I’m a 31 y/o male who’s been lifting for about a year now. I’m 6’2" (188 cm) 176 lbs (80 kg). I’ve gained 15 lbs (7kg) since I started.
Stalled out on SS LP quite quickly, INDTP, mostly because of poor form I believe, but I reset and fought it for too long (in hindsight).
Tried Stronglifts 5x5 for a couple of months but that wasn’t no magic pill either.
I’ve been running a 4-day split routine for three months now which looks like this:
Intensity is singles, doubles and triples alternating weekly. 5-6 reps total per session.
Volume is 5x5, except from pulls which are 3x5 (three sets of fahve).
Assistance is 3x10-12. I’ve never done singles on assistance excercises so I don’t know the percentage.
I like my programs simple. I would like to modify this program to drop the intensity and up the volume. I need to put on some mass, bro.
My volume training is currently done @ 80% of my singles, except for pulls which are about 65-70%.
So what I’m thinking about is changing the sets and percentages to:
Your program seems very similar to Andy Baker’s 5x5. He’s doing the exact scheme you are doing but with 3 workouts per week. Basically it’s very similar to:
Intensity cycles from triples to doubles to singles and back again (but just 1 set each workout). Volume stays at 5x5 and starts at something around 70%. Every cycle the % of 1RM for volume increases for I think 1% and each cycle the triples, doubles, singles increase for iirc. 2,5% and after 12 weeks there’s a deload/testing week and then you start over.
More importantly what he does to increase volume is e.g. on days where you feel you can handle more is to add a backoff set of 8-10 reps after the 5x5 volume. For assistance he does 1 - 2 additional exercises at higher rep sets that fit into the general theme of the day. E.g. when you do volume press then add some DB presses, incline bench or similar as assistance.
I think any of these techniques should be useful to increase volume and should definitely be sufficient to increase hypertrophy and strength if you want to stay very close to your original template. But I think that changing “intensity” to 5x5 and volume to “3x8” will only shift the work away from heavier work towards the “assistance” stuff and make you lose strength over time. One set of heavy triples/doubles/singles, 5x5 plus 1 optional backoff set with 8-10 reps and then 1-2 assistance exercises at something like 3x8-15 should be more than enough volume to make you crawl out of the gym.
