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EricT · 05-15-2008, 04:52 PM

Thanks, Wids..

Honestly I don't thing people will take it to heart as long as they think that methods are the same thing as principles. I've done a lot of damage, imo, in the past, with this whole beginner, intermediate, advanced thing and I want to try to undo some of my part in that.

So like I've said several times lately the whole definition with beginner, intermediate, advanced that so many of us have passed around, based on Rippetoe and 5x5 stuff in general really only applies to that particular training model. I.E. it is how you use 5x5 if you want to make a religion out of 5x5 training...and come out with some nice injuries like shoulders and hips but to name a few...

But it's this volume mentality that I am railing against. Don't talk about STRENGTH training and then say I need to work more and more volume and frequency as I advance, lol, that is the antithesis of an advanced stregnth trainee. Basically what your are telling people is that as their neurological efficiency increases so that each and every rep takes a BIGGER toll on their abiltity to recover...they should be doing MORE VOLUME. If they can do that and survive it, ummm....they ain't so advanced as you think they are.

Take a guy who has spent a bunch time doing 8, 10, 12 or even 15 reps training in this "bodybuilding" vein for a while and put him on an "intermediate" 5x5 and he is going to get great results owed simply to the fact that he has increased intensity while allowing just enough volume to see results and also just enough volume to keep the intensity mangagable for his level of efficiency.

Hell, that guy will probably even like it better than the guy who does starting strength and then moves on to an intermediate 5x5 because it is much easier to get stronger by systematcially rasing intensity while lowering volume than it is to get stronger by raising volume while looking for ways to make it a bit heavier....the reason ramped sets on 5x5 is so popular.

But then you take that guy who has went from the typical bodybuilding routines and completed his intermediate 5x5's, if not a couple of them and you want to take him to the next level. Instead of taking that ability to work at higher intesities, to handle heavier loads with good form, and expanding on that...raising the intensity while managing everything from a recovery standpoint you do something quite ludicrous in my opinion.

You take the "5x5" reps and tell him to simply do even more of that. With a very unbalanced and overkilled appraoch. You've given him just enough strength and efficiency to make it "count" an then you have him use that strength with such a volume that you practically or certainly potentiall destroy his joints as well as simply risking all sorts of strain injuries. You also are giving him a thought process that is the bane of any one looking to increase strength as long as possible for a nice long lifting career.

You make him believe that "quantity" wins out over "quality". Everything begins to center more and more on "getting reps" by any means possible. Accruing fatigue on as a means to an end! The businees of accruing fatigue and lifting with good form are polar opposite when it comes to this.

Course I can anticipate the response so let me say it for you. "I've been doing this for years and it's always worked for me". Or "I've never had a problem". Well, to say nothing of problems, if you can do the same shtick for years with the same results you must be a magic man. Or, like most you have stopped and started, changed goals and "cut" for a while, etc. In other words you have NOT had the same goal for "years and years" that you have sought like a straight arrow. You haven't been increasing your absolute strength consistently without big breaks of detraining or emphais shift...and therefore the same "strength" things keep working because you never quite exhaust their usefullness.

On the other hand you got what 0311 termed "falling off the deep end" which is what so many do just fishing around for something different. It's all about goals and being consistent.

Anyway, the jist of what I'm saying here is that I don't think that the defintions of beginer, intermediate, and advanced STRENGTH trainees that we have been going by are an accurate depiction of reality...just a depiction of a training model. And not really a great one, I don't think.

No doubt someone will bring up strongman training, etc...again..don't confuse the methods someone uses based on their goals and fundamental principles. Strongman don't train primarily for absolute strength, dude, they need to rep out have beaucoup physical endurance. Their absolute strength training would have to match that goal and the intensities would be much higher so of course the volume would be much lower.

A lot of this is not so general as it sounds. I am basing much of it on my own experience and realizing just how many frigging reps I did for such small jumps in strength for so long when I could have made much bigger jumps without all the nagging little injuries an such I incrued by not mangaging volume as well I should have.

In summary, if your goal is strength then 5x5 is absolutely great to visit...but don't move there permanantly. Many may disagree..trust me I don't take it personally.