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| One time world's strongest man, Doug Hepburn, used methods very similar to the ones listed in this article. |
Years ago, as in the previous century, when the internet was in its inception, I wrote regular articles for most of the major bodybuilding magazines. At the time, there wasn’t much good information available on the internet—oh, there were a couple of sites here and there, but even when you could access them, they could take as long as hours to upload; you know, “dial up”—and so most lifters still got their information from the monthly bodybuilding and powerlifting rags.
Before Facebook (or even MySpace), and the advent of other social media sites, the primary thing that the internet was used for was email. I sent my articles to the different magazines via the “traditional” method of mailing them through actual mail, the post office. And if any readers wanted to ask me a question before email was a “thing,” they had to actually write me a letter. So I thought the advent of email would be a good thing—readers could write to me whenever they wanted to, and I could reply immediately. But then I wrote in an article for IronMan magazine (simply quoting Westside founder, the late Louie Simmons) that “bodybuilding had ruined strength training in America.” Pretty soon I received so much hate from that one statement that I was starting to think that email wasn’t such a good thing after all.
But I stand by that statement. Because the more traditional set/rep variations found in bodybuilding simply are not good for strength and power training. If you’re doing things such as multiple exercises for 3 to 4 sets of 10 to 12 reps, or a 10 sets of 10 reps program, or pyramid training where you do a set of 10 reps, add weight and do a set of 8 reps, add weight and do a set of 6—you know, all of the “regular” bodybuilding training that you will see in a typical American gym—then you may have a good means of building muscle, and sometimes a lot of it, but none of those set/rep variations are good for raw, unadulterated strength and power.
If you are relatively new to training, and unfamiliar with serious strength and power workouts, that might surprise you. And your first question might be: “so, what are some good set/rep variations for strength and power?” Consider this essay your answer.
One note here before we get started. For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to explain why the traditional bodybuilding method sucks at building strength. I have plenty of essays on this blog that deal with it, and I may not have written about it ad nauseam, but I have written about it a lot . Or you can look up the aforementioned Louie Simmons. Almost all of his articles and essays cover that stuff.
With that out of the way, on with the set/rep variations you should use when strength and power are your primary concern.
5x5 Variations
If you’re starting out—or even if you’ve made your training confusing as of late and need to get “back to the basics”—then you can’t go wrong with 5 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps. This is the foundation of Bill Starr’s “Only the Strong Survive” program, and any of the heavy/light/medium programs that I tout. Sure, you end up using other set/rep variations in H/L/M training, but this is the backbone of the program(s).
To do this, simply work up over 5 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps until you reach a max of 5 reps. Your last set probably won’t be 5 reps, but that should be your goal. You may only get 3 or 4 reps on your final set. If that’s the case, simply stick with that weight until you do get 5 reps with it. At that point, add weight.
As you advance, make sure that it’s not just your last set of 5 that increases, but slowly increase the amount of weight you use on the progressively heavier sets, as well.
Once you get more advanced, you can try doing 5 straight sets of 5 reps. These should be done with the same weight on all 5 sets. Make sure you warm-up well, and do sets of 5s on your “warm-ups.” For your working sets, pick a weight where you would probably reach failure on the 7th or 8th repetition if you were going “all out.” Of course, this means that you may not get 5 reps on all 5 sets at first. That’s good. Your first workout might be something such as 5 sets of 5, 5, 4, 3, 3. At the next workout, it might look like 5, 5, 5, 4, 4. Stick with that weight until you get 5 reps on all sets. And repeat.
Here is a good 3-days-per-week program, whether you use 5 progressively heavier sets or 5 straight sets of 5 reps. This is technically a H/L/M program, but the exercise selection itself will determine whether it fits on the heavy, light, or medium day.
Day One:
Squats: 5x5
Flat barbell bench presses: 5x5
Deadlifts: 5x5
Day Two:
Barbell lunges: 5x5
Barbell overhead presses: 5x5
Power cleans: 5x5
Day Three:
Front squats: 5x5
Incline barbell bench presses: 5x5
Deficit sumo deadlifts: 5x5
As you advance on this program—or one that is very similar—add in some additional exercises. You can add some chins, barbell curls, rows, dips, or any other compound movement that works different muscles, or the same muscles from different angles. Add in a loaded carry, as well, on at least a couple of the days. Just don’t go overboard. When in doubt, do less, not more.
Ramp Training
Ramp training is similar to doing the 5x5 in the progressively heavier fashion. With each set, you increase the weight, but your repetitions stay the same. Hence the name ramps. You will slowly “ramp up” to a max of whatever repetition(s) you are training with. The difference is that you don’t worry about how many sets it takes to reach your max set of 5, 3, or whatever repetition range you choose.
These are a great change once you have finished 8 weeks or so on the 5x5 methods.
I personally like to do 5s, followed by 3s, followed by singles in the same session. Start off with sets of 5, working up over progressively heavier sets until you hit a really hard 5 rep-set. At that point, start doing triples until, once again, you hit a near-max set of 3. At that point, do ramps with singles until you hit a near-max.
Most of the time, make sure you leave a little in the tank. On occasion, you can go for a true one-rep max. But don’t do this at each workout. Stick, for the most part, with a near-max.
Here is an example of a training split that would work well:
Day One:
Squats
Barbell bench presses
Day Two:
Chins
Deadlifts
Day Three:
Barbell Overhead Presses
Barbell Curls
Day Four:
Off
Day Five:
Repeat
As with the previous 5x5 method, you can add more exercises once you get a little more advanced.
Multiple Sets/ Low, Low Reps
When I speak of doing multiple sets for really low reps, I like anywhere between 10 to 20 sets of 1 to 3 reps. The lower the reps, the more sets that you can do. For the sake of simplicity, you could do:
10 sets of 3 reps
15 sets of 2 reps
20 sets of singles
That’s not set in stone, but it does give you a good template to work with. In an essay a couple of months ago here at IntegralStrength, I recommended performing 3 exercises for 10 sets of 3 reps. I think 2 or 3 exercises-per-workout is ideal whether you do triples, doubles, or singles.
When selecting a weight to use, if you are doing sets of 3 reps, then use a weight where your max for one set would be around 6 reps. If you’re doing doubles, then pick a weight you would usually use for 4 reps. And if you’re utilizing singles, then select a weight you would typically do for 2 or 3 reps.
Here’s a good training split, whether you use the triples, doubles, or singles:
Day One:
Squats
Overhead presses
Chins
Day Two:
Power cleans
Barbell bench presses
Barbell curls
Day Three:
Off
Day Four:
Deadlifts
Dips
Power snatches
Day Five:
Off
Day Six:
Repeat
Unlike the other programs, I wouldn’t add exercises to this one. Substitute exercises as you see fit, but be wary of doing more than 3 exercises at each session when utilizing this amount of volume.
Closing Thoughts
There are other methods—some of them significantly more complicated—out there for building strength and power, but I think these are the three best to start with. In the future, I will do an article on some of the more advanced strength and power methods (Westside, Doug Hepburn’s multiple singles method, my Power Volume Training), but until then, good luck and good training. Just remember: it works if you work it!
Good as Doug!
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