Help with 5x5 plan

[1C5]

I have been doing this version of Starr 5x5 for almost 4 full weeks now: http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow...Linear_5x5.htm

Going great so far. I am unclear exactly when I should be doing a light week as recovery? On the site it says to go with it until all or most of your lifts stall and then scale back and start again. But it doesn't really talk about if/when you should do a recovery week before that.

I am making good progress on my all lifts and putting on some weight but I don't want to get burnt out as this kind of lifting is very tough, even with the "small workload" of 3x a week and only 5 reps max for most sets.

[Colt McCoy]

I'm not really sure I like this variation for the exact reason you're mentioning. The original Starr program incorporated a Heavy, Light, Medium day format to prevent overtraining. This program doesn't really do that. With that said, as long as your lifts are increasing why would you need a backoff week?

[1C5]

Well the reason I am asking is because I read a post of Madcow's on a forum that said he went like 12 weeks as an experiment one time where he increased the weights every week, never took an off week and by then end he was so overtrained that he neede like a month off and lost all his gains.

This Madcow kind of does have a light/med/heavy day, maybe not as concrete as the original one but I can tell it is there.

[avfletch]

Very simplistic rules of thumb for dealing with your first stalls (assuming they are genuine and not the result of temporary poor diet/rest etc).

You know you've stalled when you cease being able to make linear progress from session to session. You add a couple of lbs to the bar and you consistently lose the last rep off the heaviest end of your program.

Basic remedy for this is to drop the weight by ~10% and ~halve the weight you were adding between sessions. This should give you time to recover and avoid over training. When you get back to the stall weight your muscles should be better rested this time around and the continued linear progress should put you in a better psychological position to tackle the new heavy lift.

If you find that you stall at the same weight again then it's likely that you need to change your training schedule to allow for heavier lifts with greater recovery time.

Most/all of this is paraphrased (and likely out of context) from Mark Rippetoe's Practical Programming.

[theblackkeys]

wouldn't madcow's intermediate program solve your problem? i read it a long time ago so im a little sketchy in the details.

[1C5]

that's actually the one I am doing.

i don't see any mention of off weeks in it anywhere.

[dms]

Out of curiosity, what workouts are you comparing this too when you say this one is "very tough"?

[1C5]

deadlifts, bench, squats, military presses vs non compound excerises.

[Rootabager]

Are you doing dynamic rows or regular barbell row? I have been doing regular rows, but might look into switching it up. I would have started out doing them but didnt read the descriptions of the exercises and just saw barbell row and started doing that.

[dms]

Are you going up in 12.5% intervals or something smaller? So far when I've done these workouts (at 12.5%), only the top 2 sets are anything very significant. I feel like I have them set up pretty well for my maxes and they're much easier than most workouts I'd usually do. That's not to say they're not good, just don't strike me as very challenging.