Howdy All. First post. Just completed my 6th week 5RM microcycle this morning. I skipped negatives this first time for a couple of reasons. First, looking at my training plans for the rest of the year and trying to complete 3 cycles, a personal vacation caused me to want to shift things a bit to minimize impact on training. Second, and most importantly, I'm nursing a couple of minor injuries.
1.) I'm not sure I made any appreciable gains this first time. I didn't measure at the beginning so I can't be sure but I measured 3 weeks in and I'll measure tomorrow when I do my weight and body fat. I mainly blame diet. August was a sloppy month, but in September I started out with a very clean diet. I'm at 2500 cals a day right now and plan to kick it up to 2750-3000 when I start my new cycle. I think rest was also a factor - again, August. I'll be more diligent on the next cycle.
2.) I'm doing some basic re-evaluation of my lifts. My lifts were:
It's hard to feel like the smaller/isolated muscle groups aren't unattended by this so I'm thinking of going to 3 sets per day on the larger groups - back, chest, legs - and 2 per day on the smaller - bicep, tricep, shoulders, traps, calves, abs. I also have been bringing a gripper to the gym and working it in. I've got the CoC #1 and I'm thinking of buying the 1.5 and 2 for my next cycle and going up a gauge for each microcycle.
One thing I'm having a hard time getting my head around is doing low reps on things like the preacher curl and especially lateral raise. Following what seemed like a reasonable formula had me doing 5 reps of 50 pounds laterals the past couple days. My form went all to **** up there even though I'm pretty confident I could get good form out of 35 in the 15 rep range. Form falls apart on the preacher curl too. Now I know this could be just a miscalculation of my 5RM from when I started - I'd never done these exercises in these target reps before so I was calculating my 5RM from a 1RM in my tracking app, which is probably based off of something I was doing previously in the 8-12 range. I'm considering adjusting my 5RM down on these for the next cycle.
That's it for now. I'd love to see what people think about these thoughts. I'm going to go decondition for a while now and I'll make sure to do so strategically.
1.) I'm not sure I made any appreciable gains this first time. I didn't measure at the beginning so I can't be sure but I measured 3 weeks in and I'll measure tomorrow when I do my weight and body fat. I mainly blame diet. August was a sloppy month, but in September I started out with a very clean diet. I'm at 2500 cals a day right now and plan to kick it up to 2750-3000 when I start my new cycle. I think rest was also a factor - again, August. I'll be more diligent on the next cycle.
2.) I'm doing some basic re-evaluation of my lifts. My lifts were:
- Squats: 2 sets on Day A, 1 set on Day B
- Good Mornings: 1 Set on Day A, 2 sets on day B
- Incline Bench: 2 sets on day A, 1 set on day B
- Dips: 1 set day a, 2 sets day B
- Decline Flye: 1 set on day B only
- Deadlifts: 2 sets on day A, 1 set on day B
- Pullups: 1 set on day A, 2 sets on day B; stopped after 3 weeks due to elbow injury
- Cable Rows: 1 set day A, 2 sets day B
- Military Press: 2 sets day A, 1 set day B
- DB Laterals: 1 set day A, 2 sets day B
- Lying Tricep Extensions, 1 set each day
- Barbell Shrug: 1 set each day
- Preacher Curls: 1 set each day
- Cable Crunch: 1 set each day
- Leg Press Calf Raises: 1 set each day
It's hard to feel like the smaller/isolated muscle groups aren't unattended by this so I'm thinking of going to 3 sets per day on the larger groups - back, chest, legs - and 2 per day on the smaller - bicep, tricep, shoulders, traps, calves, abs. I also have been bringing a gripper to the gym and working it in. I've got the CoC #1 and I'm thinking of buying the 1.5 and 2 for my next cycle and going up a gauge for each microcycle.
One thing I'm having a hard time getting my head around is doing low reps on things like the preacher curl and especially lateral raise. Following what seemed like a reasonable formula had me doing 5 reps of 50 pounds laterals the past couple days. My form went all to **** up there even though I'm pretty confident I could get good form out of 35 in the 15 rep range. Form falls apart on the preacher curl too. Now I know this could be just a miscalculation of my 5RM from when I started - I'd never done these exercises in these target reps before so I was calculating my 5RM from a 1RM in my tracking app, which is probably based off of something I was doing previously in the 8-12 range. I'm considering adjusting my 5RM down on these for the next cycle.
That's it for now. I'd love to see what people think about these thoughts. I'm going to go decondition for a while now and I'll make sure to do so strategically.