Bill Starr's 5 x 5 program... Variation per Madcow2 (thanx) So here it is! K up now!

[siamesedream]

That's a reasonable conclusion, but IMO it's still too much extra. Do what dips you can, trying to improve a bit week to week. Those upright rows will hurt your bench progress IMHO, regardless of whether or not they bother your shoulders like they do mine- there's plenty of shoulder work in the program as laid out.

Really? Upright rowing will hurt my bench? Alright, I'll cut them out. Also, on my food log, is it unreasonable to have a goal of a 5-pound increase each week on all lifts eating as little calories as I am? My caloric intake is around the 2000 mark every day and I only eat carbs immediately after working out to try to neutralize cortisol.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Really? Upright rowing will hurt my bench? Alright, I'll cut them out. Also, on my food log, is it unreasonable to have a goal of a 5-pound increase each week on all lifts eating as little calories as I am? My caloric intake is around the 2000 mark every day and I only eat carbs immediately after working out to try to neutralize cortisol.

THat one i'm not so sure about, but I tend to believe that if you're fairly overweight and new to lifting, you'll get strong unless you downright starve yourself. 2k a day is pretty damn low though. What are your stats again (ht/wt/bf%)?

 

[siamesedream]

"2k a day is pretty damn low though."



Yeah, like I said, my main goal is to drop weight. I eat more than 2k on Friday and Saturday only though to try to help my strength increase over the weekend. But yeah, 2k is really low for me and I'm losing weight which is my main goal, but if strength increase is possible I'll do any possible thing I can while cutting to do it.


My stats:

Ht: 5'10
Wt: 207 pounds
BF: 23-25%

 

[Guinness5.0]

If it's working and you don't feel like #### then keep doing it. Strength can definitely be improved while losing fat, especially for newbs. Once you're REALLY strong losing fat will kill some strength, but for now you'll improve no doubt

It wouldn't be bad IMHO to occasionally do a couple weeks of more "normal" eating just for the sake of your metabolism. Plus if you composition-shift by a signifcant degree you'll NEED extra cals to hang on to muscle.

 

[siamesedream]

If it's working and you don't feel like #### then keep doing it. Strength can definitely be improved while losing fat, especially for newbs. Once you're REALLY strong losing fat will kill some strength, but for now you'll improve no doubt

It wouldn't be bad IMHO to occasionally do a couple weeks of more "normal" eating just for the sake of your metabolism. Plus if you composition-shift by a signifcant degree you'll NEED extra cals to hang on to muscle.

Oh yeah, I feel great and fine. My legs have the tendency to be sore though as I've never deadlifted or squatted before this program. As a matter of fact, I always feel like I'm not doing enough which is one of the main reasons why I had so many other exercises on my list to do. Before I started the 5x5, I lifted weights 6 days a week on a routine that took around 3 hours to do (which I now know I was training in the worst possible way and severely overtraining everything on my body) every lifting day so I'm used to being entirely and completely drained by the end and even during a workout session. I just got back from my 5x5 today, and I noticed that something is incredibly odd with me. On incline bench, I worked up to 2 sets of 145x5 and I kept the weight going constantly and accelerating throughout every single repetition without pause or rest, yet, for some reason, on flat bench, I can't do 185x5 for one set without locking-out and pausing for 3-10 seconds in between each rep. That doesn't make any sense since my incline should only be 70-80% of what my flat-bench is. Strange.....

Anyways, since you said I should cut out a few other exercises I'm doing, I made a list for next week that involves some cluster training with bench on Friday and the entire routine has been modified. Let me know if there's anything wrong with it. Here it is:

 

[Guinness5.0]

Siamese dream- It jsut occurred to me that you're getting the dual-factor and single factor programs confused- you're doing 5x5 of the same weight when you should be pyramiding.

Read this link carefully:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4497774&postcount=15

 

[siamesedream]

Alright, I revised it again. One question, I've decided I'm not going to increase my bench next week since my heaviest set of 3 today required assistance from my spotter (only using 2 fingers, though) on my last rep. Also, I'm confident that I chose a top set too high to begin with on bench since I have to lock-out for 3-10 seconds in between each rep to do it. I'm going to increase everything else as that won't be a problem for next week, but not bench press. So, my question is, will this have some kind of effect on my benching gains? Some guy in another thread said that strength gain comes from increasing your weights every week, so if I back-off on the weights on bench-press for a week or 2, will this cause me to plateau?


Here's my new plan, also:

 

[siamesedream]

Another thing, I recently dropped a few grand on a top-of-the line cardio bike and it just came in the mail and I'll be doing HIIT on the thing after weightlifting at the gym. Will HIIT on a cardio bike overtrain my legs? If I am to do them immediately after lifting and not do them on days off, it should allow my legs enough time to recover, correct?

 

[siamesedream]

bump

 

[Guinness5.0]

Another thing, I recently dropped a few grand on a top-of-the line cardio bike and it just came in the mail and I'll be doing HIIT on the thing after weightlifting at the gym. Will HIIT on a cardio bike overtrain my legs? If I am to do them immediately after lifting and not do them on days off, it should allow my legs enough time to recover, correct?

What tiem of day do you lift? Many on this site are fans of A.M. cardio on an empty stomach, then lifting later. With cardio equipment in your house I would think that would be a great option. I wouldn't worry about overtraining as long as you keep it reasonable- cardio really isn't all that taxing if it's moderate. It's jsut gonna burn a few extra cals and help your heart.

Not that it matters much but you may want to start your own journal on here. The journals seem to get good responses from more than just one person