Barbell [vid] easy doesn't work

[andrewswanson]

your right, everything does not work equally well. Some programs are much better than others.

In terms if beginner strength training I do have to disagree a little. I think sets of 12 or 10 can be really useful to build a foundation and increase work capacity (not to mention work on the movement and create better neural pathways) before thinking about focusing on triples and other low rep work. And even for intermediate to advanced lifters you really don't want to spend ALL your time working 5 reps and under.

"if you want want a faster car you gotta build a bigger engine"

Hypertrophy and strength endurance work helps you get strong too.

IMHO

 

[Steve Freides]

@andrewswanson, I respectfully disagree. Two sets of 5 almost always works better than a set of 10, and the rest period can be kept short. Honestly, I find more use for 10's as I've become a more experienced lifter and use them for a specific purpose, e.g. assistance exercises, than I did when I started.

Everyone's different, but one of the things we preach around here is that shorter sets allow better focus on form and, as a general guideline, I think that's still sound advice.

-S-

 

[Kyle Schuant]

I think sets of 12 or 10 can be really useful to build a foundation and increase work capacity (not to mention work on the movement and create better neural pathways) before thinking about focusing on triples and other low rep work. And even for intermediate to advanced lifters you really don't want to spend ALL your time working 5 reps and under

On what do you base this assertion? Do you have your experience or that of people who've followed this advice?

Again, I would say that as a control group we have the general gym population, who use light weights for high (8-25) reps for literally years. And yet none of the curlbros can deadlift as much as a 68yo woman. But I guess they have really good neural pathways.

 

[andrewswanson]

@Steve Freides yeah i understand the strongfirst mindset, and agree with it. actually i love the strongfirst training philosophy, i have had great results with it in fact. didn't mean to be argumentative. IMHO i just don't think it is perfect, at least not for me

@Kyle Schuant obviously you don't want to stay exclusively in the 8-25 reps for years, lower rep sets not done to failure do work really well for increasing strength. but there are a lot of good strength programs that like Chad Wesley Smith's Juggernaut system that advocate higher rep sets at the beginning of the cycle with great success. all i am saying is that in my personal experience I don't think it is the best possible training plan to never do sets above 5 reps. basic linear progression where you begin with higher rep sets and taper down to doubles or triples have worked for a lot of people with great success

 

[Kyle Schuant]

Again, we are talking about previously untrained beginners, and/or people in their first couple of years of lifting. Smith's system is Westernised linear periodisation which is aimed at hitting a peak for a meet. That's not previously untrained beginners.

As usual, people are confusing what advanced lifters do to improve with what got them to being advanced in the first place. Smith may use that system to get him to his 1,000lb squat, but that's not how he got to a 550lb squat. He tells us [http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/2010/11/29/what-i-did-and-should-have-done-as-a-young-athlete/] what he did in the beginning:

I was squatting. [...] While 5 x 5 was my normal bread and butter, I also ventured out into a ton of other programs, most of which I didn’t really have an understanding of. I did Critical Bench, German Volume Training, Bulgarian Olympic Training and a host of other things. None of them really stuck and I would always come back to 5 x 5, but I wonder how much stronger I would have been if I wouldn’t have ever ventured into those other realms. I wanted to do all these fancy sounding programs, but I didn’t have a good understanding of what they were, how they worked, and why I should (or shouldn’t) do them. When your 17 and your body is teeming with testosterone, you don’t need a fancy program to get strong, you need to stick to the basics and be content making incremental gains each week.​

If you wish to make an argument from authority, be sure of what the authority is actually saying. In their first couple of years, a person needs to build a good base of strength with barbells doing sets of 3-5 and adding weight to the bar regularly. Once they're strong they may need to get fancier. Again: everything works, the question is what's optimal. A person may choose to do things that are less than optimal, but it is not clear to me why they might do so.

 

[Steve Freides]

@andrewswanson if what you're doing is helping you get stronger and you're not getting injured, then I am in favor of it. When you're ready for a program change, consider something lower reps and see what you think.

-S-