ICF 5x5 too little time in the gym for me

[raggarage]

For the last year my split has been all over the place. I started at 130lb at 6'3 age 19, and now I'm about to turn 20 and 167lb at 8-10% bf. I started on a bro split but soon learned about the benefits of training body parts more frequently, and now I hit everything twice weekly. My lifts have all gone up and although I don't ever test my one rep max, I am squatting 225 for 5 reps, benching 155 for 5 and although I don't deadlift, I can rack pull 315 for 5-7 reps. These aren't hugely impressive lifts but I don't care about being the strongest guy in the gym, I was 6'3 and 130lb so you can imagine how weak I was - even with 37 addition pounds on me I still have a 28/29 inch waist (small torso, wide shoulders).

I have heard ICF 5x5 is amazing for beginners, but:
a) It is only a 3 day a week program - I like to go 5 days, I recover just fine with a deload every 6-8 weeks and glutamine before bed seems to sort me out.
b) I spend 2 hours average in the gym - I spend 20 minutes warming up, do my main workout, and then rotate doing calves/forearms and traps at the end of workouts. I do quite high volume but if I eat enough I still gain wait and my results have been pretty good for my first year of training like this.

So what I would like some advice on, is are there any kind of splits similar to ICF 5x5 but get you in the gym more? At the moment I'm thinking of doing a 4 days split with a day dedicated to arms as it is my most lagging body part. I'll do this for 6 weeks so I get 8ish rotations in before I re-evaluate my progress and change my routine accordingly.

I am open to just doing a 5x5 if it really would just blow every other routine out of the water, and if someone could give a brief explanation as to why it would would be greatly appreciated - and if there is an alternative which gets me into the gym more in the week would be even better. Otherwise if I'm happy+making gains and recovering fine with a 4 day split then tell me if you support that! I would like as many opinions on this as possible so I encourage anyone and everyone to give me their take on it.

Many Thanks!

[Cyder00]

Don't worry too much about arms,everyone has "lagging" arms in the beginning since they're a hard muscle group to develop. About ICF 5x5 i have the same thoughts.. Really,it doesn't really matter which program you follow as long as you're adding weight to the compound movements frequently. Any program where you have a 1.5-3x a week frequency for each muscle group and you add weight to the bar will be fine. Personally i follow "5/3/1 Who was CNS",but you could also try upper/lower or PPL. Lyle Mcdonald's upper/lower and Coolcicada's PPL are both good options. Also it depends,can you add weight every session? Can you add 5 lbs to your squat 3 times a week? If you can,then go for ICF 5x5,if you can't then you should to a more advanced program like upper/lower where you add weight every 2 weeks or so.

[Partyrocking]

You could do ICF and do conditioning work on your off days, pushing a sled, hill sprints, farmers walks.

You could do Babylovers SS, which is meant to be run as many days as you want to run it.

You could do an upper/lower which would be 4 days a week, Candito Linear Program has a strength/hypertrophy template, which could work for you.

I wouldn't bother with an arm day. The best thing for your arms at this point is to keep progressing on your presses and pulls and gaining 20-30lbs.

[GinjaNinja85]

Well you could do a pull, push, legs, off split at 5-6x a week although I'd favour a lower, upper, off, lower, upper, off, off split at 4x a week.

Then you need to work out what you want from the program and build it from there. Or pick a cookie cutter.

edit: Also, no other routine is gonna blow any other routine out of the water if they're reasonably well put together. Hard work, consistency, and food will get you the results more than anything else.

[GinjaNinja85]

You could do ICF and do conditioning work on your off days, pushing a sled, hill sprints, farmers walks.

You could do Babylovers SS, which is meant to be run as many days as you want to run it.

You could do an upper/lower which would be 4 days a week, Candito Linear Program has a strength/hypertrophy template, which could work for you.

I wouldn't bother with an arm day. The best thing for your arms at this point is to keep progressing on your presses and pulls and gaining 20-30lbs.

I've heard good things about canditos program

[rollalong]

It isn't taking a very long time because you haven't let it run its course. If you really push the program, it will take quite some time to get through the lifts and you also won't want to do a damn thing after the first lift and you still have plenty more. Just run the program until it runs you into the dirt. The fact that you want to do more is proof you haven't been on it long enough.

[davisj3537]

How long you're capable of working out has NO RELATION WHAT SO EVER to how advanced of a program you should use. Common mistake. Just run the program how it is written and in 6 weeks you'll be fukking exhausted when leaving the gym. If working out more often worked better then the program would be 5-6 days per week already. Think on that.