My 5x5 Journey

My 5x5 Journey

I have called this my 5x5 journey, as that’s what it is, although I actually read about it from other sources before I came across Stronglifts. I am a fan of Stronglifts.com - it is a brilliant website - but Mendi did not invent this way of training, nor does he claim to; strength training has always been heavy for low reps. In 1976, Bill Star wrote a strength training programme for American football players which was basically Stronglifts but based around percentages of your 1RM (one rep max), which is what the Wendler 531 does. All of these different programmes and routines are based on the foundation that performing big multi-joint exercises with a heavy weight for a low number of reps will increase strength, and in turn, muscle mass. More muscle mass leads to a higher muscle:fat ratio and a faster metabolism. All this comes from doing one of the BIG four (shoulder press, squat, bench press and dead lift) two to three times a week. Simples.  

I was planning on competing in a natural body building contest last year, but with our first baby being due a month after the show date I thought it best to use my time more wisely and build some quality muscle. This is what I looked like lean before I began my 5x5 training.

 

 

I was 10st 6lb here (67kg), and although I was happy with my condition, you couldn't really tell that I trained when I had clothes on. I needed to put on some muscle mass and add some shape to my legs. I wanted to do this in a healthy way, by eating good clean food and creating a slight calorie excess on training days and the following day, in order to maximise muscle growth. I have never understood why people seem to eat more on the day they are training, but then not on the following day - how can your body recover if it is not given enough fuel?

So, onto the training part. To explain what I mean by following a 5x5 programme, my lifts at the time were as follows:

Squat: 80kg 5x5  1RM 95kg

Bench: 80kg 5x5 1RM 100kg

Shoulder press: 5x5 25kg dumbbells (due to a shoulder injury I couldn’t perform a barbell shoulder press)

Dead Lifts 5x5 80kg 1RM 100kg

So my lifts were all over the place! I had a bench bigger than my squat for a start, so alarm bells were ringing and I needed to do something about this!

Warm-ups always consisted of:

1x5 @40% of 1RM

1x5 @50%

1x3 @60%

Then working sets

The weight I would be using to warm up would be always changing as my 1RM increased. I found this App - Ibarloader - very helpful - it is easy to use, and saves time!

I had a good constant 3 months hitting the 5x5 routine, either A or B 3-4 times a week, and at the end of each session I did chins or dips. I never really train abs, but if I do its weighted rope crunches, as heavy as I can manage.

5x5 Workout A	5x5 Workout B
Squat 5x5	Squat 5x5
Bench Press 5x5	Overhead Press 5x5
Barbell Rows 5x5	Deadlift 5x5

Making sure I started light was extremely beneficial. It gave me a good few sessions to get my form spot on, which helped me in the long run when I got the heavy end of my training. I always made sure I added 2.5kg in total to the bar regardless, so, even If I only just managed 5x5 squats with 90kg, the next session would be 92.5kg. I would just grit my teeth and crack on. For the most past I would succeed, but nobody can keep adding weight every session without hitting a plateau. When this happened I would knock 10% off and start again. In hindsight, I think that it would have been more prudent to knock the 10% off BEFORE I failed; I was killing myself, and my form suffered as a consequence of trying to hit a particular weight.

About 3 months in, I had a good de-load; basically taking the weights right down and starting from scratch. This was very much needed! I adjusted my form on squats and bench press, and continued with the 5x5. I had another good few months of training leading up to Christmas, and even dropped my sessions to twice a week, as I was up to 5x5 squats with 127.5kg!

I recorded my lifts before I rested over Christmas (body weight 72kg, 11st 3lb)

 

 

 

 

Squats 5x5 127.5kg 1RM 140kg

Bench 5x5 110kg     1RM 127kg

Deadlift 5x5 120kg   1RM 150kg

I have put on a lean 6kg in 6 months - I know its not all muscle, but It’s not far off! These are the sort of gains a natural athlete with a solid diet and training programme can achieve. It's not a particularly long period to be training - if you break it down I’d guess I had about 55-60 training sessions in total. I think I said this in my last post, but I will say it again - it’s a long process but its bloody worth it!!

Everything is going well, but now that I have reached my next plateau I’m going to move on to using the Wendler 531. I will blog how I find this as I’m doing it!

Hope you enjoyed reading...

Ben

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