Curl and Rear Lat Raises 15rm-Too low

[imported_dpaine88]

Ok so I did 5x5 the past 2 months and had some great strength gains.

245x 5- Squat
215 x 5- Bench
335 x 4- Dead
180 x 5 Rows.


However, prior to that I was doing 8-10 reps and I have never done 15.

I did my maxes today for 15 and some of them were very low since I am not accustomed to high reps. Specifically my Curls and Rear Lat Raises seem too low to have a progressive overload that would be too small.

Here are my maxes for 15 reps
Squat - 15 x165
BB Incline Bench - 120
Weighted Hypers- 35+BW
Dips 15x BW+25
BB BO Rows - 115
DB Rear Lateral Raises - 10lbs

BB Seated Shoulder press - 80
Hammer curls - 25
BB Curls - 60
BB Shrugs - 120
BB Skullcrushers - 50
Abs - 35 +BW
Standing Calves - 15x230 (never work calves)

As you can see my 5 rep maxes dwarf my 15 rep maxes which were much more difficult than I expected.

So I did Hammer curls and thought that 25 was way too low to have a progessive overload-maybe it isnt.

I did BB Curls to use instead since I can do a bit more weight.

But the thing that bothers me most is the DB Rear lateral raises that I could only use 10lbs DBs on. Which leaves me little to no room for progessive overload....

Any advice is much appreciated

 

[Lol]

dpaine88, welcome aboard!

Most folks (erm, make that ALL folks) find the 15s tough if they haven't done them before (or even if they have!), especially the second week. 15 reps squats and deads are just plain hard work and metabolically demanding.

As you are new to 15s you will likely get better at them and be able to increase the loads quicker than the rep ranges that you have already been training. As a rough guide, my 15RM loads for squats are about 82% of my 5RM loads. Yours are about 68%.

I'm guessing that you are trying an HST cycle primarily for gains in size? Therefore, problems like you have with the loads for db rear laterals go away because you don't need to do them.

You have some great compounds listed but there are a few others that would be good to do too. Add in deads once a week if you can. They are great for safely loading the body; there's almost no muscle that doesn't get some work to do. Chins and pull-ups are a must too. Alternate them from session to session or focus on one each cycle. Parallel/neutral grip chins are good to do too.

Learn to do presses standing; you can then switch to push presses at the end of the 5s and focus on the negative portion.

Upright rows are generally a great shoulder exercise; some folks can get shoulder impingement if they raise the bar too high. Actively shrugging helps prevent this as does lifting the bar to chest rather than neck level.

I'd just do one bi and one tri iso exercise if I still had the time and energy (actually, I very rarely do any arm isos these days, but that's just me).

If you are doing two exercises per body part per session then one set is fine for each exercise during 15s. If you end up simplifying things and going with four or five movements each session then two sets would be good (second set could just be 10 reps if the first set has knocked the stuffing out of you).

Have a read of the Simplify & Win thread linked in my footer. There's a lot of good advice in there.

All the best.