i just started bulking a week ago.. it was merely testing the waters. I've been consulting this former olympic weightlifter and now bodybuilder who tells me that for overall size, you need to focus on building All the different types of muscle fibres.. type 1, type 2a and type 2b. He says a reason ppl plateau is because routines simply don't target every single type. Amongst that, they don't target capillarization.
So basically, for bulking beginners like myself who also have crappy genetics and were formerly unfit, a standard program like 5 x 5 wont cut it.
5 x 5 he says is excellent for strength gain, increasing mind-muscle coordination and targetting type 2b fibers. But on top of that, we need to do something that targets type 1, type 2a and which increases capillarization.
So I suppose that's saying, do 5 x 5 3 days a week or so. Amongst that, add 3 days of total body moderate to hi rep training.
And after 5 x 5, to increase capillarization, do some pump sets which are really light weight but 50 reps or so. It's similar to fiber damage / fiber saturation.
and as WP pointed out, progressive overload.... increase the weights progressively.
I've just started doing that for that last couple days and i'm in tremendous pain atm... so yea, seems good.
