# Strength vs Aesthetics? 5x5 Workout



## PumpingIron (Feb 7, 2011)

*First things first I'm not using any AAS and I don't think I ever will due to having palpitations and the fear of god* :scared:

I've been told that for aesthetics you should be shooting in the 8-12 range.

For strength something like 3-5 reps.

Whenever I used to train with high reps (8-12) I found my physique was ok, but never gained a lot of muscle and had more of a skinny + toned look. I also found I couldn't increase weight (except get fat, due to over eating) or make good strength gains with this rep range (also bearing in mind I may have been less educated than I am now). I would plateau very fast.

However, with the 5x5 workout. I've found I've increased my lifts almost every week little by little, granted though that I'm eating excess calories to gain muscle and provide energy during workouts. (Fairly clean, chicken, mince, beef, rice, boiled veg, boiled potatoes, odd curry now and again, peanut butter, lots of water, diet soda - Weekdays are clean, weekends are treat days)

I went from 40kg 5x5 to 60kg 5x5 on bench press in about 2 weeks. Yeah fair enough not loads of weight but I only weight 82kg so I'm hoping to get to my own body weight at least in 2-3 months.

Dead lifts went from 60kg 5x5 to 80kg 5x5 in about the same time.

I decided to go for the 5x5 workout because I wasn't pleased with my strength. I will admit though I have extremely small hands and a small bone structure which may potentially affect muscle mass (Not so sure on this)

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Thing is though what I want to know is, how long should I keep eating in excess + increase strength with this workout before I start cutting? And why don't I see good results with high rep range? Is there any particular reason?

Last question, how often should I be aiming to increase lifting weight? Every workout?

Thanks for the help all


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## L11 (Jan 21, 2011)

None of these things are set in stone, keep eating in excess until you're personally unhappy with the fat gain..


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## Robbie789 (Sep 6, 2012)

:stupid:

Agree with the above, if you're happy with the amount of fat you have then carry on bulking, when you're not, cut.

Yes, your aim should be to increase the amount of reps you do or the weight you're lifting every workout, the more weight you can lift, the harder it gets, don't be surprised if it takes you 5-6 months to get to 80kg bench.


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