[ptdanny]

Hey everyone!

Me and my brother have football season coming up soon, so we are trying to break our plateau and start power lifting to get as strong as possible as fast as possible. We have a good 3 months of summer to lift hard before the season starts.

I have read a lot about 3x5 and 5x5 workouts, and i guess they are a great start for beginners. We are going for pure strength gains, and i was curious to hear the opinions of others in the area.

We currently lift 4-5x a week, hitting every major muscle group once a week, chest, beck, legs, shoulders, arms, etc... Workouts are usually 4 lifts with 3-5 sets of each lift. Usually 5 sets on the earlier power lifts like bench, squat, shoulder press, etc.. And we usually pyramid down so each lift is usually (1-2 *warmup sets* then a set of 10,8,6,4)

My brother is 16, and i am 22, and have had great strength gains so far, but recently started to plateau. We are looking for some advice on training, a good routine, and overall experience with strength training and power lifting, and hopefully some more bulk.

We currently take:
1. a kre-alkaline creatine before workouts.
2. protein shakes on a regular basis, especially after workouts and before bed.
3. recently got some glutamine and will start in mornings & before bed.
4. ZMA for deeper sleep and some test boost
5. I personally will start some cycle to boost my test and help my strength gains, not sure which yet.

Thanks for any advice and help guys!
I'll be sure to update you before the season starts

[kbtoy31]

i'm sure some others will jump on here with some more advice. However I can vouch for the 5x5 training. My strength certainly went up a lot. From my own experience I didn't notice too much on muscle hardness. Strength and size def went up tho'. It's slow going but you'll add about 50lbs to your lifts maybe more depending on how fast you want to progress at the end of the program. Or I should say how fast your body lets you progress. I think it would be good for football too seeing as how your going for strength. I ended at 5 weeks and went back to higher reps just b/c i felt i was getting a little too flabby but it was def a good routine. I'm def gonna do it again in the future maybe in the fall or winter. when I don't care too much if I get a little soft around the edges. You can google madcows 5x5 training and there's a whole template you can print out and all. You just put in your 5 rep max and it sets up all your lifts for you. Good luck brother.

[ptdanny]

Thanks for the info!

Ya I've heard good things about the 5x5, so i wanted to read others experiences and advice. Im glad to hear you had good success with it, makes me feel more secure, haha. Yea i was planning on doing a 4-5 week stint of it, then go back to higher reps.

[Resolve]

I've had great success with a 5x5 split in the past, and actually just started another one this past week. Lifting 5x/week however, would be high for me - I'd go max of 4, but my favorite is 3x/week, working two mucle groups per wo. There are a lot of wayes to split that up, right now I'm trying: Chest & Biceps, Legs & Shoulders, Back & tris.

Another great thing to break through a plateau is cluster sets: set up for a large compound lift (dead, squat, clean and press, push press, bench, etc.) at about 90-95% of your 1RM. Perform the lift, rerack, rest 15seconds, repeat twice more, for a total of 3 reps separated by 15second pauses. This is one set - do five sets one week, four the next and increase the weight 2-3%, three the next with another increase, then on the fourth week do 5 sets again but with the increased weight from the third week. I got great gains in strength.
Hope this helps.

[ptdanny]

that sounds awesome! Ya i've added some fun stuff like drop sets and super sets in the past, but never clusters, it does sound like a great way to break plateaus.

sounds like some intense workouts too!

ill probably do the 5x5 split for my power lifts and compound lifts ,and have 1-2 of the 5 days be higher rep lighter days for arms, or calves or something.

thanks again! this site rocks

[dawaro]

Originally Posted by ptdanny

that sounds awesome! Ya i've added some fun stuff like drop sets and super sets in the past, but never clusters, it does sound like a great way to break plateaus.

sounds like some intense workouts too!

ill probably do the 5x5 split for my power lifts and compound lifts ,and have 1-2 of the 5 days be higher rep lighter days for arms, or calves or something.

thanks again! this site rocks

If you are going for pure strength go with the Madcow's, The Texas Method or the stronglifts. All are a full body work outs 3x week.

[rxp1997]

Originally Posted by ptdanny

that sounds awesome! Ya i've added some fun stuff like drop sets and super sets in the past, but never clusters, it does sound like a great way to break plateaus.

sounds like some intense workouts too!

ill probably do the 5x5 split for my power lifts and compound lifts ,and have 1-2 of the 5 days be higher rep lighter days for arms, or calves or something.

thanks again! this site rocks

pt, a 5x5 program really means you do 5 sets of 5 reps for your exercises, it is a good program if you want mass along with strength, how you break up the splits is up to you (full body, upper/lower, body parts, 3 day, 4 day...)

another routine that is geared for strength in Max-OT, looks like a good program but what personally dissuaded me from it was that they say it's ok not to use good form as long as you get the rep.

personally, I used DC for two years as a solid strength with mass routine, and have been doing a PL routine for the last three months to focus on just strength.

[Resolve]

Originally Posted by ptdanny

that sounds awesome! Ya i've added some fun stuff like drop sets and super sets in the past, but never clusters, it does sound like a great way to break plateaus.

sounds like some intense workouts too!

ill probably do the 5x5 split for my power lifts and compound lifts ,and have 1-2 of the 5 days be higher rep lighter days for arms, or calves or something.

thanks again! this site rocks

yeah, cluster sets rock imo. Glad I could help - hope ya just smash that plateau!