heavy weight, low reps

[jdl1981]

Hi guys,

I'm starting some heavy training today, what I need some help with is how many exercises and sets should I do? I was thinking 4 exercises doing 3x5.

Is this enough or too much? I'm used to training in the 4 x 8 - 12 range with at least 5 exercises.

Starting with chest and tri's today. I should add I train at home so just got barbells, dumbells and an adjustable bench

[jdl1981]

Animal said:

Why are you making the change? What are your goals?

I want to increase my strength and bulk up. I've trained for a few years using body weight and weights where I can do 4 sets of say 10 reps but now want to step it up a bit

[jdl1981]

Thanks for the help guys, chest and tri's went well earlier. Found by the time I came to do my tri's they were well worked anyway. Just did 3x5 incline, flat and decline bench and flyes. Bench at 70kg flyes at 16kg

[jdl1981]

Lost_BMW said:

FWIW - my tuppenceworth...

If you want to get stronger (than your last routine was doing) then 3 x 5 or similar is a great routine but check on the % of 1 rep max systems/cycles recommended or you may use too litte weight, or too much, and not hit the reps wanted by the end of the workout. Many cycles vary this load workout to workout or week to week and some have workouts with fewer reps one day and more another - there's loads out there to look at.

Exercise wise I reckon 3 or 4 per workout is fine but would make them the big strength building compounds. e.g. personally for strength gains I wouldn't even bother with flyes, though I know others disagree, ditto with lateral raises etc.

I'd choose from squats, dead lifts, shrugs, bent rows, chins/pull ups, bench press, close grip bench press, dips and overhead presses with maybe barbell curls and 'skull crushers' added to the mix. Quite a few of us on here rate cleans, hang pulls etc. too.

Speed of rep wise some, but by no means all, bodybuilders emphasise slow reps but stuff I've read from s&c guys, powerlifters et al suggest the positive part should be as fast as possible (but not by cheating/using momentum) to activate the fast twitch fibres to their max. Creatine supplementation may help too but that's another argument!

Would you say training each body part once a week is enough? I intend to do chest/tri's, back, shoulders/abs then legs and rest for 2 days. Also, with deadlifts are they best done with legs or back? Having done a little research I'm not going to bother concentrating on biceps as I've had my best gains on those when only doing chins