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I've been second guessing myself on training volume a lot lately.
In the last 12 months I've gone from pudgy couch potato at 200 @ 20%+ BF to a fairly fit 220 @ 12%. With a trip to 249, gomad and Rippetoe's starting strength program followed by a keto diet (palumbo) and an abbreviated 5x5 program in between. (that's a 16 week cycle of test, pct, and a 16 week cycle of test+tren)
I'm currently in my second week of PCT and starting to think about my fall program.
My squat is about 1.5x , dead 2x, bench 1x bodyweight.
I'm not sure whether to wander into a bodybuilding type routine or continue with a strength focus until I have enough strength to move poundages that will let me put muscle on.
Goal wise I'd like to be ~250 @ 10% and I'm not entirely sure what path would be most productive in year 2. The Starting Strength program was a god send in year 1 but I'm finding that I've developed enough strength that linear gains with the program run out too quickly (I overtrain).
When I was a fair bit younger (20 years or so ago) I tended to do 3-4 exercises per bodypart @ 10 reps per set / 3 times per week and frankly had a real hard time increasing strength or size. It was great for stamina/conditioning but did little for my lifts or muscle growth.
An awful lot of the programs I read still seem to talk about 3+ exercises per bodypart and multiple times per week.
Where I get confused is when I compare common workout programs
to the 3x5 working sets (plus warmup) single exercise (big compounds) 3x per week (rippetoe), and 5x5 workings sets (plus armup) plus an auxiliary exercise 1x per week (bill starr/mad cowish) that I have been doing for the last for the last year.
I'm pretty sure I've got a good starting point for my diet @ around ~4k calories, and I will be supplementing with test and npp but I'm flailing around with what is likely to be most effective training program to
1) get me to an intermediate strength level
2) put another 20-30 pounds of meat on my bones in the next 12 months
For those of you who have been over this hump one or more times. How do you make the transition between novice and intermediate in your training?
On one side I'm thinking some kind of texas method (strength/speed/volume) and on the other end I'm thinking 20 rep breathing squats, 10x10 and/or 16 sets x 10 reps per body part.
Suffice it to say I'm go too much information and not enough knowledge.
All thoughts are welcome at this point and informed ones are even more welcome.b
thanks,
bot
In the last 12 months I've gone from pudgy couch potato at 200 @ 20%+ BF to a fairly fit 220 @ 12%. With a trip to 249, gomad and Rippetoe's starting strength program followed by a keto diet (palumbo) and an abbreviated 5x5 program in between. (that's a 16 week cycle of test, pct, and a 16 week cycle of test+tren)
I'm currently in my second week of PCT and starting to think about my fall program.
My squat is about 1.5x , dead 2x, bench 1x bodyweight.
I'm not sure whether to wander into a bodybuilding type routine or continue with a strength focus until I have enough strength to move poundages that will let me put muscle on.
Goal wise I'd like to be ~250 @ 10% and I'm not entirely sure what path would be most productive in year 2. The Starting Strength program was a god send in year 1 but I'm finding that I've developed enough strength that linear gains with the program run out too quickly (I overtrain).
When I was a fair bit younger (20 years or so ago) I tended to do 3-4 exercises per bodypart @ 10 reps per set / 3 times per week and frankly had a real hard time increasing strength or size. It was great for stamina/conditioning but did little for my lifts or muscle growth.
An awful lot of the programs I read still seem to talk about 3+ exercises per bodypart and multiple times per week.
Where I get confused is when I compare common workout programs
to the 3x5 working sets (plus warmup) single exercise (big compounds) 3x per week (rippetoe), and 5x5 workings sets (plus armup) plus an auxiliary exercise 1x per week (bill starr/mad cowish) that I have been doing for the last for the last year.
I'm pretty sure I've got a good starting point for my diet @ around ~4k calories, and I will be supplementing with test and npp but I'm flailing around with what is likely to be most effective training program to
1) get me to an intermediate strength level
2) put another 20-30 pounds of meat on my bones in the next 12 months
For those of you who have been over this hump one or more times. How do you make the transition between novice and intermediate in your training?
On one side I'm thinking some kind of texas method (strength/speed/volume) and on the other end I'm thinking 20 rep breathing squats, 10x10 and/or 16 sets x 10 reps per body part.
Suffice it to say I'm go too much information and not enough knowledge.
All thoughts are welcome at this point and informed ones are even more welcome.b
thanks,
bot
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