Differences Between 5x5 and 8x3

I’ve been thinking about switching up my rep scheme for a few weeks (I’m doing Stronglifts 5x5) and was wondering if anyone knew what the differences in doing a 5x5 rep scheme vs 8x3 would be?

Can I lift heavier with the lower reps or does the higher volume cancel that out? Any help would be appreciated.

Chances are the difference is not going to be enough to radically change anything. The main difference is you can lift more weight for sets of three, which would stimulate some more muscle.

The higher volume won’t “cancel it out”, it’s just a way to lift heavier weights (than the 5x5) for about the same total reps. Try it out and see if you like it. I personally really like 6, 8 and 10x3 setxrep schemes.

That said, if you really want to switch it up, why not just do a week or so of higher rep stuff to really change it up.

IME, the volume cancels it out.

switching from 5x5, try a 3x3.

Three, all out triples will bump any lift.

Want to try something hard? Warm up, then do 3x5 (3 reps x 5 sets) You can move heavier weight, but you’ll still get in some decent volume.

[quote]Synthetickiller wrote:
Want to try something hard? Warm up, then do 3x5 (3 reps x 5 sets) You can move heavier weight, but you’ll still get in some decent volume.[/quote]

3 x 5 is a favourite of mine.

not much of a difference… 5x5 is for powerbuilding. in my experience

WTF is ‘powerbuilding’?

You mean lifting heavy shit and eating a lot, right?

exactly what i mean

How many ME sets do you guys do?

Is doing more than one to finish off the pyramid useful for anything other than adding an extra 2 days of DOMS?

Bill Starr said to ramp up the weight to one ME set but I see a lot of guys that do several, is that because they’re doing splits so the extra fatigue is acceptable?