3 reps instead of 5

[kabuki]

In PPST you wrote that 5 reps are the best for novices because it gives strength gains, tolerance for elevated work levels, and hypertrophy, without giving muscular or neuromuscular exhaustion.

However, if one was trying to train exclusively for strength, would switching to 3 reps and bumping it up to 5 sets give any advantage? Or is there not much difference in the strength gains?

And what if one was to stay at 3 sets of 3 reps?

[Carlos Daniel]

I'll play Rip:

I've tried 3's and I've tried lots of other rep ranges. 5's work better.

Read this with a Texan accent.

[ColoWayno]

It doesn't hurt to try 3's for a few weeks for a change, especially if you are having to reset the 5's a bunch and are burnt out.
If you are reaching the end of linear progression it's time to look at more complicated programming.
If you are cutting weight for any reason then 3's can be your friend for a period of time.

[Roland Conde]

I'll play Rip:

I've tried 3's and I've tried lots of other rep ranges. 5's work better.

Read this with a Texan accent.

Well played sir.

Also, search function.

[Kyle Schuant]

if one was trying to train exclusively for strength, would switching to 3 reps and bumping it up to 5 sets give any advantage?

I think you should try it and see.

You'll get a lot of arguments for or against depending on where you wander in this wide old internet of ours. But the only way to know is to try. Results count. Obviously we can exclude obviously stupid things like sticking our dicks in blenders or doing 1,000 crunches a day. But aside from that, we should just give it a go.

Try it and see, and report back with your results.

[ColoWayno]

Try it and see, and report back with your results.

I have been doing 3's for a while because I wanted to lose some weight and add a bunch of conditioning stuff. I think it let me keep the weight fairly heavy (for me) and accomplish those other things. I also kept my sets to 3, so it's been a pretty low volume program and it let me get away with 2 lifting sessions a week for a while. You probably won't keep getting stronger for very long on this type of program though.

[thefinalsql]

My personal squats experience.

I took 3x5 to 500lbs. I then competed. Best squat was 600lbs.

I decided to switch at this point to 3x3, for many of the reasons jon cowie mentions in his post.

I continued 3x3 to 545lbs. Then, at competition I squatted 660lbs(300kgs).

Dropping to 3 reps from 5 looks to be a good decision for me. 600lbs 3x3 is now my goal to prepare for the next competition.

[LimieJosh]

My vote.

It will work. It's a perfectly acceptible rep range to drive an adaptation, and the OP also has the whole Novice Effect working in his favour. However, as a novice the OP will never know if it worked better than had he stuck with the program as written as the experience against which to compare his results is lacking.


Also, remember one of the main reasons that Rip works with 5s for novices...it's simply easier for the coach. They want a relatively low rep rep target as the higher end of the scale is less productive and makes it harder to increase from session to session (a 5lb increase for 3 sets of 10 require twice the size fo the aaptation to complete succesfully). Howeverm going lower then 5makes it more difficult to accurately identify the flaws in technique that need to be corrected. If often takes more than 3 reps to determine if something you saw that wrong on the first rep was an isolated incident or a pattern. 5s just give the coach more information.

Switching to 3X3 is a perfectly good alternative to going intermediate once progress stalls on 5X3s, and is just an example of periodization (reduced volume with higher intensity).

[Kyle Schuant]

Excellent point, LimieJosh. I have instinctively only had people do 1-3 reps when their form was consistently good, when they were starting out I've had them do 5-8 (never 4, for some reason, hmmm). You've put into words the explanation for that instinct.

When you're training on your own, however, that reason is irrelevant. You can't see your own form errors unless they're truly gross errors.

[msingh]

I've done both, went with 4x3 for about 6 weeks, then returned to 3x5. I prefer 3x5 and recommend it against doing triples.