Cheers Marv

I was thinking I could do like madcows 5x5 and do the squat volume Day on mondays with the bench and chin for an attempt at a PR, a light day on wed and then do fridays for squat PRs and volume bench and chin day.Not sure.Cheers bro.

Stress Day

Good day today, felt strong and recovered on all lifts, the 3 days off did me some good.Finally got that 3x5 on squats, I made bench reps no woriries too.I dropped the weight on chins to counter balance my weight gain and I made the 5x5.Also tried some bulgarian squats and some JM presses for tris.Felt great .Bulgarians were a truly humbling experience :biglaugh: I just did them at bodyweight and then a couple sets with the bar, great stretch.

Stress Day 24/3/08
Squats 3x5 107.5kg
Bench 4x6 75kg
Chin 5x5 BW+7.5kg
Bulgarians 3x8 BW
JM Press 3x6 40kg

Ill get vids of the JMs and Bulgarians for a form check next time I do em.

Looks good in here. I've done JM presses in the past a lot, but I've only come to like them if they're reverse banded. More mental because I always hate hearing my elbow joint grinding lol.

Yeah the JMs really hit the tris, Im sure I need work on form but they felt good nonetheless,gonna be sore tomoro!!



LOL sounds like fun!!

Good stuff Hopsky. That program sounds good too. Looking forward to the vids mate.

MaRvO.

im not a huge advocate of a 5x5 program because i like variety both in exercise selection and in rep ranges and in forms of progression, however, if you are switching routines, try and use different sorts of exercises with that program and different set-rep schemes.

for example, the original layout is here:

http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow...RE_DESCRIPTION:_

but you can tweak it into:

Monday:
Squats 5x5 Ramping weight to top set of 5 (which should equal the previous Friday's heavy triple)
Military Press 3-5x5 static weight
Pull-ups 3-5 sets to failure

Wednesday:
Deadlifts 3x3 Ramping weight to 1 top sets of 3*
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 3-4 sets of 8-10 reps
Squats First 3 sets are the same as Monday, the 4th set is repeating the 3rd set again

Friday:
Squats 4x5, 1x3, 1x8 First 4 sets are the same as Monday's, the triple is 2.5% above your Monday top set of 5, use the weight from the 3rd set for a final set of 8
Flat Bench Press 3x5 same weight
Rows 5x5 same weight

--x---

this is just an idea off the top of my head....you can do quite a lot of changes..

Thanks for the input Sentinal :biggthumpup:

Im not thinking a rapid change of routine just yet,still gonna stick with whats working for now.When my simple 3x5 squat progression dries up for good Ill make the neccessary adjustments.Ill go back to a volume day etc,I was just thinking that as things progress volume day can get really tough, and separating squat and bench volume days makes sense to me anywayz!! I also need to incorporate some extra tri work aswell as some PC stuff too.I'll post my ideas when i need to make the change,nonetheless the goals will remain the same, max strength on the squat, bench and deadlift.

Cheers mate. :)

sounds good, sir :)

Wait. Is your goal really strength foremost? Not "strength and mass"? (I know you probably want mass but I'm trying to clarify what you are REALLY going for).

Strength is ALWAYS the first preference,mass tends to come with it as long as the cals are in the diet.I just really want to hit some big ass numbers TBH.At the moment I need to drop a few pounds I am too fat LOL, so cals will be dropped VERY slowly but if the strength gains slow down or stop, Ill quite happily stay a fat bastard :biglaugh:

Light Day

Feeling real good today,did some light squats for sets of 2, real easy and I think its helping get some of the DOMS out of my glutes and hammys and quads.I hit a 5x5 PR on press to so that was sweet, I was gonna go for sets of 6 but I thought the last rep or 2 towards the later sets might suffer form wise so I just did 5s.I tried rows for the 1st time in ages also.Ill post the vid soon.

Light Day 26/3/08
Squats 4x2 70kg
Press 5x5 42.5kg
Rows 1x5 40kg 2x5 45kg

Rows felt good, I didnt do them off the floor that just feels weird to me,I tried to focus on keeping my glutes tight and my chest up.This is the 1st time I have ever felt rows in my back too.Vids coming.