Comments on: Why 5×5 Workouts Don’t Build Maximum Muscle

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:42:04 +0000

@Seb. It matters if hypertrophy/growth is your goal. You will also get stronger to in a rep range from 6 reps up to 12 as there is no growth without getting stronger. Re-read the section above on rep ranges, I think it explains it pretty well. Of course, you need to couple this knowledge with the rest of the points in the article like using isolation exercises and so on.
All the best.

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:37:15 +0000

@Simon. The video does prove the point. As you’ve said, it’s the muscles directly involved that are getting the benefit. I’m sure the guy in the video squats as well. So that’s exactly what I’m saying. The point of the video is to show that getting stronger in these big lifts DOESN’T have some “over-spill” effect to the rest of your body and give you muscular arms and shoulders for example. He is strong; no doubt, but there’s just not a lot of muscle on his upper body, which is to be expected when you don’t train all those upper muscles directly. If you want to be big all over, then each muscle needs its on direct stimulation.

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:30:29 +0000

@M. I don’t disagree with much of what you said. There is some merit to taking a brand new trainee and having them only use compound movements to build basic strength.
I still wouldn’t have them train at 5 reps per set though – no way. Even experienced trainees get injured with such loads if used constantly. The newbie is going through a phase of what is called Anatomical Adaptation and this is best facilitated by using an 8-12 rep range. For more detail on this, read this post https://musclehack.com/best-rep-range-for-these-2-occasions/
Anyway, a lot of people don’t use a 5×5 routine for basic strength before moving on. They use it and nothing else – ever. Now that’s fine if you know what you’re getting into. But if you’ve been told on the net that it builds massive amounts of muscle (more than a bodybuilding program) then you’ll train in vain. Not to mention you’ve been lied to. So this article is to help all people in that unfortunate position.
I wouldn’t agree with your last point. In THT we do all the same exercises that 5×5 people do anyway, but with the addition of isolation exercises (and going to failure).
Every single THT trainee I ever talked to is setting new Personal Bests in almost every workout. I can’t say the same is true for many other routines.
Regardless, I’m not against the idea of someone doing 5×5 for a few months before moving on to a more thorough routine.

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:17:22 +0000

@Zipper. LMAO 😀
@Terry. Thanks.
@Jay. Glad to help. And congrats on your success on THT!
@Tony. I guess the best idea would be to tell them that your training goals don’t fit that style of exercise and leave it at that.

By: Seb

Seb — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:14:57 +0000

Jason Ferrugia and Mike Matthews both seem to recommend the lower rep range (4-6).

Does the rep range matter as much as the fact that you reach failure?

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 21:33:23 +0000

I really like your article, just wanted to say that video of the deadlifter doesn’t really your point imho, because his legs and glutes are pretty darn big and those are the main muscles involved in the sumo deadlift.

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 21:28:30 +0000

Excellent article Mark. Nice to have things explained in detail. I often wondered why people did certain routines like 1 rep. I laughed at the 16 year old web warrior, cause i run into those at the college gym daily trying to recruit me to CrossFit

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 21:20:35 +0000

Mark,

Thanks so much for putting an end to the broscience compound only nonsense we’re all SO tired of hearing parroted by so many.
I am having amazing success on THT….thanks again man!

Jay

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 20:48:12 +0000

Excellent article, very informative, thanks Mark!

By: Zipper

Zipper — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 20:08:11 +0000

Mark,

You know what? The fact that you need to repeat yourself is brutal but there is something that I get in having to rewrite the obvious for the dummies out there, and that is because we too have to adapt to human nature being so lazy to trust what the next article just wrote somewhere on “YOURBODYNOWINSECONDS.com”. I commend you for your efforts and education and re’education to tell the simple truth and new advances. Bravo bud…and good on ya. Now I’m off to “THISISTHEREALDEALIFTING.com to read what i should do. Kidding. 😉

By: M

Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:58:26 +0000

The point of the 5×5 program is to give beginners a base/foundation of strength, so when they switch to a size program like THT after 3-6 months (however long they’re supposed to run the beginner program) they can move much heavier weights and stimulate the muscle better. They get newbie (size and strength) gains from 5×5 then get a whole new series of newbie gains when they switch to an actual size program.

You don’t need to do squats/deads to get big but they definitely help with appetite and I always notice my strength/size in my upper body stops increasing as fast when I cut out squats. I don’t know if this is because of hormonal release, eating more calories, or whatever, but big compound lifts are definitely beneficial.

There’s many ways to skin a cat though, you can jump into THT right away but if you have 1 beginner do tht for 1 year and 1 beginner do 5×5 for 6 months then tht for 6 months, and 1 beginner do 5×5 for 1 year, the first 2 who did tht will be bigger of course, since the 1 yr 5×5 only guy didn’t do any size work. But I would venture to say the one who did 6 months of 5×5 before jumping into tht will be bigger than the 1 year tht only guy, since he’ll be able to lift much heavier weights when he starts THT and get a whole new series of newbie gains from training differently, with relatively heavy weights (compared to the THT only guy who did no strength training). Who knows though, maybe the tht only guy learns to squeeze his muscles really well and the 6 month each guy never learns to squeeze at all.

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:17:47 +0000

@Luke. That echos my experience with Max-OT as well. I really liked it, and made some gains. But increasing the rep range did bring more growth and didn’t hurt my joints. Still, great program though.

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:15:38 +0000

@Anand. Thanks.
@Darshan. I don’t doubt your experience with that, buddy. You say you do dips and pull-ups (both of which I recommend). These are both great exercises and when followed up with isolation exercises provide a thorough stimulation of all intended muscles.
I state at the beginning of the article that beginners and those with good genetics can make some good size gains (but not optimal) with a 5×5 workout. From seeing your pics before I would think you do have good genetics for this game (lucky guy).
But if the systemic hormones built muscle all over without any direct work, it would do the same for everyone, but it doesn’t. This is seen in the video in the article of the guy doing a heavy deadlift without much in the way of upper body size.
In terms of guys you say who aren’t doing any compound exercises but get stronger in their isolation exercises when they incorporate them, I agree. I don’t argue against that in the article at all. Even with isolation exercises, other muscle groups act as stabilizers. Without compound exercises, these muscles will probably be underdeveloped. Hence when a guy starts adding squats and deadlifts to his isolation exercises, I would totally expect there to be a carry-over and his weights and reps would increase in his isolation lifts.
This is why his arms start growing again as you say. But it’s not because of the systemic hormone release. And this is just one reason why good hypertrophy programs include both compound and isolation exercises.
Again, I want to reiterate that it’s not a question of compound Vs Isolation, but one of compound-only Vs compound + isolation. When training for growth, there’s just no question which is more effective.

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:02:31 +0000

@Gersh. That’s a great compliment! Many thanks for the kind words. And yes “THT flat out works” like you say. Yeah I sometimes hope readers appreciate the efforts that go into creating the free content here. It’s much more than most realize. However, the positive feedback and knowing I’m helping make a difference makes it worthwhile 😀

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:01:17 +0000

Most excellent article! I have loved Max OT for years but felt like my strength gains consistently outpaced my hypertrophy gains. I still think it’s an awesome plan but mixing it in with other parameters you outline seems like the best of all worlds. As a side, it lets your joints heal up with a slightly reduced weight load.

Excellent, again!

By: Mark McManus

Mark McManus — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:59:22 +0000

@Donald. Thanks 🙂
@Dan. Thanks, buddy!
@Peter. That’s great news. Keep THT’ing.
@Steve. Aww keep training, buddy. The MuscleHack community will help and keep you motivated until you reach your goal.

By: Darshan Weerasinghe

Darshan Weerasinghe — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:53:06 +0000

Mark I agree with 90% of what you say here and also Gersh says it better than anyone about how well researched your stuff is.

However I simply must disagree with you when you say squats wont help you get bigger delts or biceps…cos I know they absolutely will, I’m one of them who built arm and shoulder size with no direct arm work. I did do very heavy squats, deadlifts, dips, pull ups and military press and was progressive on them which is the key. Also look at power lifters and Olympic lifters who never do any direct arm work. They have some very impressive arms. Now I know its not optimal arm development. If these guys added direct arm work there is no question that they will have even better arms.

Heavy squatting especially for high reps causes large scale growth throughout the body. thousands of people have used the legendary 20 rep squat routine to pack on lots of muscle and it has no direct arm work. Also Mark…you say in the article that a guy who frequently trains his legs hard and gets them bigger will have no effect on his arms. This I have to disagree with. I know guys who work only there arms and have hit a plateau. As they start adding heavy dead lifts and squats their arms start growing again. This is definitely due to the hormonal response created by these big compound movements.

I want to quickly add that I agree with everything you are saying but that compound only movements with definitely build muscle. Not to the optimal degree

By: Anand

Anand — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:37:46 +0000

Very well argued.
And, I agree in toto.
Reinforces my belief in THT.

By: Gersh

Gersh — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:05:56 +0000

Mark, I’ve read your blogs for years now and I have to say that your information is the real deal. I’m glad to see that you are giving some credit to other pioneers in the field as well; not something many bodybuilding coaches will do. THT flat out works. Period. End of story. I have a degree on human performance, and constantly read the work of Aragon, Schoenfeld, Venuto, Poliquin, NSCA, ISSN, McDonald, McGill, King, Contreras, DJohn, Cressey, Staley, Meadows, BPak, etc.. and you are spot on with your research and your programming is as good as anyone in the business. Keep it up. Glad to be a subscriber & THT’er. I hope people appreciate the level of depth they get for free on this site.

By: Steven

Steven — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:24:26 +0000

Christ it’s depressing when you would kill to have the bodies that are in some of those ‘Before’ photos….

By: Peter Tambroni

Peter Tambroni — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:17:07 +0000

Another great article. I tried the 5×5 workout in the fall of 2012. Within 3 month I had several shoulder injuries, had to stop training and go into physical therapy. Some strength gains were made but too many muscles that needed attention were neglected.
I started your THT workout in September of 2013 and have seen gains that are much more even. And more importantly – NO INJURIES!

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:07:36 +0000

I don’t comment much on your site but read it often. But this one post is one of your best so I need to speak up.

Great, great, greAT!….. one.

By: Constantijn

Constantijn — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:02:18 +0000

Good quality article Mark!
However, those last photos of the guys in wheelchairs (although impressive) is a little misleading, since they have CLEARLY used anabolic steroids to attain their goals.

By: Donald Blum

Donald Blum — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:59:48 +0000

Great article, Mark. One of the best you’ve ever written. Really.

If you ever have the time and inclination to do so, I’d like to read your impression of other protocols, such as GVT, HST, Gironda’s 8×8, and other rep schemes. Thanks again for taking the time to explain this one out.

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:50:30 +0000

Thanks for this one Mark. Great work on it!