The 5 x 5 Training Program

By: Mike Westerdal

Owner, CriticalBench.com

Sometimes, we all get in a rut or hit a plateau and are looking for a routine to shake things up and kick-start the gains. And often, when this happens, guys start looking for the newest “hot” routine they see in a magazine. But more often than not, the answer is not found in what’s new and hot, but rather, it’s found in what is tried and true. If this might be you, then you definitely ought to consider the 5×5 workout. It’s a readily adaptable time-tested routine that is ideal for beginners and advanced trainers alike.

The foundation of 5×5 is pretty simple-five reps and five sets of each exercise. You get a 90-second rest between sets and a three minute break between exercises if your goal is strength or a 90-second break between exercises if your objective is gaining size. You can also choose something in the middle-the choice is yours and depends entirely on what you hope to achieve.

Because of its intensity, powerlifters often use the 5×5 program to realize gains in both size and strength. It’s also an ideal training regimen for someone who has been lifting higher reps for a while before starting a serious powerlifting program.

The basic 5×5 program can be done either as a split or full-body routine. You can do a full-body workout 2-3 times a week or, you can alternate upper body one day and lower body the next or any other combination that you’d like. Whatever you decide, you can maximize your results by focusing on compound exercises-which use multiple muscle groups-rather than isolation exercises that only focus in a single muscle.

To make the most of 5×5 you should use the maximum weight you can lift. When you’re able to do 5 sets of 5 with that weight, increase the weight by 5 – 10% until you can again do 5 sets of 5 and so on. You can also increase the intensity by shortening your rest periods between sets and exercises.

Here are some sample routines (note: because the 5×5 program is intense, always be sure to do several warm-up sets before getting started). Remember that the 5×5 routine is highly adaptable so come up with combinations that work for you. In any case though, keep your workout to a maximum of one-hour.

Full-body workout:

This is a great full-body workout you can do three times a week:

Monday: Bench press, bent-over rows, squat and deadlift;

Wednesday: Weighted dips, weighted chin-ups, deadlift and hanging leg raises (just 2 sets of 5 reps for the leg raises);

Friday: incline bench press, front squat, glute/hamstring raise; renegade row (with dumbbells or kettlebells), and saxon sidebends;

Split routines:

Here are a couple of good split 5×5 routines to get you started:

Split one:

Monday/Thursday: Bench press, bent-over row, barbell curl and tricep push-downs;

Wednesday/Friday: Barbell squat, glute/hamstring kickback, seated calf-raise, hanging leg raises;

Split two: This is an advanced 6-day a week routine (alternate A/B):

Monday/Thursday (chest/back): A) Incline bench press, wide grip pull-up (palms facing you), weighted rope crunches; B) Chest dips, one-arm dumbbell rows, weighted lying leg raises;

Tuesday/Friday (shoulders/arms): A) Upright row; close-grip bench press, preacher curls; B) Rear delt rows, triceps pushdowns, incline hammer curls;

Wednesday/Saturday (legs): A) Squats, lying leg curls, calf raises; B) Leg press, stiff-legged deadlifts, calf press;

One of the things I love about 5×5 is that it is highly adaptable to meet your particular lifting goals. Since 5×5 has been around for so long, it’s easy to find plenty of proven routines for just about anyone-beginners, powerlifters, high-intensity trainers and lots more. Because of its intensity, whether you’re doing a full-body workout, a split routine or another modified version of the program, you should do the 5×5 program on a 12-week cycle. Work it hard for 12 weeks and at the end of the cycle take a week or two off from the gym to give your body a chance to recover.

Particularly when it comes to bodybuilding, the answers to what we seek are not necessarily found by looking for the latest and greatest but by looking to the past, learning from the wisdom and experience of the greats who came before us. If you’re looking to make gains in both size and strength, and you think you’re up to the challenge, then you might want to give the 5×5 workout a try-you won’t be disappointed.

Mike Westerdal is the founder of Critical Bench, Inc. A free online weight lifting magazine. It hosts the Internet’s largest FREE exercise database and is the home of many workout routines including the Critical Bench Program to help you increase your bench press. Just click the image below to see what the critical bench program can do for ya!

*Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Westerdal

**Below is a guest post from Mike Westerdal, owner and creator of CriticalBench.com

Enjoy,

-John Cortese

For a lot of bodybuilders, competitive athletes and guys who just like to work out, sore muscles are the marker for a “good” workout. If you’re muscles aren’t sore the next day or the day after that, then you probably didn’t work out hard enough-that’s what a lot of us have been taught to believe, anyway. But is that really true? Is it necessary for us to train hard enough so that every time we work out our muscles are sore? Let’s find out.

For years, fitness and medical experts thought that sore muscles were the result of lactic acid building up after an intense training sessions. Lactic acid is produced when you exercise or lift really intensely-when the muscles are screaming for more oxygen than what the blood can possibly deliver at that moment. Because the body can’t deliver the oxygen the muscles want, it compensates by beginning another process-one that works in the absence of oxygen. Lactic acid is a by-product of this process. And since it is an acid, it causes us to “feel the burn.”

So while on the surface it seems to make sense that lactic acid could be the culprit in causing sore muscles after an intense training session, it’s just not so. In reality, the lactic acid gets washed away from the muscles pretty quickly-it doesn’t hang around for hours or days. But, the muscle soreness we’re talking about here doesn’t show up for anywhere from as little as 8 to up to 36 hours after we train. So if can’t be lactic acid causing the soreness, what is it?

Modern science points to micro-traumas…

..as the real perpetrator that causes the post-training muscle soreness. Micro-traumas are just what they sound like: small abrasions, tears or otherwise localized damage to muscle fibers-specifically, the membranes and contractile elements. Researchers have taken biopsies of muscles suffering from training-induced micro-traumas discovering that the z-bands were bleeding, causing their function to be disrupted.

The z-bands are filaments that hold the muscle fibers together as they slide over one another while contracting. When they’re damaged and bleeding-even though it’s microscopic-the muscle fibers become swollen and of course, sore.

They’ve even found a way to evaluate just how badly the muscles have been damaged by measuring the level of creatine phosphokinase (CPK) in the bloodstream. CPK is normally found inside of the muscle fibers but the when the fibers are damaged the CPK is released into the bloodstream. The higher the level of CPK in the bloodstream, the greater the damage to the muscles, which means more soreness.

Some people say that stretching after you train can alleviate the severity of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)-which is what it’s being called these days. However, knowing what we now know about what causes the soreness, we realize that this just isn’t true. While stretching-before and after a workout-is always a good idea, it won’t do much of anything to reduce or eliminate sore muscles the following day because micro-traumas are the real source of the pain, not lactic acid.

So is muscle soreness necessary? The answer is that to some degree yes, it is needed. It’s the stress or trauma that comes from lifting hard and heavy that causes our muscles to grow and become stronger. If you never train to the point where your muscles are sore the next day then the truth is, you’re not training hard enough-and you’re not seeing the results you’d probably like to see. On the other hand, ignoring the soreness and forging blindly ahead training “through the pain” is not the answer either. If you don’t pay attention to what your body is saying, you’ll pay the price sooner or later and wind up injuring yourself-possibly very seriously.

The secret to managing the soreness is two-fold:

1) increase your workload gradually. Don’t try and show off by making huge leaps in the amount of weight you’re lifting-give your muscles time to adapt.

2) Allow your body plenty of time to rest and recover between training sessions. Remember, the rest and recovery part of bodybuilding is equally as important as the lifting weights part. It’s during this process that you’re muscles are actually growing-not when you’re working out.

So while it shouldn’t really be your goal to completely eliminate training-induced muscle soreness it is important to know that you can manage it and minimize its impact on your body and your training routine.