From Bro Split to 5×5: Why I Hated It at First

For years, I thought I knew what a good workout felt like. It fucking hurt. That was basically my measurement.

I’d been taught using a traditional bodybuilding-style split: chest and triceps, back and biceps, shoulders, legs. You’d start with something heavy and then keep going. More exercises. More angles. More sets. By the time I left the gym, whatever body part I’d trained was supposed to know about it.

Then I moved onto 5x5. Initially, I thought it was shit.

Is That Seriously It?

Going from the amount of volume I was accustomed to doing into a structured 5x5-style strength programme felt ridiculous. I’d finish the prescribed work and still feel like I could train.

Where was the pump? Where was that completely exhausted feeling? I was so accustomed to associating fatigue with progress that finishing a session without being destroyed felt like I’d wasted my time.

But I kept following it, and the weights kept going up.

Then About Week Five or Six Arrived

From memory, it took somewhere around five or six weeks before my opinion started changing. The programme hadn’t suddenly become different. The weight had caught up with me.

Progressive loading meant those initially manageable sets were becoming serious work. Instead of creating difficulty by adding more and more exercises, the programme was creating difficulty by progressively increasing the demand of the movements I was already doing.

Eventually, of course, that progression stopped. I’d hit weights I couldn’t complete.

I Felt Like Crap When I Reloaded

The way I ran the programme, if I repeatedly failed at a weight over a period of weeks, I’d eventually accept that I wasn’t getting through it and substantially reduce the load before building my way back up. From memory I sometimes went as low as roughly half the weight.

Those were probably my least favourite weeks. Psychologically I hated it. I knew why I was doing it, but that didn’t make it satisfying.

Then I’d progressively build back towards the weight that had beaten me and see whether I could get past it this time. Sometimes I could.

That taught me something important: doing less isn’t necessarily going backwards.

Feeling Smashed Isn’t Progressive Overload

There’s a difference between making a workout difficult and making training progressive.

I could make virtually any workout difficult. Give me light dumbbells and enough repetitions and I’ll eventually make something burn. That doesn’t automatically mean I’m getting stronger.

Likewise, a workout can initially feel surprisingly manageable while still being part of a programme that’s progressively taking you somewhere. That was difficult for me to understand because it contradicted everything I’d learned through years of bodybuilding-style training.

If your own numbers have stopped moving, I’ve covered some of the wider reasons in Why Am I Not Making Progress in the Gym?

What Does the Research Say?

Looking back, one of the reasons 5x5 felt so strange to me initially was that I’d confused fatigue with progress. They’re not the same thing.

Progressive overload means gradually increasing the demands placed on your body over time. Adding weight is one way of doing that, although it isn’t the only way.

Heavier resistance training is particularly useful when maximal strength is the goal, while muscle can be built across a much wider range of loads when sets provide enough stimulus. A systematic review and network meta-analysis found broadly similar hypertrophy across different loading ranges, with heavier loads producing greater gains in one-repetition maximum strength.^[1]

That explains something I didn’t really understand when I first moved onto 5x5: those early sessions didn’t necessarily need to destroy me. The programme was supposed to become progressively more demanding. Eventually it certainly fucking did.

Reducing training stress after getting stuck also taught me that backing off isn’t automatically losing progress. Exactly how somebody should programme a reset or deload depends on the programme, the person and why they’ve stalled. The large reductions I used were simply how I ran my own training at the time, not a rule I’m suggesting everybody should follow.

Would I Do It Again?

Yes, under the right circumstances. I don’t think I’d approach it with the same mentality now because I’m not chasing exactly the same goal.

But those roughly two years taught me to respect progression rather than judging every session by how ruined I felt afterwards. They also taught me that sometimes your ego needs to accept a lighter bar.

I’ve eventually ended up back with chest and triceps, back and biceps, shoulders and abs, and legs. But I’m not the same person doing that bro split anymore.

You can read the full story in How My Training Changed Over the Years.

Research & Sources

1. Lopez P, et al. — Resistance training load effects on muscle hypertrophy and strength gain. Systematic review and network meta-analysis.