have to put SL 5x5 on the back burner. I start marathon training again in the second week of August and by September I will be into the longer runs so my focus will have to shift from SL to running. That should put me about 9 weeks into the SL 5x5 program and I plan on picking it up again after my race in December.

corpus_validum

You guys got a good thread going on here.

Though I'd mention a recent article on T-Nation by Mark Rippetoe that supports a basic, linear program like SL 5x5 for beginners. For more advanced lifters, it also serves as a good refresher on a basic weightlifting principle.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_biggest_training_fallacy_of_all

hroush

You guys got a good thread going on here.

Though I'd mention a recent article on T-Nation by Mark Rippetoe that supports a basic, linear program like SL 5x5 for beginners. For more advanced lifters, it also serves as a good refresher on a basic weightlifting principle.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_biggest_training_fallacy_of_all

nice article.

BR1986FB

You guys got a good thread going on here.

Though I'd mention a recent article on T-Nation by Mark Rippetoe that supports a basic, linear program like SL 5x5 for beginners. For more advanced lifters, it also serves as a good refresher on a basic weightlifting principle.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_biggest_training_fallacy_of_all

Haha...just read that article last night before you posted it.

On a side note, is it just me or as you get heavier in the bent rows do they seem to blow you up (get winded) almost as bad as squats?

hroush

On a side note, is it just me or as you get heavier in the bent rows do they seem to blow you up (get winded) almost as bad as squats?

Haven't had that problem. Squats and deadlifts will get me sweating and breathing hard, but haven't had that with the arms. I am pretty much maxxed on arms, but my arms just kind of give up towards the end. With rows I have to "explode" up in order to get the bar to my chest, so I get through it fairly quickly, which probably also helps.

chrisdavey

The thing I don't like about heavy rows is that you have to do it explosively and I prefer to use a lighter weight and really hold it at the top for a short break as I am sqeezing the scapulas together.

BR1986FB

Wednesday will be my last day on the 5x5. I start Wendler's 5/3/1 on Saturday.