Bill Starr's 5x5 Concerns

C

Cnatboy

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So I am just now going to begin my bulk (summer ending) and have decided to try out Bill Starr's 5x5 workout program. Basically you do three compound exercises a day 5 sets of 5 reps working your major body parts.

My question, for those of you who are familiar with the program is this... The first 3 sets of each exercise seem to be sort of like a joke because they are so light, they all seem like warm ups. Even the 4th set is fairly easy and then the 5th set is difficult.

The intensity of the workouts seems to be a bit lower than I'm used to, and there are no vertical pulls (such as lat pull downs) or pushes (unless you count Incline bench). Anyway the program is Monday- Squat, Bench, Row Wednesday- Squat, Incline, Deadlift Friday- Squat Bench Row with some ab work on mon and wed and bicep/tricep work on friday.

From what I read you shouldn't be adding things but I think that this seems far from overtraining and I'm worried I wont get solid gains from it because it doesn't seem intense (only the final sets of 5 are hard). Has anyone tried it or do you guys think that it's worth putting a few months of time into?
 
The program works, I have done it myself for a 4 week period, 3 times a week pretty much exactly as you outlined it (read my journal for more detailed info) and I made some good gains. I tested my 4 main lifts (front squat, deadlift, bench and BO row) at the start and then did the 4 weeks. I started at 80% or so of my weights and by week 4 I was doing 5x5 of my previous max. The trick is that you have to increase the weight each time you come to workout 1 again in every category by the minimum weight you can so you slowly adjust to it. I suggest that if you are finding it too easy then you are doing too easy weights. One clear example is my DL which went from a 120kg max (barely) to a 160kg max in 4 weeks. (and that was eating in a defecit as opposed to bulking).
 
Cnatboy said:
So I am just now going to begin my bulk (summer ending) and have decided to try out Bill Starr's 5x5 workout program. Basically you do three compound exercises a day 5 sets of 5 reps working your major body parts.

My question, for those of you who are familiar with the program is this... The first 3 sets of each exercise seem to be sort of like a joke because they are so light, they all seem like warm ups. Even the 4th set is fairly easy and then the 5th set is difficult.

The intensity of the workouts seems to be a bit lower than I'm used to, and there are no vertical pulls (such as lat pull downs) or pushes (unless you count Incline bench). Anyway the program is Monday- Squat, Bench, Row Wednesday- Squat, Incline, Deadlift Friday- Squat Bench Row with some ab work on mon and wed and bicep/tricep work on friday.

From what I read you shouldn't be adding things but I think that this seems far from overtraining and I'm worried I wont get solid gains from it because it doesn't seem intense (only the final sets of 5 are hard). Has anyone tried it or do you guys think that it's worth putting a few months of time into?
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You're using the same weight for the five sets of five. No where did it say that you use a weight that is a warm up weight for the first three sets and then suddenly it gets tough. So once you get the weight for the five sets, you bump it up by five pounds. You're using a weight that you might be able to get 1-2 more reps out of starting on the first set. You will get fatigued.

It's a program that's easy to follow and will get results as long as you stick to it.
 
Depends what version he is following, evo, he has probably seen the mad cow intermediate where you ramp the weight up 10-15% each set until you reach the 5th set which is your only real hard working set.

Just stick with the program, it works.
 
I did this a couple years ago and I think did some training journals on here. I recall it being brutal and effective. If I remember right one day it was working up each set and another day it was all 5 sets with the same weight.
 
Sorry I probably should have specified but Karky is exactly correct, I am doing the Madcow version of it... It ramps up 10-15% each set to the max set of 5 for each exercise. It's the Linear Pre-Periodization version... good to know that people have gotten good gains from it though.
 
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