Barbell Size with strength focused training?

[Nate]

What’s funny is in my hometown we were taught Leif discovered America instead of Columbus. They even had a statue of him in the park. I didn’t know most people thought Columbus discovered it until moving away.
Everyone is named Johnson or Oleson and there is an annual lutefisk eating contest. so they have a bit of bias up there.

Natives were the first people to discover America.
Ericson was the first European to discover.
Columbus was first European to re-discover and establish continual settlement.
Funny enough, Columbus had no idea he (re)found America. He died thinking he was in the West Indies (Asia).

 

[LukeV]

In my experience, running the last set out on any arrangement of set/load/reps will make it a size builder. Back in the late 80s/early 90s it was common for bodybuilding sets to be structured pyramid up a 2-4 rep max set followed by a lighter high rep set.

that's my experience exactly. in fact, for your average joe just trying to be strong and build some muscle to impress the chicks I wouldn't recommend anything other than a classic strength program with a single high volume set to finish. you do that, two to three times weekly, and you end up looking great. with no complications. when I first discovered 5/3/1 it struck me as a HIT methodology. Two warm up sets and an all-out effort performed once weekly. Mike Mentzer would have approved. And because of Wendler's use of the 'training max' most of the all-out sets end up performed above the 5 rep true max.

 

[North Coast Miller]

that's my experience exactly. in fact, for your average joe just trying to be strong and build some muscle to impress the chicks I wouldn't recommend anything other than a classic strength program with a single high volume set to finish. you do that, two to three times weekly, and you end up looking great. with no complications. when I first discovered 5/3/1 it struck me as a HIT methodology. Two warm up sets and an all-out effort performed once weekly. Mike Mentzer would have approved. And because of Wendler's use of the 'training max' most of the all-out sets end up performed above the 5 rep true max.

Even now most of my homebrew programming is inspired by this approach, really drawing inspiration from...DeLorme. Except I make my heaviest set the middle one or two. Those are the sets that are not taken to failure of any kind. Last set is moderate or heavy but taken to some form of technical failure or Rest/Pause. Clusters let you reliably stay with that heavier loading and still get more volume than a straight set, although rep speed drops way down on the last repeat or two if you really go till you can't get another clean one.