Madcow 5x5, Time to Go Super Saiyan! *screams for 20 minutes*

Squat: 90lb x 5, 110lb x 5, 130lb x 5, 130lb x 5

Military Press: 65lb x 5, 80lb x 5, 90lb x 5, 105lb x 5

Sumo Deadlift: 145lb x 5, 175lb x 5, 200lb x 5, 230lb x 5

E-Z Bar Curls bar + 45lb x 10, bar + 45lb x 10

Weighted Decline Crunches: BW x 10, 25lb plate x 10, 25lb plate x 10

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Everything went well. Replaced the leg raise with weighted decline crunches. Pretty hard at the end (almost hit failure), but definitely was cool. I think my core got a lot stronger from simply doing squatting and deadlifting.
 
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Squat: 90lb x 5, 110lb x 5, 130lb x 5, 155lb x 5, 180lb x 3, 130lb x 8

Bench Press: 80lb x 5, 95lb x 5, 115lb x 5, 135lb x 5, 160lb x 3, 115lb x 8

Pendlay Row: 75lb X 5, 95lb x 5, 115lb x 5, 130lb x 5, 150lb x 3, 115 x 8
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Today went fine. Nothing out of the ordinary except that with squats, I tried to get the bar as low on my rear delts as possible without causing shoulder strain.
 
Squat: 90lb x 5, 115 x 5, 135lb x 5, 160lb x 5, 180lb x 5

Bench Press: 80lb x 5, 100lb x 5, 120lb x 5, 140lb x 5, 160lb x 5

Pendlay Row: 75lb x 5, 95lb x 5, 115lb x 5, 130lb x 5, 150lb x 5

E-Z Bar Curls: bar + 50lb x 10, bar + 50lb x 10

Weighted Decline Crunches: BW x 10, 25lb plate x 10, 25lb plate x 10

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Noticed I screwed up the log a couple of sessions ago. E-Z Bar curls should have been 10 reps. I'll go edit that now.

Almost everything felt hard. For squat, I'm gonna widen my stance a bit. Bench...we'll have to see. I'm kind of tentative as to how much I'm going to progress on it before the deload. Almost everything is near max. Hopefully I hit some PRs.
 
5x5 takes quite a few sessions to adjust to for your first time, especially if prior to this you were used to HST. The volume is markedly higher and it's not isolation-volume either, it's big compounds. A few of workouts seem to come with the 'felt hard' (or similar) tag, I'd suggest eating a little bit more and see how that goes.
 
If you check back on my HST log, I did SS for my lower body and my upper body was essentially all compounds. Pullups, DB Mil Press, Bench. Only isolation I did was bicep curls, and some shoulder prehab work.

I'm about 160lb and eat about 2x BW in calories.
 
The difference in volume between 5x5//SS and HST is significant. Feel free to dismiss the advice if you like, but clearly *something* is impacting your workouts in a non-positive/optimal capacity.
 
I'm not dismissing your advice. I'm simply trying to, as you have, qualify a conclusion as to the quantification of my lifting weights.

I mean it's only been 3 weeks on Madcow and I've been lifting for a year (with the exception of lower body - squat and deadlift) so how much can one expect to gain strength wise? I'm guessing upwards of 10lb per lift per month if I'm lucky. So if I can set a PR slightly over my last PRs (190lb squat for almost 5 lol, 165lb bench for I guessing 5 but stupid spotter was curling the weight up for the first set so I only got 4 reps next set, etc), then it shows stuff's working.

And actually, volume-wise SS seems to have more volume relative to load. Madcow only has one workset, so 4 out of the 5 sets are warm up/build up to the work set. SS on the other hand has warm up and then three worksets at the same weight. Madcow does have a light squat day and a 3 rep day for squat/bench/row, and the last set on the 3 rep day (6 sets on this day) is a light weight for 8 reps.
 
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I hate spotters who don't understand what to do. I think it's #1 thing to hate at the gym. Probably also increased my distaste for the bench press too.

Re: SS/5x5/Madcow - I think you have a lot of strength gains to make, based on your PR's and lifting #s right now. You're also going to put on a fair amount of weight doing the program too (or should put on the muscle if eating enough). Strength and size have a positive relationship, albeit non-linear.

The other variable to consider is time between sets. I strongly suggest taking a literal ~3mins between sets for strength training, even if they're the warm up sets.
 
I usually put 3-5 minutes once I get near my worksets, though I could probably be more liberal at the start of my warmups.

I guess I'm just gonna try eating more. I just don't understand why I have to get into the 2.5x BW cals realm when I'm only a year into serious lifting to gain weight. Is my metabolism that ****in' high? I mean, 3500-4000 cals at a bodyweight of 160ish seems excessive. But whatever.
 
Well the short answer is just to check how much weight you're gaining (or not gaining). If you're putting on mass then you're probably doing 'ok', if you're not then time to eat some more. Shawn Bradley, former NBA player had issues putting on weight (granted he was an outlier, being 7'6 at 14,000 per day or something like that). Just mix it up, see what happens.
 
If I have to eat 14,000 calories a day, I'm giving up weight lifting altogether LOL.

I've gained about 8 pounds since I started, probably 2-3 in the lower body since I started squatting/deadlifting.

Guess I'm just gonna have to suck it up and eat everything in sight, which sucks considering I'm out all day at community college so I'm spending money like a mofo.
 
Whey, peanut butter, chicken breasts, canned tuna, broccoli is the cheapest vege, more whey, milk, bit more whey. That ought to do it. Rice is prob. your friendliest carb when all is considered (effort, value etc).
 
Your need for 3500-4000 cals is not unrealistic. When I started HST 2 years ago I weighed 145 lbs. at 5’6” and had to eat around 3200-3500 a day to gain 1 lb. / week and I’m 50 years old.

In order to eat that much and not feel like a bloated piece of crap I eat 3 shakes a day with varying calories depending on what else I plan on eating. One nice thing about shakes is you can get a very accurate accounting of your calories and macros so that you can be more sure that your getting enough.

As for cost I’m not sure how prices work out there but here whey protein is the cheapest / gram protein available. Olive oil is the cheapest mono-saturated fat and if you can get the “light” type it imparts no flavour even the regular olive oil doesn’t impart much flavour unless you go nuts with it. It’s also nice if you don’t want all your shakes tasting like peanut butter which by comparison is much more expensive here than olive oil. Oatmeal is a great and inexpensive (here again) source of carbs and fiber.

As long as you eat one or two solid meals of some sort a day you can use shakes to fill in the rest. On work days I usually have just one solid meal, dinner, which due to my schedule is just before bed so it works out since it takes longer for the solid food to digest.
 
Squat (Light Day): 90lb x 5, 115lb x 5, 135lb x 5, 135lb x 5

Military Press: 65lb x 5, 80lb x 5, 90lb x 5, 105lb x 5

Sumo Deadlift: 145lb x 5, 175lb x 5, 205lb x 5, 235lb x 5

E-Z Bar Curl: bar + 50lb x 10, bar + 50lb x 10

Weighted Decline Crunches: BW x 10, 35lb plate x 10

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Squat felt a lot easier at a wider stance - not keeping the form as form is fine, but just in the speed of movement. Like I've stated, I have abductor pain when I squat wide but it actually goes away as the weight gets heavier. I think it's a muscle imbalance or biomechanics since my knees are not aligned with my feet. Nothing I can do but keep squatting.

Sumo Deadlift, I have to really focus on squeezing the bar. I tend to be lax on that having been used to doing pullups as my primary movement with thumb over the bar (Marine Corps style) so I never really had to focus on gripping the bar much until added weight (weight belt) got heavy.

Everything else was self explanatory. Think I should be able to push out at least 110lb for 5 on the military press come next week.
 
Didn't record last session. This is today's session, which is 2 days late as it is because I hadn't been able to work out during this week at all due to lots of things on my plate.

Squat: 95lb x 5, 115lb x 5, 140lb x 5, 160lb x 5, 185lb x 5

Bench: 80lb x 5, 100lb x 5, 120lb x 5, 140lb x 5, 160lb x 5

Pendlay Row: 80lb x 5, 95lb x 5, 115lb x 5, 135lb x 5, 155lb x 5

EZ Bar Curls bar + 60lb x 8 rest pause 10 seconds bar + 60lb x 1 rest pause 10 seconds bar + 60lb x 1

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Squat felt pretty hard but not at max...which is good. Spotter helped me on the last rep even though I told him I had it...I don't know why...but I definitely could have powered through that and maybe 1 or 2 more. We'll see how 190lb x 5 goes next week.

Bench felt near max...no spot today since there was nobody in the weight room at the time so I was cautious.

Pendlay Row...form is good now but some old fat mother****er came up to me after my set with 135lb and told me to stop letting momentum bring the bar to the floor because the sound was hurting his ears - a sound that lasts all of like 5-7 seconds during the set. At least I wasn't doing deadlifts because then I would have told him to nicely gtfo so I wouldn't have to end up herniating a disc so that I wouldn't hurt his ears.

So I set the bar down each rep on my max set, which then ended up feeling harder than it had to because of the eccentric work I had to do as a result. Sick and tired of all these Planet Fitness-style people frequenting my gym. I do like my gym, not for any reason other than the fact that I've been frequenting it in some capacity forever, and have been a member of the YMCA for a billion years, but me thinks I need a change. Maybe I'll still use the YMCA when I work out on weekends, and sign up for a gym class at my community college so I can utilize its gym (can't just use it like any old college).

EZ-Bar curls went fine.

Skipped abs today because I was gassy and didn't want to let out any noxious fumes in the cardio room where all the beautiful women reside.

All in all, probably going to reset everything within the next couple of weeks.
 
Don't ever worry about the eccentric portion of a movement - let it do what it needs to to preserve both the lift and your health. Next time, kick that fat mother****** in the nads and tell him to go eat a sandwich. A gym is not intended for the neat and pristine. It's intended for those motivated to do so to better themselves by any means possible in the facility. Drop the bar all you want, TD. Good fer 'ya.
 
Squat (Light Day): 95lb x 5, 115lb x 5, 140lb x 5, 140lb x 5

Military Press: 70lb x 5, 85lb x 5, 95lb x 5, 110lb x 5 (PR + 5lb)

Sumo Deadlift: 150lb x 5, 180lb x 5, 210lb x 5, 240lb x 5 (PR + 5lb)

E-Z Bar Curls: bar + 60lb x 8 rest pause 10 seconds bar + 60lb x 1 rest pause 10 seconds bar + 60lb x 1

Weighted Decline Crunches: BW x 10, 35lb plate x 10

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Boy did everything feel easier. I've only lifted twice in the past two weeks due to lots of work, but I guess the rest paid off. Light day squat felt like nothing on my back. Military Press felt great and I'll probably hit a PR again next session and maybe even the session after.

Sumo Deadlift felt pretty easy...and even easier when I narrowed my stance to a psuedo-regular/sumo width, but my grip wasn't very hot. Even with mixed grip, weirdly enough, the bar was slipping out of my supinated hand. I really don't understand...I think it's just the fact that I have small hands. Regardless, I'm gonna drop row and start weighted towel chins to see if I can boost my grip. I'll probably drop curls too, but we'll see. For final set of deadlift, I'm going to use straps for the time being, and for the earlier sets I'm going to play around with hook grip.

When I drop row, I'll probably throw back in the prehab work to avoid shoulder injury (rear delt rows and maybe some other stuff).
 
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I'm somewhat lost, why are you dropping the Rows ... ? Especially when your workouts are getting you results (ala increased PRs)
 
Pendlay rows haven't PR'd and I don't want to do two back exercises since I'm throwing in weighted towel chins. And I don't like Rows.
 
Nevermind. My towel is fat and those mother****ers are hard.

Guess I have to keep rows.

What supplementary exercises can I do to increase grip strength?
 
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