is 5x5 better for compounds exercises and 3x10 for accessory ?

for now and even when i started bodybalding i did 3x10 for every exercise, this did put enormous stress on my body when going heavy like 275 lbs bench for 3x10.

What's your primary goal? Power? Building muscle?

lets say power without looking like a twink. but primary goal is power and always power

5x5 is more of a strength/powerbuilding workout.
3x10 is more mass/muscle. I think 3x8 is better though if that's your goal.

Less reps = more strength, heavier weight
more reps = more endurance, less weight

1-5 = power
6-10 = muscle/mass
10+ = endurance

is how I look at it.

I do 10 x 5 on compounds with 30 secs rest

There are strong bodybuilders (powerbuilders is a word they used to use back in the day) who do both high reps and push heavy weights. Think Ronnie Coleman, Dorian Yates, King Kamali, and even the resident power-bodybuilder Jk202. He does a lot of volume/rep style work and obviously it's working for him. I don't see him doing sets of 3-5. It's mostly all 8-12 I think.

Anyway, I think if power is primary, you're going to spend the majority of your time in the 1-5 rep range and then follow up with a higher rep range. .

Squat 5x2
Squat 3x5-10

Or of you're doing a 531 type program:

Squat 3x5
Squat 5x10

i also think when going heavy it's better to do low reps because going in high rep range, you increase the chance of an injury doing 10 due to not controlling the weight as the first 5 repsbro do you got any program for strength, you seem like one of the serious lifter on misc, never did any program, only did progressive overload.

I would say your assessment is pretty good. But also 5x5 is more strength/powerbuilding while 3x10 is more hypertrophy.
Just dont see you doing 5x5 with bicep curls or tricep pulldowns for example. If you are benching 125kgs for 10 reps you are already pretty strong so maybe just consider your loading, but also understand that the stronger/more jacked you get, the more strenuous workouts need to be to develop further due to adaptive resistance.

I suggest having a read through scientific principles of strength training.

Your gains will be severely limited if your sets and reps are not Fibonacci numbers.

that sucks, that the workout become more and more strenuous, i imagined that your body will adapt to all weights and going from 275 to 285 would be like from 150 to 160.
Noooooo are you telling me if i do 6 reps i won't get any muscle ?

i think the reason no one associates strength with body building these days is because everyone does so much friggin volume, of course their intensity is going to be low. And i mean of course it works for some, but i can't ever imagine going back to 3-5 sets per exercise.

OP i'd recommend checking out some guys like Jordan Peters and Joe Bennett if you're serious about improving your physique and also not lifting like a complete sandwich. Both have fantastic education sites for a few bucks a month.

Short answer: try cutting back volume to just a top set and backoff set and put a ton of effort in focus in those sets. Guarantee you make steps forward in strength and physique. 90% of my lifts are a top set (first) 5-8 and backoff set 8-15 rep range

Edit @ Drew: that's a hell of a group to be mentioned with haha

5x5 = 25
3x10 = 30

that's the same amount of volume difference is you are going to use a heavier weights with the first one if I had to pick one I would always go for 5 sets of 5 that also goes for curls if you are doing them.

Kind of odd to just lift in one strict rep range at all times. Understandable for a specific program, but following a set in stone “3x10” for every exercise is noob sh!t.

Smaller muscles that recover quicker can be trained in various rep ranges and a lot of time benefit from higher reps and can be trained more often (calves, delts, traps, abs). Why would you train those the same as any other muscle group?

It’s like that weird kid that keeps making threads. Probable troll, but he trains deadlifts the same as he trains bicep curls. Wtf

If people don’t know how to program something themselves, then follow well known routines or hire a reputable coach.

I never really understood when people say heavy and high reps. Isn’t heavy, by definition, something you can’t do for high reps?

Well the word heavy is relative.

To me 500 pounds is heavy. To Hafthor, it's not, and he can do reps with it.

That's why powerlifters quantify everything based on intensity (or % of 1RM).

A 5x5 would likely be performed in the 75-80% range, for example.

Some people have the ability to push harder than others, the deeper they deeper into a set. Maybe they can hit 15 reps in an all out effort 75% set where maybe I can only hit 6-8. They have a greater work capacity/more muscular endurance.

So essentially, the more muscular endurance you have = the more reps you can do = the more muscle you can build (as long as you can recover from it).

Ever see a jacked dude doing 10x3?
Nope.
10-15 reps per set master race

you are right but, law of diminishing returns, meaning that for a natty once you cross some weight, everything will feel heavy and strain your body.

Then you're looking at the wrong place.

10x3 is exactly the rep range they do on dynamic effort day at Westside Barbell.

Also eventually the risk reward ratio of injury for bodybuilders and doing so many compound free weight movements doesnt make sense. Hell, i still injure myself enough just using machines.

Throw in the CNS fatigue increasing recovery time and less time the body is in hypertrophy mode.

But bodybuilders dont = more volume per say, like you said thats blown way out of proportion by powerlifters especially who think "bodybuilding is just powerlifting with more reps and more accessory focused work". No its not....

Bodybuilding is just more focused on targeting the muscle overload on the muscle you are trying to work instead of the whole body.

So bodybuilding squat would be focusing placing the mechanical tension on the quads
powerlifting squat is placing the tension on the whole posterior chain, quads, core, hips and just moving the weight from A to B.

the reps dont really have to be different, how you lift needs to be different.

Also a powerlifter isnt as concerned with too much CNS fatigue like a bodybuilders because they just need to recover enough to hit the big 3 again, a bodybuilders needs to worry about keeping mechanical tension on target muscles and not being fatigued from their CNS to keep progressive overload on subsequent lifts day to day.


just like JK202 is saying many of the top level bodybuilders actually only do 3-4 lifts per muscle group, 1 top heavy set, 1 back off set(both to failure. So their total sets is only 6-8, theres really not much difference other than personal preference between 6 and 20 reps if taken to failure. 36-100 reps total per day. Plenty of power lifter programs will be like 20 total reps on the big compound then 60-100 reps on accessories. Theres plenty of pro bodybuilder doing less sets x reps than pro powerlifters.