Questions now that I'm nearing the end of the first cycle

T

Turnitupto11

New Member
Hi guys,

So today I finished my 100% of 5RMs. According to the scale I've put on more than half a stone of body weight, and the majority appears to be muscle. Given that I haven't even been able to get proper sleep for a lot of this cycle, that seems like pretty good gains to me. But, I've got a few questions....

I know that after lifting 100% of your 5RM you can continue on by lifting 105%, 110% etc of your 5RM and eventually you can just do negatives. My question is, how long am I supposed to carry on doing this before I stop and do strategic deconditioning?

I'm confused because, with clustering, I could potentially continue on for months until I'm lifting my 1RM for each rep, and use mini breaks to get my total of 15 reps.

I'm also confused because there are some exercises where I can tell I'll be able to keep increasing for a week or two (the compound lifts), but the isolation exercises (e.g. bicep curl) I can see me getting to failure within a week of increasing the weight. So what should I do? Should I train to absolute failure on everything and then strategically conditon? Should I increase the weights on isolation exercises at a slower rate?



My last question is more of a general one. My elbow joints often get sore doing freeweight tricep exercises so, during this cycle, I've been doing Close Grip Bench Press. The problem is that I'm not really feeling it in my triceps, I'm feeling it more in my shoulders. I've checked on sites for instructions on correct form and, as far as I can tell, I'm doing it correct. My other option is to use a machine for tricep pushdown and overhead tricep pulls, but the downside is that I can't progressively load the weight each workout.

Any ideas or tips?? My triceps seem to be lagging behind now, so I need to find a good workout that I can lift heavy.
 
I was in the same position as you recently. I went on to do 3´s until I had had enough. I did 12,8 then 4´s tho. I basically either continued where I left off on the 4s or increased slightly where I felt I could. I did at least the same amount of reps as I did on the 4s. I carried on for 3 weeks like this until the other day where I went to failure on everything and started to feel a bit too achy in both muscles and joints. I made great progress like that, I feel. I could also have clustered even more but the workout would have taken a couple of hours.

Basically your body will tell you when to quit. You just need to listen to it.

With regards to your triceps: what are you using? barbell? I used the barbell when I did skullcrushers and as they got heavier I aimed towards my mouth with the bar. I get great contact like that. You may be raising your shoulders from the bench (ie forward if youre standing) too much bringing them into play.
 
Thanks for the reply gbglifter,

So for the 3s did you carry on for 3 weeks at the same weight, or were you still progressively loading over those 3 weeks?

From experience I know that my biceps and shoulders seem to burn out before anything else when I'm lifting heavy...so I'm trying to find a way to keep loading weight and making gains before SD. As far as I can tell from HST I need to avoid going to failure to keep getting gains, so I'm assuming that even if I'm only failing on biceps and shoulders, this'll tax my CNS very quickly and cut the rest of the cycle short.

For triceps I'm using an ez curl bar so it doesn't put too much strain on my wrist when the grip is close. I've tried skullcrushers in the past and got pain in my elbow joint....but I was taking the weight behind my head rather than to my mouth. Might try that out.
 
I was still loading during the 3 weeks. I am able to increase very slightly in all exercises as I only do compounds really. I was a bit astonished as to how much gains could be had by continuing doing really heavy stuff.

My shoulders were probably the sorest of all muscles and my elbows and bicep tendons were hurting towards the end But Im glad I extended the cycle. A lot of strength was gained, I feel. Should come into use when I start the next cycle. Going to failure takes a while to recover from and personally I notice strength loss then. My strategy was to go to failure as little as possible in the final stages. Instead of doing 3x3 I did as many as possible in each set to help getting the weight to the starting position as few times as possible and still doing 9-10 reps. The first rep of dips is always the worst,

Ive uses the ez for skulls previously but I think the barbell is actually less painful. Yeah, try doing "mouthcrushers" instead.
 
Weighted Dips are the king of tricep exercises in my opinion. Haven't found anything better.
 
gbglifter said:
Cant do anything but agree with you there Sci. But they do start taxing the elbows etc when getting up towards "heavy".
Click to expand...

Really? Most guys complain about shoulder stretch with dips, never heard much about elbows during dips, but I suppose if you already have problem elbows, then anything might hurt if done heavy.
 
How narrow/wide are you doing your dips? Too narrow feels uncomfortable to me and is when I start to feel it in my joints.
 
Quite narrow actually but better for my shoulders. Im a bit paranoid reg. shoulders as I couldnt train for a year as I had an injury. Thats me only really getting back up to decent weights after my stint off. That was over two years ago now. I may do them slightly wider next time round.
 
Yeah, I also recommend a wider grip, especially if you are tall with wide shoulders. Standard dip bars are narrow for me somewhat, but I suppose for shorter guys, standard dip bars are too wide! I like to point my elbows out slightly to get the pecs more involved, doesn't hurt my shoulder at all, I just make sure not to go too low.
 
Im 6ft but the bars at my gym arent parallell. The further in the narrower. Advice heeded and appreciated. Thanks.
 
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