Reading about the late Roger Estep and his belief that heavy singles are the cause of his mass and strength, would it be more prudent to do 5-6 heavy singles of increasing weight or a 5 or 3RM?
Right now I’m doing a modified Texas method that I like a lot because my busy schedule:
Volume day
-Squats 5x5
-Deadlift 2x3
-Bench press 5x5
Accessory day
-OHP 3x5
-Lat pull down 3x10
-Back extensions 3x10
Intensity day
-Squats 2x3
-Bench press 2x3
-BB rows 5x5
Thinking back before I was on an actual program, I really enjoyed doing 5-6 heavy singles, I never really did rep maxes until now. I’d really like to do 6 singles instead of 2x3 intensity sets but don’t want to undertrain
Any thoughts?
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Thread: 3, 5 reps vs heavy singles?
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02-04-2020, 12:15 PM #1
3, 5 reps vs heavy singles?
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02-04-2020, 12:46 PM #2
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02-04-2020, 12:46 PM #3
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02-04-2020, 01:50 PM #4
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02-04-2020, 02:19 PM #5
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02-04-2020, 02:21 PM #6
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02-04-2020, 02:57 PM #7
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02-04-2020, 03:01 PM #8
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02-04-2020, 03:09 PM #9
Doesn’t help the fact I deliver beer 5 days a week straight. My job is already physical enough so have the time I barely feel like working out but I do because it has made me stronger and much more resilient. Besides I used to pour so much attention into my assistance work that it took away from my progress on my main lifts.
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02-04-2020, 03:11 PM #10
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02-04-2020, 03:16 PM #11
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02-04-2020, 03:19 PM #12
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02-04-2020, 03:21 PM #13
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02-04-2020, 03:24 PM #14
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02-04-2020, 03:31 PM #15
I’m not sure how flys or pulldowns would help pressing power but dips are promising.
I do OHP for additional Tricep work, plus it is beneficial for my shoulder health as I’ve had a bad history of impingement in my left shoulder. Once I started doing them between benching days with a slow eccentric, my shoulder has improved. Dips always aggravated my shoulderLast edited by BeginnerGainz; 02-04-2020 at 03:43 PM.
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02-04-2020, 03:56 PM #16
- Join Date: Dec 2007
- Location: Michigan, United States
- Age: 50
- Posts: 16,707
- Rep Power: 1129519
If your form is suffering the weight is to heavy for you, or you don't know proper form in the first place. This being the case I'd Keep your current scheme, lighten up a bit and practice proper form in order to see the results you want. Heavy singles must be close to your 1rm to have any effect and if your form breaks doing them it is very easy to injure yourself.
[]---[] Equipment Crew Member No. 11
"As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another" Proverbs 27:17
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02-04-2020, 05:18 PM #17
- Join Date: Jun 2016
- Location: United Kingdom (Great Britain)
- Age: 31
- Posts: 11,166
- Rep Power: 52549
I liked multiple singles as well.
Depends on your block and how you want to set it up.
Generally most of us need volume though, and only doing singles one session would mean your other sessions or sessions would probably have a lot of volume deads.. Which is pretty rough.
Better to spread out the volume when possible I'd say.
Butt the odd pivot/peaking block with more focus on fast clean singles and less weekly volume I'm all for. Just wouldn't do it all the time5 day full body crew
FMH Crew, Sandbagging Mike Tuscherer Wannabee
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02-04-2020, 06:01 PM #18
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02-04-2020, 06:03 PM #19
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02-05-2020, 06:53 AM #20
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02-05-2020, 07:49 AM #21
Estep did do a lot of singles for his main compound movements, but he also did bodybuilding work as well. There's an old PLUSA article floating around on the Internet that talks about it, and here's an article on some of it by Chaos and Pain.
https://www.chaosandpain.com/tips/ro...t-not-by-name/
Basically - heavy singles for the compound lifts, then some higher rep ranges for accessory/bodybuilding exercises.
Don't just jump into heavy singles though, run a descending 5-4-3-2-1 for a while first before you start doing multiple sets with singles. Some people can hop right into singles without much build up, but it pays to ease into it over several weeks to strengthen your tendons and prepare your body for it.
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02-05-2020, 10:23 AM #22
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02-05-2020, 11:50 AM #23
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