Liquidtensi0n's SF 5x5

[Liquidtensi0n]

I've been excited about trying a 5x5 for about a month now and today I finally got it under way. I did some pretty careful prep work, figuring out my 5RMs on the lifts. Last week I did 5x225 on squat, 5x275 on dead, 5x155 on row, 5x185 on bench and then 7x135 on standing military. That made the military press come out to a 144 5RM via the excel calculator on Madcow's site but that seemed a little high so I tested at 140 after today's workout and got 4 reps. I'm sure I could have had another one or two reps provided I was fresh but I'll take it. I'd rather start out a little low and not short circuit the progress a few weeks down the road.

My goals are pretty much centered around hitting a 225 bench not too far into the summer. I'm going to have to go on a 2-3 week trip then during which I most likely won't be able to lift so I want to have this one down by then.

So with that said, here's today's sets:

Week 1 - Monday

Squat
5x104.5
5x130.5
5x156.5
5x183
5x209

Bench
5x86
5x107.5
5x129
5x150.5
5x167
5x172

Rows
5x72
5x90
5x108
5x126
5x144

Squats felt harder than they should have given what I did a few weeks ago (5x5x225) but I attribute that to squatting my old routine's workout last Friday which was to failure. Hopefully with the light Wednesday these will feel better on Friday.

Bench was easy, in fact I goofed it and did 6 sets. My girlfriend was loading one side of the bar and she missed a 5lb plate so I did a lopsided 5x167 on set 5 and then corrected it and finished with set 6.

Rows felt solid, I'm used to doing these with a belt and straps which I didn't have today. I felt at times that my back was actually lower than 90 degrees to the floor. I'm gonna have to work on form next time and maybe wear a belt on these since I feel I have better form with it on.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Assistance:
Hypers: 2x12x50
Situps: 4x12x25

Both of these were easy, I'm starting out pretty light so I can just keep adding 5lbs each week. I've done hypers with 95 or so before so this is very conservative.

Some starting stats:

Age: 19
Weight: 206.5 (measured today)
BF: No clue, I'm not fat but no 6 pack. I can see my upper 2 abs though hehe. Guesstimate 15%?
Lifting experience: Started September 2004 so about 1 year and 5 months.

And, for those not familiar with this program, here is the link:
http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow...Linear_5x5.htm

Oh, and one last addition. I plan on doing cardio 4 times a week (all non lifting days). I will alternate doing 16 minutes of interval sprints on a bike and 2 miles of fast running on the tread. I'm eating like crazy now so this to me is a minimum to keep the fat from piling up and to keep the heart and lungs healthy.

[Liquidtensi0n]

I decided to add my calf measurement to this to see where no direct work for this muscle takes me. At first I was thinking of throwing in a few sets of raises onto Wednesday's assitance but I'll save it. If by the time I'm benching 225 my calves are lagging, I'll work it out then. In the mean time this is gonna be a nice break from the pain in the ass calf machines.

So, for the record...
right and left calves, cold while flexing sitting down: 16 3/4 inches

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 1 - Wednesday

Squat
5x104.5
5x130.5
5x156.5
5x156.5

Military
5x79
5x94.5
5x110.5
5x126

Deadlift
5x159.5
5x191.5
5x223.5
5x255.5

Assistance
Incline(1) Situps: 3x20xBW

Everything felt pretty good. The last set of deads was harder than I expected but I guess that's just the increased volume of squats having a slight impact on that. Situps were done on a slight incline. As long as I'm getting all 3x20 reps, week to week I will increase the incline by one notch.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 1 - Friday

Squat
5x104.5
5x130.5
5x156.5
5x183
3x214
8x156.5

Bench
5x86
5x107.5
5x129
5x150.5
3x176
8x129

Rows
5x72
5x90
5x108
5x126
3x147.5
8x108

Assistance
Dips: 3x8xBW
Barbell Curls: 8x85, 8x85, 7x85
Lying Tricep Extensions: 3x8x85

The main workout felt great but the assistance kind of threw me over the edge. When I examined the program before trying it I pretty much thought that the 3 sets of dips may be pushing it when Friday is heavy and Monday is right around the corner. Looks like I was right. My tris and chest are pretty shot (as in DOMS) and biceps are pretty worked too. For next week I plan on switching out the 3 sets of dips for 1 set of dips and one set of chins. That way I include a vertical pull movement and spread the workload a little more.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Weight update... 211 lbs as of a few hours ago right after dropping a log

I can definitly still see my upper abs so it's not all fat although I'm expecting a decent amount of it is water weight triggered by the increased volume of training.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 2 - Monday

Squat
5x110
5x135
5x160.5
5x190
5x215

Bench
5x90
5x110
5x135
5x155
5x176

Rows
5x75
5x95
5x110.5
5x130
5x147.5

Assistance
Hypers: 2x12x55
Incline(1) Situps: 4x12x35

This workout was surprisingly good. I had to pull an all-nighter the night before so this is me wokring out on about a 4 hour nap. The only thing that suffered was the bench... the last set was a bit hard but the squats and rows felt surprisingly good.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 2 - Wednesday

Squat
5x110
5x135
5x160.5
5x160.5

Military
5x81
5x97
5x115
5x130

Deadlift
5x165
5x196.5
5x230
5x261.5

Assistance
Incline(2) Situps: 3x20xBW

Everything was solid but I did run into a bit of a problem. My gym just got rid of its old school round plates and put in the 12 sided rubberized plates with grip handles. These SUCK for deads because when you set the weight down it never lands perfectly on one of the flat edges and has a tendency to roll, sometimes in opposite directions on the different ends of the bar. This sometimes makes it so the starting position is so awkward you have to change footing in between reps. Moral of the story is, Wednesdays I'm going to our older gym on campus. That place sucks too since they don’t have a power/squat rack but I can rig the military press station for this, especially with light squats.

[Sythke21]

good program im doing the same. One thing i noticed you might have said something about i dunno, but your allowed to add pullups to wednesdays workout, and i see you wanna do some on friday. thats all

[Liquidtensi0n]

Yea, I'm not really adding them but rather trading in a set for the two sets of dips. This way it also serves as an additional warm up for bis before going into curls.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 2 - Friday

Squat
5x110
5x135
5x160.5
5x190
3x220
8x160.5

Bench
5x90
5x110
5x135
5x155
3x180.5
8x135

Rows
5x75
5x95
5x110.5
5x130
3x157
8x110.5

Assistance
Dips: 8xBW
Chins: 6xBW
Lying Tricep Extensions: 3x8x85
Barbell Curls: 8x85, 8x85, 7x85

Everything felt great. Doing the 1 set of chins 1 set of dips instead of 3 dips felt a lot better. The only thing that kinda sucked is my barbell curl. It feels weaker than it did the week before I started this program. I think I'm going to need to back off the weight and hit all 8 reps a few weeks in a row and then start using my fraction plates to make increases again. I'll bump it up by 2.5% like I do the main lifts.

[young and strong]

Looks good, nice progression. how long have you been lifting for?

[Liquidtensi0n]

Started September 2004 so just under 1.5 years.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 3 - Monday

Squat
5x110
5x137
5x165
5x192
5x220

Bench
5x90
5x115
5x135.5
5x158
5x180.5

Rows
5x75.5
5x95
5x115
5x135
5x151

Assistance
Hypers: 2x12x60
Incline(1) Situps: 4x12x40

Workout felt pretty good. The last rep of squats and bench felt a little hard but this happened in the prior weeks as well so I'm not worried.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 3 - Wednesday

Squat
5x110
5x137
5x165
5x165

Press
5x85
5x100
5x116
5x132.5

Deadlift
5x167.5
5x201
5x235
5x268.5

Assistance
Incline(3) Situps: 3x20xBW

This workout was great. Everything felt light, even the deads which are approaching my PR. The last rep on the press felt somewhat hard but definitly doable and not as hard as Monday's bench. I'm hoping for a long run of continued progress on this lift.

Note: I'm calling what I had before as Military, the Press now. That's because after reading through Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength I realized these are actually two different lifts. Military is done with your heels together to eliminate virtually all lower body contribution. The press is done with feet shoulder width apart and a little lower body contribution is OK.

[Sythke21]

Looks like your doing well. Im just about to enter week 3 as well. Im jealous too, all i ever want to do with my weak shoulders was press a plate on each side like u have just done
also just curious how are you upping the weights in your warm up sets? eg. first week of squats u start at 104.5lbs, then next to weeks 110lbs

[Liquidtensi0n]

Originally Posted by Sythke21

Looks like your doing well. Im just about to enter week 3 as well. Im jealous too, all i ever want to do with my weak shoulders was press a plate on each side like u have just done
also just curious how are you upping the weights in your warm up sets? eg. first week of squats u start at 104.5lbs, then next to weeks 110lbs

Heh, thanks. The press this week was almost a 45. I was tempted just to go for it since I know I can but I left that one in for next week. Gonna PR this lift in two weeks for sure which should be exciting.

As far as the weights go, I'm using a spreadsheet I made which takes 12.5% of the top weight and subtracts that however many times for the sets before it. I set it to round to 1/2s because that's the lowest increment I can make with my fraction plates. However, I've been just rounding up to the nearest 5lbs on some things the last two weeks because putting on 107.5 or 109.5 lbs on the bar for my lowest weight is too much trouble. It's really a judgement call on how lazy I am with fussing with the small plates on the Mondays, but if I do one thing Monday I repeat it on Friday for consistency. On my heavier sets I try to stick with the exact weights my spreadsheet calculates though because at that point the extra workload can make or break my the PRs.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 3 - Friday

Squat
5x110
5x137
5x165
5x192
3x225
8x165

Bench
5x90
5x115
5x135.5
5x158
3x185
8x135.5

Rows
5x75.5
5x95
5x115
5x135
3x155
8x115

Assistance
Dips: 8xBW
Chins: 7xBW
Lying Tricep Extensions: 8x90, 7x90, 5x90
Barbell Curls: 8x80, 8x80, 8x80

Overall an awesome workout. All of the core lifts felt great and nothing was too hard, except maybe the squat backoff set which doesn't matter much. I was a little worried about hitting the bench but it wasn't even difficult.

As far as the assistance goes I went up too much on the skull crushers. I didn't feel like getting my fraction plates and I figured 5lbs should be doable but it ended up being too much. I'm gonna back off this for the next few weeks just like I did with barbell curls and hopefully bust through it.

[Liquidtensi0n]

I decided I'm going to increase the assistance lifts by 1.5% whenever I hit all the reps in the 3x8. I figured since these are straight sets and they involve a lot less muscles than the compounds a 2.5% increase would be too much to keep up with on a week by week basis. This should ensure some steady progress.

[ryuten]

Originally Posted by Liquidtensi0n

I decided I'm going to increase the assistance lifts by 1.5% whenever I hit all the reps in the 3x8. I figured since these are straight sets and they involve a lot less muscles than the compounds a 2.5% increase would be too much to keep up with on a week by week basis. This should ensure some steady progress.

this was what i was thinking too. slowly increase the weights for the isolation moves as well. but i'm not too sure for the progression of these things. i go by the feels of things. as long as i can get 8 good reps with that weight, i'll go with it. for my overhead tricep extensions, i started with 50, 50, 50. They felt pretty easy, so next week i decided to start my set at 50 as well, but the first set felt light. so i bumped up the weight and it still felt light. and i bumped it up 1 more time for, 50, 55, 60. today i did 55, 60, 65 for overhead tricep extensions going by the "feel" of things. 60 felt kinda easy, but 65 felt pretty heavy. so next time unless my body doesn't feel up for it, i'm gonna try for 60, 60, 65. but i'll go ask on the ultimate 5x5 thread just to make sure.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Yea... I guess see how long that can work for you since you are getting the reps. One thing to keep in mind is that these are supposed to be straight sets, i.e., same weight on all three as opposed to ramping. But I guess if you are getting strength that way that's fine. I definitly can't go up like you since as you can see, going from 85-90 on skull crushers killed my reps so I'm gonna go for the microloading approach.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 4 - Monday

Squat
5x115
5x140.5
5x170
5x197
5x225

Bench
5x95
5x115.5
5x140
5x162
5x185

Rows
5x80
5x100
5x116.5
5x135.5
5x155

Assistance
Hypers: 2x12x65
Incline(1) Situps: 4x12x45

Workout was solid. The squats felt really good although somewhat challenging. I had no worries about missing this one.

The bench I had some worries about so I didn't really do the ramping sets dynamically. That is to say, I didn't accelerate the weight but did it with a constant velocity to preserve energy for the top set. It ended up being a push but I made it. On Friday I'm not worried about not making the triple so I'm gonna do all the sets dynamically.

The rows were easy as usual. I had to get out of the gym so I rapid fired the sets with minimal rest and still got the last rep without any real trouble.

I'm looking forward til Friday and Monday to set some PRs on all of these lifts.

[Liquidtensi0n]

I just wanted to mention that all of my squats are done ass to grass with the best form I can come up with after reading Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength. I've squatted 275 6 times before with what I thought was good form at the time but it wasn't quite breaking parallel so I could say my 5RM is much higher but it wouldn't have been real squats. I see so many people squatting like **** in the gym and a lot of others posting videos here that don't really look like legit squats to show off their numbers. With that in mind, I'm sure I could have started with a much higher 5RM but I'm more concerned about bringing up a legit looking squat, not some barely parallel wobbely knee crap.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 4 - Wednesday

Squat
5x115
5x140.5
5x170
5x170

Press
5x85
5x102
5x120
5x136

Deadlift
5x172
5x206.5
5x240.5
5x275

Assistance
Incline Situps: 3x20xBW

This workout was great. The press felt straight up easy and deads weren't bad at all either. Next week I'm definitly looking at some easy PRs.

And a little note: I'm doing Wednesdays in a different gym than the other two days now and they have a different situp bench so my little (#) notation for the pin height is no longer applicable.

[Sythke21]

Looking good.
Its the same at my gym, we under 5 people who squat properly, ie below parralell and not on a smith machine. Its funny cause sometimes i get dirty looks from young hardcore kids who are 1/4 squatting 100 lbs more then me.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 4 - Friday

Squat
5x115
5x140.5
5x170
5x197
3x230.5 3RM PR
8x170

Bench
5x95
5x115.5
5x140
5x162
3x190 3RM PR
8x140

Rows
5x80
5x100
5x116.5
5x135.5
3x160 3RM PR
8x116.5

Assistance
Dips: 8xBW
Chins: 8xBW
Lying Tricep Extensions: 8x85, 8x85, 6x85
Barbell Curls: 8x80, 8x80, 5x80

Everything felt good on the main lifts with none of the triples being too hard. On the other hand the assistance sucked. I didn't get my last 2 reps on the skull crushers after backing off to this weight from last week and having hit 3x8x85 two weeks ago without a problem. On the curls I could have gotten 8 but I decided I'm gonna need to revamp the arm assistance for the future weeks and just stopped short. Right now I'm planning on moving the dips and chins to Mondays while doing only 2 sets of skull crushers and curls on Fridays. I'm also going to drop the weight back on both lifts some more and work back up to something decent. I feel like 3 straight sets of 8 is just too much and a few times I've still had DOMs on Monday in the bis and tris from doing it that way.

[ryuten]

good job so far. i'm anxious as hell to go to the gym tomorrow, cuz i'm ready to start setting some 5 rep max PRs!!!!!! be sure to get enough rest.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Week 5 - Monday

Squat
5x115.5
5x145
5x173
5x202
5x230.5 5RM PR

Bench
5x95
5x120
5x142
5x166
5x190 5RM PR

Rows
5x80
5x100
5x120
5x140
5x160 5RM PR

Assistance
Dips: 8xBW
Chins: 5xBW
Hypers: 2x12x70
Incline(1) Situps: 4x12x50

Finally some 5RM PRs!! Squats ended up being really tough this time around. Even rep 4 of the last set was a push but I refused to not finish it. This was surprising because I didn't have trouble with squats up to this point. My legs are also feeling a little overused at the knee and hip joint. I'm not sensing being too close to injuries though so I'm gonna keep it going.

Bench was surprisingly doable on the other hand. The PR set felt easier than some of the other top sets of 5 I had in the earlier weeks of the program.

Rows were fine as usual although they are starting to get a bit heavy. Again I had to hurry through them taking only about a minute between sets so I expect they would have been really easy if I took my time. I can probably expect to keep moving these up for a while.

By the time I got to the assitance I had only 10 minutes left in the gym so my chins suffered from a lack of rest after the rows but that's ok. Next week this shouldn't be a problem. Also, the hypers and situps finally got heavy at 12 reps so I'm gonna stick these weights for next week and hopefully have an easier time with them.

Weight update: 218lbs with shoes on. So, that's +11.5lbs since I started this program. Arms look noticabely bigger along with back.

[ryuten]

hmm.. so by reset the weights, what do u mean? start the whole 5x5 over again?

great job on the PRs, btw.

[Liquidtensi0n]

Thanks,

What I meant was just reset the squat and keep everything else moving if it still is.

i.e., take the squat back in weights a couple of weeks and make another run at it. I bet you'll make the 5 though and won't need to do so.