Rep schemes for increasing muscular bodyweight - confused by this passage in PPST3

[ithryn]

First off, thanks Andy and Rip for such an excellent book and forum. Who knows what I'd be screwing around with in the gym if not for you guys.

I'm probably dense but I'm not sure what the following passage means. It's an example from the Variations section of the Intermediate chapter of PPST, right before the section on the Texas Method (sorry I don't have a page number, I'm reading on Kindle).

"... the trainee who is mostly interested in gaining muscular weight. He has completed the novice stage, and has finished an intermediate-level training cycle with 5 sets of 5 for one workout and dynamic effort sets for the other. He wants to gain weight, so he will keep the 5 sets of 5 portion of the workout and add in a higher-volume workout for the second session. The choices might be 5 sets of 10 across, 5 sets of 12, or even 3 to 4 sets of 15. The first set of the 5 might be a 10RM effort, with the last 4 sets done to failure and the rest between sets controlled so that full recovery does not occur. Or each set might be done for the full 10 reps, with enough rest between to ensure this. Rep schemes for the volume workout could change for each of the next few cycles, while the 5 sets of 5 keeps pace with and drives improvement on the volume training days."

This is saying he'd do his 5x5 volume to drive intensity day, and then after his 5x5 he'd do 10x5, 12x5, or even 15x3 as backoff sets for hypertrophy? Say, 60% or so?

It says he'd do these high rep sets "on his second session" but I assume that means on the same day, after the 5x5, not a different day in the week. Is that right?

" The first set of the 5 might be a 10RM effort, with the last 4 sets done to failure" - that confused me too, the 5x5 volume workout would be set at a 10rm weight and the next four done AMRAP?

" the 5 sets of 5 keeps pace with and drives improvement on the volume training days." - is this supposed to say 'drives improvement on intensity day'?

I'm probably complicating things; is the lesson here "you still have to do volume day, but you can do high rep backoff sets for hypertrophy"?

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Holy shit, no! The rep work does NOT come on the same day as 5x5. It would go on the ID instead of the usual low rep strength stuff. So fives on one day, 10-15 on another

[ithryn]

Ahhhhh that makes more sense. Cool, thanks.