Five by five workouts are effective. This fact can't be denied. They build strength, and provide a good enough mix of volume and weight intensity to build muscle.
5x5 training is one of the original and most popular muscle mass building programs being used by elite bodybuilders and athletes. It's designed to hit a muscle group hard 2-3 times per week, while still providing enough recovery time to promote significant muscle growth.
5x5 is designed to establish a baseline of strength and prepare you for intermediate and advanced programs which will incorporate more volume into your workouts and add more muscle.
Some people respond better to volume, and some to intensity. My advice from my own experience: When doing light weights (especially when starting with just the bar, as in Stronglifts), go with 5x5. When it's time to deload on squats for the 2nd time, switch to 3x5 and try to get a little more out of linear progression.
On the heavy 5x5 day, you're using 80-85% of your 1RM. This means all of your reps are maximally effective reps. That's 25 maximally effective reps and that translates to a great muscle-growth day.
The 5x5 workout is primarily for hypertrophy, or, muscle growth. For beginning to experienced lifters, 5x5 is appropriate for those who want to increase both upper body and lower body strength, and also muscle mass.
For an untrained physique athlete, bench pressing 0.80-1 time of their body weight would be considered good. However, in the case of trained physique athletes, a good bench press would be equal to approximately twice their bodyweight.
The most compelling reason the 5x5 program works so well is that it minimizes time and volume. This means that you're doing less actual work, and thus your muscles have to recover less in between lifts. Less recovery = more gains!
With all that said, you can expect a workout with two or three exercises done 5×5 style to last anywhere from 30–60 minutes. One popular method of employing 5×5 is to do three exercises in a session, using 5×5 to train the whole body.
Together, these compound exercises work your whole body. This is what makes this program so time-efficient – you can train every single muscle by doing only three exercises per workout. This can be hard to believe if you're used to training one muscle a day by doing a dozen of exercises per workout.
The most common figure I see is that a 5×5 workout is best done with about 81% of your 1RM. That works out to about 90% of your desired 90% intensity.
Pushing Ourselves Hard Enough. The StrongLifts 5×5 workout program starts with an empty barbell, and then every week more weight is gradually added. This means that, unless you can only do 5–8 reps with the empty barbell, you probably won't stimulate any muscle growth for at least a few weeks.
For me, doing 5x5 at 80% for squat, bench press and deadlift would take about 2–2 1/2 hours, assuming I could finish it at all. The deadlift part at the end would be hell and probably not doable. 5x5 at 70% would take about 1 1/2-2 hours. 5x5 at 60% would take about 30–60 minutes.
The 5x5 program can't be beat for increasing strength, breaking plateaus, and adding muscle. Try out this classic lifting routine and see results! One of the most popular muscle and strength-building programs of all time is the 5x5 protocol.
Your five-rep max is usually around 85% of your one-rep max – if you attempt to work this out make sure you warm up thoroughly, get a spotter and work your way up to a final heavy single.
StrongLifts 5x5 is a great beginner's program, but may not be a great choice for intermediate and advanced lifters. Simplicity and practice pays off for the less-experienced individual, but lifters already aged with iron need a bit more programming complexity to make continued gains in size and strength.
Though we can safely say that - based on national statistics - less than 1% of the population can bench press 225 pounds, this figure becomes somewhat more dubious when changing the sample size to only individuals that visit the gym.
So, how much can the average man bench press? Around 185 pounds for a single repetition. But if he keeps training the bench press seriously for ten years, it's realistic to be able to bench press 290–335 pounds.
5X5 vs 3X10: Which Is Better For Building Strength? Look at any legitimate strength program out there, and it'll focus on lower-rep, higher load set schemes. Because 5×5 uses heavier loads, it's superior for strength training. But don't throw away 3×10 if you are just focused on getting stronger.
When Should I Stop Doing Stronglifts? Put simply, when you can no longer add weight to the bar every workout, and you've already de-loaded 2 or more times. At this point, it's very unlikely you're going to get anything else out of the programme.
How It Works. The StrongLifts 5×5 Program alternates between two workouts, three times a week with at least one full day of rest between workouts. All exercises are performed in straight sets with anywhere from one minute to five minutes of rest between sets.
Most guys can gain 0.25kg/0.5lb of lean muscle per week when they start lifting. That's about 1kg/2lb of muscle per month or 12kg/24lb in a year. This assumes you do an effective training program like StrongLifts 5×5, eat well, and are consistent.
Note. However, StrongLifts 5x5 is not a program that you should do forever. Any program will become less effective over time. Your body will get used to it, and you will need a change.