See how you feel my friend. Depending on how deep the deload is, i find it takes anywhere from 1-3 weeks for recovery from a deload. Slowly add the volume and/or intensity back while you recover.
Learning what i mentioned above and with that knowing where to stop the over reach and deload is probably one of the biggest factors in allowing me to get as strong as i am. After my taper im hoping for a 638 deadlift and 550 high bar squat. Ive only been back training for 16 weeks after a year and a bit off. Even before that my maxes were significantly lower.
Listening to your body is key.
Sorry to flood your thread.
Thought i might make a reply to your last comment.
Try to avoid working too far to failure on all your accesories. Just the last set of each will suffice. Especially while hitting my numbers in your main lifts. Heavy 5s are taxing and then when you add the cumlative fatigue from all the accesory sets to failure it can get too much too quickly.
Your layout does look sound from what youve provided, just little tweaks here and there will help.
Just remember what the fatigue feels like and when your start feel it get deep again, deload your core lifts by 10-20% and slowly work back back up to pr again in week 4ish
@Professor_Hulk glad to see your blast is going well. My stack is similar, lower in the NPP I believe. Iām not loving it tbh. No deca-like sides except systolic increase of 10, but Iāve noticed hair loss rapidly when compared to other blasts. Not sure if itās total anabolic load thatās causing it, because total is higher than Iāve been but I think Iām going to kick the NPP after next week which would be about four weeks. I donāt feel like it added much more than my last TC with some oxandrolone. It may if I increased the dose over 200mg but I may be left shaving my head at that point lol.
Been there done that. Wouldnāt recommend. The one week deload never sufficed.
Yes they are. Can you give an estimation of how heavy in % you are going and how many reps and sets your doing (main lifts are enough). Iām currently relegated to one full body workout per week, not that Iām making gains here but Iām preventing the loss. After that I gotta be sensible about going too hard. Because I always push it (for me) heavy but I canāt do volume that way. I do very little volume to compensate.
My deload is one week but i dont start working with near maxes again for around 3 weeks. I only feel recovered approaching the 3 week mark, just in time to start pushing hard again. If i need more time i ramp up slower.
So i guess you could actually say my deload is 3 weeks in a way.
Ill reply to your question on %s when i get home from work. Just like or reply to this comment so i see the notification.
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Iāll do that. Thank you.
Donāt be. I welcome discussions about the training aspect of a cycle. Lots of folks talking about what cocktail theyāre pinning, but not how best to train on cycle. Also, I think itās foolish for someone to go on a discussion forum and expect people not to discuss things they post. Also foolish to think a thread is ātheirsā.
Yes! This! Iām actually considering dropping them and going back to focusing solely on the main lifts. I only recently added in accessory work and, other than the farmers walks, I have not seen ANY benefit from them. I find it a funny coincidence that when I started pushing accessory movements hard, strength stalled on all my main lifts. I know accessory work has itās place, but it doesnāt pass my test:
A: is it helping my main lifts go up?
B: do I enjoy it?
Neither am I my friend. Itās just goingā¦OK.
I donāt feel like itās doing much for me either, as far as KEEPABLE gains. Yes, Iāve blown up 13 pounds in 4 weeks, and main lifts have gone up about 10%. But past experience with NPP has shown me that if I stopped it tomorrow, Iād be back at 205 lbs within 2 weeks. Thatās why I called it fake gainz, above. Itās fun to walk around all swole while youāre on NPP, but are the sides worth it just to look like a truck for a few weeks and then loose it all when you stop? Iām still trying to decide that, myself.
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I feel that a lot of guys rely too heavily on the compounds rather then training, nutrition and compounds combined. The way i see it, if i train with a well thought out program that i know works for me and use less compounds because of that, my body will thank me.
This is crucial. If strength is you main focus, all accesories should be geared towards that goal and increasing your main lifts.
They should compliment your main lifts, not hinder your recovery to the point where your stalling your mains.
This program i was benching and squatting twice per week, dead lifts once per week.
The volume day of bench and squat is just rep work, 3 sets of 10 at a managable weight. Probably 50-60% 1rm.
The heavy days for bench, dead and squat for the loading phase of the program are working upto top set of 5. I work my 5rm out, so for example 5 reps is roughly 87% of 1rm. Deadlift 280kg * 0.87 = 243.5. from there ill knock off 15-20%. So my starting weight for the program is 207.5x5, second week is 222.5x5, third week is 240 which is roughly my original 5rm. Then i pr in week 4 and try again in week 5.
From there its a deload and i generally drop into triples. Ill knock 5-7.5% off my new 5rm and only do it for the triple, then continue adding weight until i hit my new 3rm in weel 3 then continue prs from there.
I hope this makes sense. If you need anything clarified i can do that.
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Do you rotate the lifts, so the squat 5RM isnāt in the same week as the bench and DL 5RM or do you push really hard that one week on all lifts and then decrease the weight by a lot to get some recovery?
To me it sounds like the one-two weeks after your heavy week are pretty shitty haha
Iām currently doing 3x5 on the main lifts every week, trying to increase the reps one at a time, as Iām relegated to lifting once a week in 20-40Ā° F weather.
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I do them all in the one week. All 3 lifts i use the same percentages each week ramping up to the big PR week, or 2 if im lucky. Then deload.
I am pretty drained after the PR week and the following 2 weeks i am pretty fatigued although all my weights are submaximal and i avoid going to failure with my accessories during those weeks so training isnt difficult. By the end of the second week/start of the third im feeling good and ready to start pushing my numbers again.
If this is what your doing then limit your volume on your accessory/volume work. By the sounds your working at near maximal weights frequently with your compounds so make them your main focus. The rest should compliment those lifts.
Training once per week i think the best case is to maintain your current numbers until you can train more often.
Essentially my goals on this program/blast was to gain strength as well as size. So i limited the heavy compounds with only doing one top set of 5 in first phase and then 3 in second phase. High intensity/low volume compounds. This allowed me to work with quite a bit of volume with my accessory work, which was geared towards size.
I went from 94ish kg (after a year off as mentioned) to 112.7kg in 16 weeks. Gained maybe 2% bodyfat in the process. I pushed cals hard and trained harder.
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I do. I canāt do any assistance work. My home gym currently allows only big lifts.
Thatās what Iām doing.
That was my plan also for the upcoming year when gyms are open again. Our German government is such a shit show
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You can take solace in knowing itās not just your government, governments all over the world are shit shows right now.
I know. The people in Governments arrogant people with a wrong incentive structure.
citizens all over the world are paying the price for not paying more attention to who their elected officials are and what theyāre doing in office.
Interestingly enough yesterday after I posted I checked my BF% and it dropped a few points in the three or so weeks on the program. I noticed some less fat on my stomach so I wanted to check. I wasnāt looking for a cut, so I suspect Iāve had some conversion here. The scale not going up, but BF going down is ok. I wasnāt planning to cut until February. This may justify one more week of NPP for me lol. But as you said about keep able gains, the scale will drop after I cut it. I started at 191, and am at 192 now.
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This same thing happened to me. I was actually trying to maintain weight and ended up gaining about 5 lbs over 14 weeks (obviously I was slightly above maintenance on my cals, unintentionally) but I probably dropped between 0.5-1% BF during this time as well, which was also unintentional. I just wanted to get stronger, that was my only goal.
12/12/20 Cycle update: Pic, Changes, and BRO SCIENCE oh my!!!
Gentlemen,
Hereās where Iām currently at: 221.4 lbs upon rising this morning, 16.25ā fatceps, 48ā chest, 36.5ā waist, 41ā hips, 28ā quads. Hit some all-time PRs in three favorite exercises this week and am super psyched. Got 530x15 in the RDL, 225x2 in the seated press, and walked 300lbs 100yds and back in the farmer walk.
Cycle change and bro science:
Thatās right bro science haters; avert your eyes. Iām going to throw out a couple theories based on my real world experience and not back them with any scientific research whatsoever. 
Change: I stopped the NPP and am only running 400/wk Test, no AI. The NPP sides were too much. In particular my mood sucked, I could not keep edema under control, even with an AI, and my BP got dangerously high, 150/90. NPP, for me, is like a toxic girlfriend I had in my 20s. I knew she was no good for me, but I loved the way she looked so much, I just couldnāt stop going back to her. NPP makes my neck and traps pop like nothing else and I absolutely love that, but the sides just arenāt worth it for me.
Bro science:
Hereās what Iāve noticed since stopping NPP one week ago and where the bro science comes in.
- I instantly got stronger since I stopped it. Two half lives have gone by, so most of it is out of my system now. Weights that felt heavy the first half of this cycle flew up easily this week. Hereās where my bro science comes inā¦I have a theory that just having Test in your veins makes you neurally stronger. I mean guys who are hypogonad report getting MUCH stronger after their very first āboosterāshot, clearly too soon to have built any muscle. I have a further theory that NPP interferes with the neural affect Test has. Whenever I start NPP, I always experience a quick jump in strength as the water comes in and then I hit a wall and spend weeks unable to add even a pound to the bar. Since I stopped NPP and bumped Test to 400/wk, warmup weights feel like childās play and PRs are moving again.
- Well-know Test sides that I do not get while running Test & NPP are showing up again now that I stopped NPP. Specifically oily scalp, acne on back and chest, BPH, and a general redness to my skin tone. My second bro science theory is that NPP somehow negates some of the common side effects of Test. When I run NPP with it, my skin is much clearer, not oily at all, no BPH, no redness.
In summary, 6 weeks in, Iāve switched from 300/300 Test/NPP to just 400 Test. BW and strength are still climbing. I love the look NPP gives me (neck and traps) but the sides are just intolerable for me.
Happy lifting gents!
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Interesting this would fit well with the 5a-reduced nandrolone theory (DHN). I mean DHN supposedly has a lower affinity for the AR but if thereās enough of it, it would act as a partial antagonist. That would explain it. Just speculating here
What can you pull off the floor?
Also bring bloated helps with strength for most. Probably why you initially got stronger with npp.