With 3' between sets, your 1x5RM and 3x5RM are going to be about even. Make sure you're using your actual 5RM and not a guestimation or a 6RM/7RM. 5 & 7RM are v.different weights. I'd argue that with 3' rest, the only difference between 1x and 3x 5RM is measured in grams, not kilo's.
A few queries I have...
- Thread starter SameOldSameOld
- Start date
Not sure why you think that will spare your cns.
Volume stresses the cns more than load does.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
Not really. If I benched my true 5RM (RPE9-10), 3-4' after I would hardly bench 2-3 more. Been there, done that.
That was actually my reply to the q'n: a bit less load. Not to be confused w/ clusters done at true 5RM loads for the purposes of getting more volume.
I have no idea why you're unable to lift your 5RM for 5 reps more than once when adequately spaced. In the anecdote you've just described it sounds like your rest period was insufficient; your posts in other threads have readily indicated your discomfort with time-length of workouts, so I figure it's probably that. Regardless, your 5RM and 3x5RM will be minimally separated (in terms of how much they are) when the rest time is a literal 3' +. Your 3x5RM is not going to be your 6RM precisely, or your 7RM - so don't guestimate and substitute it for that. The last workout of your 5's should be using your 5RM. Seriously, stop being scared of using real weights and just lift heavy.
I also think using your bench press as the 'test' exercise for this is a pretty poor choice. The flat bench is one of the most poorly designed exercises there is, frankly, and is inferior to dips, decline, incline and even push-ups in just about every biomechanical regard. There's a reason that power lifters arch their backs to such extremes. Frankly, I'd recommend dropping it but many people take psychological issue with dropping a 'staple' from their routine.
Volume will impair your CNS more than load ever will. Doing more repetitions is more counterproductive to hypertrophy than using more load. For example, doing 5 sets at your 3RM will give you lesser DOMS than 3 sets of 5RM.
Load is what builds muscles. Hell, Totentanz just told you he basically did 2 sets, occasionally 3, to get into the shape he's in. Go check his thread if you want to see how well 2 set HST works.
I also think using your bench press as the 'test' exercise for this is a pretty poor choice. The flat bench is one of the most poorly designed exercises there is, frankly, and is inferior to dips, decline, incline and even push-ups in just about every biomechanical regard. There's a reason that power lifters arch their backs to such extremes. Frankly, I'd recommend dropping it but many people take psychological issue with dropping a 'staple' from their routine.
Volume will impair your CNS more than load ever will. Doing more repetitions is more counterproductive to hypertrophy than using more load. For example, doing 5 sets at your 3RM will give you lesser DOMS than 3 sets of 5RM.
Load is what builds muscles. Hell, Totentanz just told you he basically did 2 sets, occasionally 3, to get into the shape he's in. Go check his thread if you want to see how well 2 set HST works.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
My only real concern is that in w/os longer than 1 hour or so, catabolism starts to kick in, so I better get some protein to counteract that, and since I'm not using protein or BCAA sports nutrition at this time as they're overpriced where I live, I hurry to get some solid meals. Maybe it's a myth.
I've been doing inclines since summer. No flat bench.
Regarding true 5RM, I will most likely do them by extending the 5RM weeks by a few w/os more. Just a try.
Catabolism setting in after 1hour is something of a myth. Your cortisol response adjusts. This is the human body remember, the most sophisticated piece of machinery there is.
If you want anecdotal evidence, check out every gymnast, NFL player, NBA player, sprint swimmer, martial artist or modern soldier there is. They absolutely do not train using the 60min special.
If you want anecdotal evidence, check out every gymnast, NFL player, NBA player, sprint swimmer, martial artist or modern soldier there is. They absolutely do not train using the 60min special.
Umm, barring the NBA, I think you'll find that they're tested yearly, randomly and now have a biological passport.
There's nothing special about 60 minutes, to the body. Obviously you can't do 4hrs every day and maintain your strength levels. But 90mins, even 2hrs is fine, you adjust. Just as the body adjusts to load and builds muscle. It doesn't care if human-time keeping labeled the period as 'one hour'. Your cortisol levels will be just fine, don't buy into so many myths.
There's nothing special about 60 minutes, to the body. Obviously you can't do 4hrs every day and maintain your strength levels. But 90mins, even 2hrs is fine, you adjust. Just as the body adjusts to load and builds muscle. It doesn't care if human-time keeping labeled the period as 'one hour'. Your cortisol levels will be just fine, don't buy into so many myths.
Like I said, still not sure why you think cutting the load will spare the cns. It won't. Unless you are doing singles, heavier loads only burn out the cns if you are doing a lot of volume with them. Working with heavier loads is a critical part of HST, pretty much the whole point of HST is to progress you up to those heavier loads of the 5s and post-5s and manage the volume appropriately so that you can work with those loads. It is the volume that will do you in and burn out your cns if you do not manage it right.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
I'm not sure I understand your point completely. It will allow me to better handle CNS fatigue in the same way I can progress doing 15s, 10s, 5s. Of course fatigue does and will accumulate towards the end of cycle, but 6-7RM with a rep or two to spare will at least allow me to get in more volume.
But there's this other side of the coin that insufficient per-bout volume won't stress muscles enough to ellicit growth response, rendering them pretty much useless (in terms of immediate dose/response). For suitable exercises (leg press, curls, pullups) I might use negatives to increase tension without sacrificing volume. For those I can't comfortably use negatives in (inclined bench, triceps extensions, shrugs), I will try sacrificing a bit of load for volume.
It's pretty obvious that you don't understand my point. I keep telling you that increasing volume is going to put a strain on your CNS. It is the volume you need to be managing, not the load.
No there isn't. If you are lifting a load that recruits every single muscle fiber with every single rep, that is going to have more effect than doing 30 reps total with a 10 or 15 RM.
Your line of reasoning is flawed. You are assuming that a rep with a 15 or 10 RM is the same kind of rep as one with a 5 RM load. This is extremely incorrect. For one thing, TUT will be different. For another, recruitment will be different. It is not crazy to suppose that one rep with a 5 RM load is more or less equivalent to 2 or 3 reps with a 10 or 15 RM load. Five or ten reps with a 5 RM load will never be "useless" - it's not like there is some switch in your muscles that says "Grow" and "Not Grow" and won't flip to "Grow" until you do 30 reps. That's just silly to think that way. Not only that, but it is completely illogical.
It is completely insane to think that 30 reps with a 15 RM load is basically the same as 30 reps with a 5 RM load.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
Are you serious? At the start of each cycle I can do 3 sets of 10's no problem, so it's the combination of load & volume that needs to be managed, not only volume.
Full fiber recruitment comes with fatigue, not necessarily heavy loads. All in all, when doing negatives isn't an option, it wouldn't be all crazy to assume that preference for a bit more volume than load to stay around 85% is more appropriate to bodybuilders for the most part.
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OBVIOUSLY. I said it is VOLUME MORE THAN LOAD that will cause fatigue not ONLY VOLUME AND NOT LOAD AT ALL. I like how you just use logical fallacy after logical fallacy in your debates.
Fatigue or heavy loads. The Haycock has written extensively about this. http://thinkmuscle.com/training/fiber-types-training-hypertrophy/
It is even in the FAQ, which I'm surprised you don't know.
http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?12729-Training-for-fiber-type
And no, your reasoning is unsound. It IS crazy for a bodybuilder to limit loads as you propose, you are missing out on heaps of hypertrophy by doing so. Basically, it is massively, massively, massively retarded to avoid heavy loads. Read the FAQ entry. The Haycock explains a certain study. The group that did the low rep training had greater hypertrophy than the other groups. You'll notice the heavy load group only used around 20 reps whereas the medium and high load group used 30. That is 20 total reps with 3 to 5 RM loads, the VERY LOADS YOU PROPOSE TO AVOID. Read the capped part because it is important.
Of course none of this matters for you since you aren't eating enough to grow anyway.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
That's what I said. I know. I read the info.
Please define heavy. Is a few % below 5RM not heavy enough for a muscle unconditioned to that load?
Good info, forgot about the details, thanks. Still 6RM isn't 9-11RM as med-rep in the research, so it would be closer to 3-5RM in effectiveness. Wernbom's study (that Haycock refers to in an article) states that weights above 85% have diminishing returns in terms of muscle gains. So it cannot be totally excluded that 6RM would have shown similar results in 2003's study.
I need to eat more during HST cycle than during SD, so it speaks for itself.
Full fibre recruitment =/= stimulus for hyperetrophy. Load is the stimulus.
And Wernbom's paper is flawed in several key areas.. The scientific paper you're referring to isn't an actual experiment, it's a review of OTHER experiments, of actual studies. That's what a meta analysis is. Stop referring to it as though everything contained within is not flawed. The Wernbom study has mistakes in it ... there isn't a simpler way to say it.
And again, as Totentanz says, you aren't eating enough to grow, so don't fall into the volume trap where under-eating + over-training makes you feel like death.
And Wernbom's paper is flawed in several key areas.. The scientific paper you're referring to isn't an actual experiment, it's a review of OTHER experiments, of actual studies. That's what a meta analysis is. Stop referring to it as though everything contained within is not flawed. The Wernbom study has mistakes in it ... there isn't a simpler way to say it.
And again, as Totentanz says, you aren't eating enough to grow, so don't fall into the volume trap where under-eating + over-training makes you feel like death.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
It seems to me we both might have been referring to the same load all this time, you by the name of 5RM, and me by the name of 5x3/3'. What you're referring to cannot be called true 5RM, if it's done with effort close to RPE 10.
No, you're wrong. Once rest periods are getting to the 3-4min range, your CNS is essentially recovered in entirety (CNS being the limiting factor, not muscle recovery). As rest periods approach 3-4min +, the difference in between 5RM and 5x3RM becomes negligible. That's what I was explaining to you; tens or hundreds of grams at most. i.e. as rest period -> 3-4min +, difference in load -> 0gms.
I think you find it almost, if not actually impossible to determine a literal 5RM load that can only be done for 5 reps once. Now, when we're talking about a program such as 5x5, it isn't working at 5RM because the rest periods are not sufficient to restore CNS to operate at 5RM (and certainly not for multiple, consecutive exercises, especially given the actual exercises used).
But if you're trying to imply or state that a 5RM can only be done for 5 reps once, then you absolutely must qualify the period of rest between efforts. I guarantee you that I can lift my 5RM for multiple sets of 5 with 3minute rep sessions. How do I know it's my 5RM, or "true 5RM" as you're misleadingly referring to it as? Because it's the highest load I can perform 5 reps with. Don't make the mistake of trying to define 5RM by how many sets of 5 you are capable of performing with a load, given sufficient rest.
5RM is the highest load you can only manage 5 repetitions with.
If you want to call it 3x5/3', you're welcome to. But if all you can manage is 5 reps, then it's your 5RM. Your 1x5RM can be the same as your 3x5RM/'3. The mistake you were making before, a few posts ago, was to identify a lower weight than your 5RM, based on the assumption that it would need to be noticeably lower than 1x5RM or else you wouldn't be able to do it. You're wrong on that front. What you should be doing is taking the sufficient rest to complete your 5RM for 3 sets, rather than reducing the weight prior to lifting.
You aren't getting stronger, therefore not getting bigger, if you don't lift heavy weights.
For a smaller exercise, lets say DB Shoulder Press, 95% of your 5RM and 100% of your 5RM are going to be very similar. You may not even be able to set the DB's separately. e.g, if you could do 5 with a 35kg DB, 95% of your 5RM is 33.25kg. Could luck finding that DB. You may wish to settle for 32.kgs, but personally I think that's a very poor choice. Extrapolate the weight difference from each arm; 2.5kg x2 and that's a (would-be) 5kg difference if it were a BB exercise at least. Your military press 5RM would be in the 75kg range, maybe closer to 80kg. Dropping 5kg from that means you're lifting at closer to 90% of 5RM. Which is a weight you will have already lifted at in your cycle The lesson here is to lift with your 5RM and not reduce it.
What if your 5RM is 20kg? Well 95% of that is 19kg. Stick with the 20kg again. Lesson here: the difference is too impractical and arguably irrelevant.
Now for a bigger exercise, let's take BB Rows. Your 5RM might be 100kg. 95% of your 5RM is 95kg;
a) You should have already covered 95kg. You really don't want to have to set your WHOLE lifting schedule back by 1-2 loads worth because you're too scared to lift heavy. Again, no growth is going to happen if you refuse to progress, and repetitively lifting at an achievable weight will not progress your strength, nor your size.
b) 5kg is a massive difference. I can do ~ 130kg on my bench as a 1RM, maybe a shade more. I can get out ~ 3 reps at 125kg. At 120 I can do a comfortable 5. 115 is in 7-8RM territory ... you see where this is going ... ?
5% difference on load is
1. Impractical for lower weights, and arguably irrelevant. There isn't a reason not to lift the actual 5RM. This is a reason people should not include lateral raises for the 15s and 10s of their cycle; the progression is too minimal.
2. It's too big of a difference for compound exercises. If your deadlift 5RM is 150kg's, 5% is 7.5kgs !!! That's a substantially different load. Remember, the body doesn't operate in terms of xRM %'s. It operates via load. Strength and size are both functions of load. As observers, we (scientists, the human race etc etc) notice and calculate correlations between the # of repetitions and the % of our 1RM (the maximum load we can move). But they're just correlations. The famous 85% of 1RM for total motor unit recruitment is just a calculation that makes it easier for us to work out optimal practice for lifting. The body doesn't care about that %. It recruits based on need. For some, that number will be closer to 80%, others it will be closer to 90%.
So why 5RM? It's correlates to a load that causes ~optimal hypertrophy, achieves complete recruitment and enables a sufficient 'metabolic' stimulus in conjunction with the load stimulus.
Long story made short: use your actual, literal, definitive 5RM and don't lower the loads. There's no reason to do it. Just gather your courage and take the rest periods.
I think you find it almost, if not actually impossible to determine a literal 5RM load that can only be done for 5 reps once. Now, when we're talking about a program such as 5x5, it isn't working at 5RM because the rest periods are not sufficient to restore CNS to operate at 5RM (and certainly not for multiple, consecutive exercises, especially given the actual exercises used).
But if you're trying to imply or state that a 5RM can only be done for 5 reps once, then you absolutely must qualify the period of rest between efforts. I guarantee you that I can lift my 5RM for multiple sets of 5 with 3minute rep sessions. How do I know it's my 5RM, or "true 5RM" as you're misleadingly referring to it as? Because it's the highest load I can perform 5 reps with. Don't make the mistake of trying to define 5RM by how many sets of 5 you are capable of performing with a load, given sufficient rest.
5RM is the highest load you can only manage 5 repetitions with.
If you want to call it 3x5/3', you're welcome to. But if all you can manage is 5 reps, then it's your 5RM. Your 1x5RM can be the same as your 3x5RM/'3. The mistake you were making before, a few posts ago, was to identify a lower weight than your 5RM, based on the assumption that it would need to be noticeably lower than 1x5RM or else you wouldn't be able to do it. You're wrong on that front. What you should be doing is taking the sufficient rest to complete your 5RM for 3 sets, rather than reducing the weight prior to lifting.
You aren't getting stronger, therefore not getting bigger, if you don't lift heavy weights.
For a smaller exercise, lets say DB Shoulder Press, 95% of your 5RM and 100% of your 5RM are going to be very similar. You may not even be able to set the DB's separately. e.g, if you could do 5 with a 35kg DB, 95% of your 5RM is 33.25kg. Could luck finding that DB. You may wish to settle for 32.kgs, but personally I think that's a very poor choice. Extrapolate the weight difference from each arm; 2.5kg x2 and that's a (would-be) 5kg difference if it were a BB exercise at least. Your military press 5RM would be in the 75kg range, maybe closer to 80kg. Dropping 5kg from that means you're lifting at closer to 90% of 5RM. Which is a weight you will have already lifted at in your cycle The lesson here is to lift with your 5RM and not reduce it.
What if your 5RM is 20kg? Well 95% of that is 19kg. Stick with the 20kg again. Lesson here: the difference is too impractical and arguably irrelevant.
Now for a bigger exercise, let's take BB Rows. Your 5RM might be 100kg. 95% of your 5RM is 95kg;
a) You should have already covered 95kg. You really don't want to have to set your WHOLE lifting schedule back by 1-2 loads worth because you're too scared to lift heavy. Again, no growth is going to happen if you refuse to progress, and repetitively lifting at an achievable weight will not progress your strength, nor your size.
b) 5kg is a massive difference. I can do ~ 130kg on my bench as a 1RM, maybe a shade more. I can get out ~ 3 reps at 125kg. At 120 I can do a comfortable 5. 115 is in 7-8RM territory ... you see where this is going ... ?
5% difference on load is
1. Impractical for lower weights, and arguably irrelevant. There isn't a reason not to lift the actual 5RM. This is a reason people should not include lateral raises for the 15s and 10s of their cycle; the progression is too minimal.
2. It's too big of a difference for compound exercises. If your deadlift 5RM is 150kg's, 5% is 7.5kgs !!! That's a substantially different load. Remember, the body doesn't operate in terms of xRM %'s. It operates via load. Strength and size are both functions of load. As observers, we (scientists, the human race etc etc) notice and calculate correlations between the # of repetitions and the % of our 1RM (the maximum load we can move). But they're just correlations. The famous 85% of 1RM for total motor unit recruitment is just a calculation that makes it easier for us to work out optimal practice for lifting. The body doesn't care about that %. It recruits based on need. For some, that number will be closer to 80%, others it will be closer to 90%.
So why 5RM? It's correlates to a load that causes ~optimal hypertrophy, achieves complete recruitment and enables a sufficient 'metabolic' stimulus in conjunction with the load stimulus.
Long story made short: use your actual, literal, definitive 5RM and don't lower the loads. There's no reason to do it. Just gather your courage and take the rest periods.