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Yeah, I'm not sure if body weight has something to do with it or not since I'm up 30lbs from when I started, so that could be part of the problem. But it's driving me insane that I'm not progressing, and I feel like I'm missing out on back development. I hate rows, but atleast I can gauge them.

You can try switching to chin-up grip at the end to get some more reps. You could try adding some negatives to the end also (maybe just on the last pull-up workout before the weekend) in order to get more work. And of course you could do rows one day and pull-ups another.

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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

Added another 5 to the squat today. Felt good, but had a few that weren't quite perfect. Think I'll add 5 more on Wed since I was exhausted today and then see if I need to back off a little. Also added 10 to the Dead and changed the Dips to the same 3x5 scheme with a little more weight. So I'm happy with today considering I wasn't expecting much going in. Just wish the results would show in my upper body a little. My ass and thighs have exploded in size, but I still feel/look puny in the chest and arms. :( The gut's put some size on too, but I'd rather be putting more in than not enough right now. I'll worry about cutting when I reach 210.

Workout A
Squat
3x5 - 180lbs

Bench
3x5 - 145lbs

Dead
1x5 - 225lbs

Dips +15lbs
3x5

Tops, I've been thinking a lot about this issue of "quality" that is always coming up in SS. I know we've had exstensive discussions about this.

People recognize fairly easily the issue of quality over quantity when they consider banging out reps to failure. You tell them training is not about just inducing fatigue and they can grasp that fairly easily. But when you have a "system" like this or general 5x5 routines you start to get into a grey area. The question is whether it is just about getting the volume in or is it about getting quality volume in? I know this has come up for you plenty of times.

Well for me, keeping extensive written notes and having done MANY 5x5's I have begun to believe that when you start losing quality for the sake of quantiy it becomes much harder to regain that quality. Even forgetting about the obvious breakdown of technique as people load the bar just the simple slowing down of the bar for me has usually spelled a very up and down ineffecient progress when it comes to long term. Although I recognize that I myself might have been served to take some planeed recovery whether I felt I needed it or not (but that's another discussion).

The way I do my training now, quality is built in as a primary objective. It's not planning it just falls in with the way I do things. But that wasn't always the case. A lot of the 5x5 I did was decidedly sucky quality!

You said that on the squat you got the reps but you had a few that weren't quite perfect. But you are going to go ahead and add 5 lbs. Could be no problem if you were very tired or whatever but chances are you'll find some of the reps being bad....

I'm going to go out on a limb and make a radical suggestion. It won't hurt you to try this I believe it could make all the difference. It involves a leap of faith and a change in philosophy.

Instead of banging away as the bar slows down and technique goes to shit, then "deloading" hoping to regain progress and quality, try to maintain quality in the first place. See I actually believe that those last few crappy reps we all tend to do aren't always helping as much as we believe.

Let me insert a caveat before I go into it. I do think that getting that last impossilbe rep sometimes can be helpful. I could be wrong about this but let's just say I don't believe in extremes so I'm not talking about making "quality" a very dogmatic thing. Like in other words if bar speed isn't always maintained it doesn't count. I would never insert absolute limits on things like that so lets just call this a "tool" that may be helpful for everyone if they use it judiciously.

My thinking is this: The next time you come to that point where you judge the bar is going to move extra slow and form is going to break down....BEFORE that happens instead of just muddling through and banging out those last reps with poor form or simply failing altogther, STOP. Rerack, rest and try to get ALL the rest of the prescribed reps even if you only do triples or doubles. Especially is you would have otherwise had the last reps being bad ones and still not even have gotten all the reps. I am talking about getting ALL your reps but having them all be as fast and perfect as possible. Then see what happens the next time you are under the bar with the same weight.

Of course I'm not just making all this up out of my own twisted head. Many very succesful coaches actually take this "quality" thing a lot further than I am taking it here. I think Stahley was the first one who really got me thinking about this a while ago but since then guys like Plisk and many others have reinforced some of it for me. Sorry for the long post and of course I understand if you are not interested in trying any of this but I put it here for you and everone else doing this.

No Eric, I TOTALLY appreciate the info, you know that. Being a little older and wiser now at 35, I really take form seriously since I know what kind of damage can happen if I get sloppy. Your post makes a lot of sense and I'm going to keep that in the front of my mind for now on. I still think I can add the 5lbs next workout as the few bad reps I was talking about was more about lack of focus instead of sloppiness. I had 1 rep in the middle of a set that for some reason instead of doing a full squat, I did that ridiculous lean over move to make the bar feel lower, you know what I mean. And 1 rep where I felt my right knee move way in. As soon as I realized it, I corrected myself on both mistakes. Now you have me thinking though, if I ever do that again, should I not count those reps and just add another in that set if possible? I'm kinda at an odd spot right now, I spent weeks at 160, but now I've added 20lbs in the last 4 sessions. So I'm trying to find the correct weight were I can keep the proper form, but am pushing myself at the same time. I think I spent too much time before looking for the "perfect" form, where now I'm looking for the proper form. That post does have me thinking now though and I'm really going to make sure everything is being done properly.

You express yourself very well. It really makes it easy to discuss these things.

Yeah, I know you always have this in mind which is why I mentoned it to you specifically even though everyone doing this routine has the same problems. I'm not talking about throwing out the tenants of the routine of course. The whole point of it is simple progression and loading the bar.

You talked about losing focus and whether they "count". Maybe not. Regardless, in a general sense there is a point of diminishing returns when we focus solely on reps and sets. I know for myself that during periods where I became solely concerned with getting the volume in at all costs it coincided with bad recovery, aches, pains, and LESS overall progression. If you think about it this is the step before the statement you made the damage of getting sloppy. But even beyond that there is the simply question the training affect.

You take a certain high intensity and if a lot of good quality work could be done in a certain time frame then great. But you know most of the time the focus is on just getting the work done in that time frame and not on the quality of it (technique, speed, etc). So, at that same intensity what is going to do better? 25 reps with half of them being shit reps. Or 25 high quality reps that just so happen to be triple or doubles if quality coudn't be maintained doing 5x5 for instance. Obviously this is a general question and not a debate about 5x5 training vs. other things.

I usually had a habit during this type of training to get my reps in regardless. Say if I only got 21 reps I would get those last reps in by rest pausing. But a lot of the time I did this after it all turned to shit not before. I've certainly noticed better overall progress when more of my training was of a quality nature so what if I had focused more on that sometimes during more set routines like 5x5? ESPECIALLY since a lot of my time has traditionally been spent going back and fixing things I "broke" during that type of training.

Here's a good example. Look at some of the training where people do max work and speed work and maybe RE work. And especially these so called hybrid routines where you try to do 5x5 work couple with other advanced things. You have a lot of days focused on volume where half the time you're grining out a bunch of sloppy super-slow shit. Then maybe you try to make up for that by doing "speed work". The idea being that you train two different "qualities" of strength at separate times. Now I'm not saying that is not ever valid or useful but what if more of that heavy work was done with the better technique and in a fresher state where you were going as fast as possible instead of in a fatigued and sloppy state where most of your fast twitch fibers already went on vacation anyway? Just a thought.

This is turning into a great discussion guys, gives you a lot to think about.Quality over quantity, but also what constitutes quality, is it bar speed is it feeling the muscles work more? certainly gets the mind ticking over anyways.

Myself, I tend to count reps that are slow or very hard, but never for example a squat where the weight is sent over my toes, that would get called a miss in my books, and Id repeat at that weight next time (as much as I hate to do that!!)

Good read any how thanks guys.

It is an interesting discussion. Been thinking about it all night. I truly believe I'm still keeping proper form at this point, but I'm really going to take notice over the next few workouts. Eric said he got sloppy during 5x5's and had to go back and fix things he broke during it which is interesting. After read SS I realized that everything, and I mean everything I was doing was wrong. So I think between that book and the help I got from here, I'm as proper as I can be without a coach/partner. But bar speed is something I've never thought about much. I thought speed was only important during the lowering portion of the lift. Can the speed be too slow on the way back up even if proper form is kept? Or are you saying that if the bar speed is too slow, then your working with more weight than ideal? Either way, I think I'm going to start doing re-do's for bad reps.

I'll get back into it later, but I think you are reading more into it than what I'm saying and I certainly wouldn't want you to dwell on it unduly. Progress is progress within certain bounds and it is always a judgement call to figure out those bounds but I don't think you are anywhere near the bounds that many regularly trod over.

Well bar speed is something you "pay attention to" doing SS or any of this kind of thing. But that is not the same as the extreme version of what I am saying.

If you take it to it's extreme then "quality" would mean that you strived to have your last rep as good as your first (good) rep. So with the same perfect form and the same speed. Obviously to try to do that with SS would just be throwing out the baby with the bath water. But that doesn't mean you can't pay a little more attention to quality as a means sustaind progression.

Usually the thing about bar speed is something along the lines of your last three or so reps being very slow so then maybe you decide to hold the weight over (most won't). Basically you have a "reactive" way of training instead of a "proactive". Hell this is the way most people injur themselves. They wait until they fuck up and "react" instead of paying attention and taking a proactive role. So it's the same way with bar speed and form. You wait until it goes to shit and then you "react" by holding over the weight or backing off or whatever the circumstances dictate. Reactive.

Proactive would be paying attention and learning to anticipate what is going to happen on that next rep or the next few reps and taking measures to have that next rep be as good and quick as the one before just like I was explaining. That is difficult to do but it can be learned.

Let's take an easier example. Your on you second set and the last two reps barely go up. Your form sucks and it is a complete grinder. So that's ten reps with two of them sucking. Then you take your rest and manage to get one more shitty rep in. sMaybe two. So 11 or 12 total reps. And then you hold the weight over. And maybe you get some more reps but a lot of them suck as well. Then before you know it even if you advance in weight you need a backoff.

Okay so what if in that same scenario you're on your second set. You get to rep three and you know that your form is about to break down and the bar has begun to slow down. So instead of pounding out two crappy slow reps you rerack, rest a short time and then you get both of those reps good. Then you take a good rest and you get two or three more good ones for you last set. Another rest and you do the next double good too (maybe a little farfetched but possible). Who can tell me that those 15 good reps aren't better than those 11 or 12 reps with three shitty ones.

You're recovery will be pretty much the same. Then you hold the weight over and see what happens. What is wrong with that? You've actually done more reps at the same intensity and all of those reps of a higher quality. Who can tell me that is not a good thing?

Traditionally we think of getting a certain number of reps and sets done in a certain period of time. We have these notions of rest periods and all that. You even get people making ridiculous rules like only ever rest two minutes. And of course doing more or the same work in less time is a way of progressing. BUT that is progress. At any given time and any given intensity, I could argue that more reps is more reps.

If you take Stahley for an expample and his escalation density stuff you would pick a weight and work on doing as many reps as possible in a given time frame. Like 20 minutes. Then you would work on reducing that time in subsequent workouts. At least that is how the "hypertrophy" protocal works, I'm not really sure about the strength part. But, that kind of thing will make you stronger and bigger up to a point.

But look at the time frame of 20 minutes and compare that to the time frame you would do your typical 5x5 exercise. It's a lot more time. You will be able to do a lot more reps. There have been studies comparing different rest periods and the number of reps subjects can do with a certain RM given these different rests. And of course between 1 minute rest periods and 5 minutes rest periods the 5 minute ones did like 6 to 8 more reps (I should note that the difference between 1 and 2 minutes turned out to be pretty much nonsignificant).

Ok so you could argue that it took a lot more time to do that and that would be valid since "in theory" the amount of work done in a given unit of time is what is important. But I could argue that they did 6 more reps with their 6RM and also "in theory" more reps done at a certain intensity may be a very important way of gaining strength. So like everything not the only way but not something that should be discounted. Especially if you took that initial period and reduced it.

But this is all given by way of illustrating my point. To take this and try to apply it in some type of rigid way to SS would be ridiculous as I said before. But I could give many example of how this applies to all sorts of training scenarios. Like instead of doing a heavy 3x3 you could pick 90 to 95% and just try to do as many GOOD reps as possible, regardless if that is singles, doubles, or triples. Try either one of those and I guarantee the second one is going to serve you better. That is not to say that I think all traing should be like that, I'm just talking about a tool that not many ever seem to consider.