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Full-Body Five & Dime Live Tutorial Transcript

Full-Body Five & Dime Live Tutorial Transcript

German Volume Training meets 5x5s—the transcript of my live Facebook tutorial explaining my Full-Body Five & Dime program.

Written By Jim Stoppani, PhD

Updated September 28, 2023

Note: This tutorial video was recorded as a live Facebook event. The text below is an edited transcript of the tutorial intended to provide members with a convenient means of referring to and further researching the topics and content detailed in the video.

Transcript

Happy Sunday, JYM Army. Today I'm going to do my live tutorial—now for those who are unfamiliar with my Train with Jim series, you can find that on any one of my social media outlets, or you can go to JimStoppani.com for access to all those programs—my personal programs. Remember, guys, the Train with Jim series is my way of literally showing you precisely what I do to stay around 210-215lbs, 4-5% body fat year-round at 50 years old. This is how I do it—Intermittent Fasting, and the full-body training.

The Train with Jim Series

So, instead of hiding my programs from you, I'm sharing every single workout that I personally do. Now, you not only get my workout that I'm doing, but you get the breakdown of why I'm doing it. I'm not just going, "Do supersets, guys, 'cause they're awesome!" I'm teaching you the science, letting you try—when we do supersets, we don't just do supersets, back and chest—we do compound sets, we do extended sets, I run you through the whole gamut. So not only are you getting my personal training program, you're also getting new techniques that keep changing throughout this program.

How long does the Train with Jim series go? Until I'm dead. This is my personal training program that I give you guys a snapshot of so you can follow—if you'd like to—or just take a look and see what I'm doing, come back to it in the future when you're done with my Shortcut to Size or whatever program you're currently on. But this is my way of giving you my personal workouts, and I constantly change my workouts because variety is critical.

By following my Train with Jim series you get to train literally with me. So, Monday, we're going to be doing Workout 1. Everyone who's doing this on Monday with me, we'll all be training together no matter where you are in the world. We're long-distance training partners. This is one of the other things I love about the Train with Jim series: Not only do you get to follow my own personal programs, learn all the science, learn new techniques—we build a community, we're training together.

The JYM Army Community

Who doesn't want to have a community of like-minded individuals all following the same program so that we can share what we've learned, the mistakes we've made, how to adapt for certain situations? Make sure that you go to the JYM Army Facebook group page, because that's where the other JYM Army members who are doing these program, the Train with Jim series, are posting—what they're doing, how they're changing it, how they're using it, how they're mixing it up. Make sure you get there.

Making Sense of Five & Dime

Without further ado, let's talk about the next program that kicks off tomorrow: Five and Dime, Full-Body. For those of you who have done my 5x5 Full-Blown and my German Volume Training, this looks very similar. It's a combination—now this is a four-week plan. I started the Train with Jim series the weekend of 4th of July last year, and I haven't stopped yet because I don't stop training. I keep training, so I'm going to keep giving you guys my workouts.

Four weeks—the next four weeks of the Train with Jim series—we're going to be devoting to this Full-Body Five and Dime system. What is Five and Dime? Well, the "five" refers to 5x5s, so Workout 1 which I will do on Monday, tomorrow—I'm going to do Workout 1 on Mondays, and make sure—I put the link—for those of you on Facebook, watching right now, I put the link up on Facebook for the program. If you're on Instagram, you can go to my bio, click on the little link there, it takes you to the link tree where all the links are. You'll see the Train with Jim Full-Body Five and Dime link there. Open that up so that as you're watching this live session, you're actually looking at the workouts—you're looking at the workout split that I've mentioned—starting Workout 1 on Monday.

The Rundown on Rest

This is the 5x5 workout on Monday, because it combines 5x5s, German Volume Training, and my Rest Rundown where each week—Week 1, you've got 60 seconds of rest between all sets: Your 5x5 workout on Monday you do the bench press, rest one minute; do the bench press again, 5 more reps, rest one minute; 5 more reps, one minute; 5 more reps, one minute, etc.

Week 2, when you come back to Monday and do Workout 1, you're now going to get 50 seconds of rest. Each week during these four weeks we're going to drop 10 seconds of rest until Week 4, where we're down at 30 seconds between sets.

Breaking Down the Workout Week

Let me walk you through these workouts. It's four workouts per week: Two of them are going to be 5x5, and two of them are going to be German Volume Training which is 10 sets of 10 with 1 minute of rest, Week 1. Each week, even on the German Volume Training, your rest periods go down.

So let's talk about the benefits of 5x5, German Volume Training, and Rest Rundown, and how they combine. Like I said, two workouts of the week will be 5x5s; this is going to be Workout 1 and Workout 4. Workout 1 in your 5x5 mainly focuses on more multi-joint movements where applicable—obviously, for biceps not so true, calves, etc.

Workout 4, where we go back to 5x5s at the end of the week—and I'm going to be doing this one probably on Saturday, and you'll see why—Saturday I'll do Workout 4 where I'm going back to the 5x5s, but now we're doing more single-joint movements: Cable crossovers versus the bench press; straight-arm pulldown for lats versus bent-over barbell rows. More single-joint focus.

In between those two workouts of the week we're going to slip in two German Volume Training workouts, and for those who remember doing German Volume Training with me in my full-body style of training, this is where we sort of leave the full-body training behind because 10x10s are so much volume—10 sets of 10, that's 100 reps, right? That takes a long time, even in Week 4 where get the 30 seconds of rest between these 10x10s.

Full-Body and Split Training in the Same Week

That's a lot of work. It's going to take a while. So what I've done is essentially split the body in half when we get to German Volume Training because it's so much volume. We do half the body Workout 2—which is Workout 1 of German Volume Training, just Workout 2 of the week—and then Workout 3 of the week we do the other half.

I've basically broken it down into chest, back, shoulders, traps, and abs the first German Volume Training workout. The second German Volume Training workout, you'll do squat, leg press calf raises; you've already done squat for legs—triceps pressdown, cable curl, and behind the back wrist curl.

So, on Monday and then Saturday or whatever day where Workout 4 falls on for you—you could go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday if you want; take Friday, Saturday, Sunday off if you wanted to. However, I would recommend breaking up these workouts to give yourself a little bit of rest in between.

Pace Yourself Throughout the Program

Workout 2, I will do on Wednesday—so Monday, I'll do Workout 1, 5x5s; Tuesday is my off day. I'll still be here training. I'll do a full-body workout, probably my Tabatas. So I'll use Tabata-style for chest, 20-second sets, 10 seconds of rest—eight cycles of that. Likely what I'll do on my off days, because you don't want to go too heavy. You want to save that for these workouts. So Wednesday I'll do Workout 2.

Thursday, I'll do the second German Volume Training workout, since I don't really need any rest since I'm training different muscle groups on Thursday from Wednesday, so I can do these two days back-to-back. Then I'm going to take Friday off before I hit my 5x5 on Saturday. You don't have to do that, it's just the more ideal way of giving the body a break in between. Remember, these are brutal workouts, and each week the rest periods drop, so this is going to get very intense.

Now, 5x5s, typically known as a great strength-builder. Also can help with muscle mass because, when you're doing 5x5s, you're not able to do your 5RM because you have to get all 5 sets of 5 reps. If you used your 5RM you'd get 5 reps on Set 1—pretty much that's it—every successive set after that you'd drop a good rep, especially with only one minute of rest. You're going a bit lighter which means not only are those 5-rep sets increasing and helping you increase muscle strength, the way you're training with that short rest period, it's also building muscle mass.

When we get into German Volume Training, 10 sets of 10—mainly muscle mass building. German Volume Training is great for building muscle mass.

What Research Says About Rest Between Sets

Rest Rundown—now, what does the research show on Rest Rundown? Well, Rest Rundown is based on a research study where, instead of changing the weight as they progressed each week, they changed the rest period—dropping the rest period down, keeping the weight the same, making it more challenging. Same weight, less rest—challenging, right? What did they find? Well, they found that that was effective at increasing muscle mass as well as strength gain.

So you don't only have to manipulate weight and reps to increase muscle mass and strength gains. You can get the same effect by keeping the weight the same and reducing your rest periods—successively, not just by going, "Hey, I typically rest 3 minutes in between sets, now I'm going to rest 30 seconds." No. It's the progressive drop each week as you progress through the program, which we do here: 10 seconds each week we skim off, making that workout with that same weight for those 5 sets of 5 reps—and remember, you have to complete all the reps, so 25 reps in Workout 1 for every exercise. You must complete all 5 reps on all 5 sets.

Weight Selection for 5x5s

In Workout 1 of Week 1, if you don't get all 5 sets of 5 reps, well you know you've already gone too heavy. So how much weight should you be using on these 5x5s? Well, like I said, you can't use your 5-rep max, right? Likely, because you only have one minute of rest and each week successively gets less rest, you're going to want to shoot for somewhere around a weight that lets you get somewhere around 8-10 reps on this exercise for the first set.

Obviously, you're not going to do 8-10 reps—you're going to stop at 5. So the first few sets should be fairly easy. If they're hard and you're barely completing the 5 reps, then you know you should already reduce the rep before you complete all 5, because next week it's going to get even harder and you're going to have to use that same weight and still complete all 25 reps. So shoot for somewhere around 8-10 reps.

Use Rest-Pause if You Go Too Heavy

Now, as the weeks progress and the rest periods drop, if you find that you're not able to get those 5 reps you're going to use rest-pause. Let's say you get 3: Put the weight down, rest 10-15 seconds, continue going until you get all 5 reps. If you get 3, do a rest-pause for 15 seconds, go again and only get one? Well, guess what—you've got to do another rest-pause to get that 5th rep.

If you find that you're already using rest-pause in Week 2, you're already too heavy because Week 3 is going to reduce the rest periods even more, meaning you're going to get fewer reps, likely, next week. Although you should be getting stronger and adapting each week, that's the real goal here. The goal here is to be able to—the body adapts with these small increments with these rest periods, these small, little shavings of time—10 seconds each and every week—helps the body adapt like the Rest Rundown, meaning you get stronger, you get more muscle mass, and so you should be able to complete the same number of reps each week. If not, you're going to use rest-pause.

If the rest-pause becomes too ridiculous, where you're only getting one rep on Set 3 and you've got to rest-pause for it? Lower the weight. It's okay to adjust the weight as you go. Look, this is a bit hit-or-miss. There's no guaranteed weight for each person, and you could have two people on the bench press who both bench 315 lbs for their 1-rep max, but guess what—their 5x5 weight is going to be completely different. It has to do with the way that the muscles fatigue, etc., and you can't predict that by 1-rep max. Everybody's different.

Interestingly enough—you may have heard me say this—females recover better between sets than males. Research shows that. Females are able to complete more reps on successive sets than males, meaning they're able to recover quicker and keep doing closer to that prescribed rep range.

Don't Worry if You Choose the Wrong Weight

It's going to be different. It's a bit hit-or-miss, so you can adjust as you go. Don't worry about it. Don't overthink things. You know, I pretty much break it all down for you. If you screw something up, it's no big deal as long as you're going through the workouts and pretty much keeping with the gist of the program. It's okay if you went too heavy in Week 1 and now in Week 2 you've got to go a little lighter—or the other way, you went too light and in Week 2 you're like, "I'm already getting stronger, my body's adapting and now this weight is even too light even though the rest periods are too low." Sure, you could increase a bit, just remember you're going to have to do that same weight that you're going up to when you get down to 30 seconds of rest.

Don't forget: Week 4, that 30 seconds of rest is brutal not only but for the 5x5s but oh, my goodness, when we get to the German Volume Training—the 10x10s—30 seconds of rest, 10 sets of 10 reps in between—you guys are going to be cursing my name. Don't worry, I'll be cursing my own name as well because I'm going to be doing this right along with you.

Remember, any program that you've done of mine I've done at some point. I've produced that program—not just for you, but to first punish myself—and of course get the results from dealing with that punishment. I'm going to be doing this right along with you. 30 seconds of rest, guys, it's not going to be fun but it's going to be fun to complete it when we're done.

Weight Selection for German Volume Training

So, 10x10s, what do you want to use? Like I said, for the 5x5s use a weight that limits you to about 8-10 reps on each one of these exercises. 10x10s, it's about the same, almost like a doubling. Again, 5—you're getting 5—somewhere around 10 reps, right? You double that. That should put you in that sweet spot because remember you've got to complete all 25 reps of that weight with 30 seconds of rest.

With the 10x10s, you probably want to shoot for something that allows you 15-20 reps on these exercises. Remember, you have to get all 10 sets of 10 reps—that's 100 reps for each one of these exercises, and you have to complete that. So, somewhere around 15-20 reps—a weight that allows you to get about that many reps on these exercises—should put you right around that sweet spot for completing all 10 sets of 10 reps, with rest periods dropping each week. So use somewhere in that range.

Don't beat yourself up if you went too heavy or too light. It happens. It's going to happen to me as well—I don't know the exact weight that I'm going to be using because I'm stronger this week than I was last week. It's all relative and keeps changing, so it's always hit-or-miss a bit. Nothing is ever perfect. Like I said, I make generalizations—I give you guidelines—but make it fit for your body, your goals, and your lifestyle.

Active Rest Days are Critical Here

Let's see, what else do we need to talk about? I talked about the workout split: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday. It's how I'm going to do it—that's just my way, and it'll probably change. This week, I'll probably stick with this. However, if I decide that Saturday's going to get a bit crazy, I might have to do a band workout where I'll use Tabatas. I may decide this week to do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, like I said you could do. That way I don't have to worry about Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Not ideal to do them all back-to-back, better off giving yourself a bit of a rest period in between. These are brutal workouts, especially as the weeks progress and your rest periods are down. When you do 30 seconds—10x10s, Workout 3—next day you like are not going to want to do your 5x5s with 30 seconds of rest. You're probably going to want a rest day or light day.

Like I said, on your rest days—I am going to be training a full-body workout. I'll be hitting biceps, I'll be hitting chest, back, legs—lightweight, like I said, Tabata style, I'll use some other techniques that I use. But it'll mainly be low-intensity: Not going too heavy, not going all-out to failure, drop sets, any of that stuff. Just pretty much running through the movements, hitting all the muscle groups to keep those metabolic genes active, keep my metabolism up.

Tailoring the Program to Your Experience Level

What should you do, however? Well, I've got decades of training experience, so for me to train every single day—no big deal. My body is used to that. If you've only got a year or less under your lifting belt, then you probably don't want to be doing the same thing. You could probably use a few more rest days. So on your active rest days, instead of doing full-body workouts just do the four workouts per week, and then on the other three days just stay active.

Go for a walk—maybe you have a dog, make sure you walk your dog extra on those off days. If you have children, especially a baby? A stroller. Go hiking, basketball, football, swimming—just stay active but keep it out of the gym. Or go to the gym and maybe just do a Tabata-style workout. Jump rope, whatnot. No real weightlifting, but more cardio Tabata-style, for those with less training experience.

Depending on how your training experience goes—the more training experience you have, the more workouts you can include in addition to these real weightlifting workouts. Beginners who are sort of starting off and jumping in with me here, this is perfect for you to do. However, what I would suggest you do is only do the four workouts and then using those other three days to rest so your body can recover. Just stay active.

Adequate Time for Adaptation is Key to Progress

One of the questions that I'm getting is, "Can I just—since it's four workouts and there are seven days a week, and I like to train every day like you, Jim, can I just do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then maybe pick it back up on Friday with Workout 1? Or even take a day off and then on Saturday pick it up with Workout 1?" Sure, you could do that. That's perfectly fine.

However, if you consider that I probably have more likely training experience than you. I'm 50 years old, and I've been training since I was 7, pretty much, consistently. I have decades and decades of training experience. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to speed through this, because I want to take advantage of the benefits, and those benefits in this program come from only doing these four workouts with a bit of a break in between, then repeating it a week later, giving the body enough time to adapt.

Don't Believe Everything You Hear About Recovery

I'm not talking about recovery, here. We don't know anything about recovery, trust me. There are journals dedicated to simply fatigue and recovery. We literally know very little about what causes muscle fatigue and what recovery truly is. Believe me. The "you need at least 48 hours" is BS. Nobody knows anything right now.

Why can the legs walk every single day, right? You use your legs, you use your calves, every single day—if you live in a hilly area, it's quite a workout every single day—somehow that person is able to walk the next day. That's amazing. Somehow they recover in a day. So what is, really, recovery? Because what we know about recovery is that when muscles are sore and you train them, you don't keep damaging those muscle fibers.

Remember, a muscle fiber has hundreds of thousands of fibers in there. you're not using them all when you do a biceps curl. And when your biceps are sore from a hard workout it's not all the biceps muscle fibers. It's just a percentage. So when you go back to the gym and do curls again, you're not using those damaged muscle fibers. Those are dormant now, and they have protection from further damage. Training is not going to impede their recovery—they're going to recover just fine. In fact, staying active is going to enhance recovery of those muscle fibers. You'll be using different muscle fibers in that next workout because the other ones are a bit damaged.

So, really, what is recovery? We don't know. We're still trying to figure that out. So when people say, "Oh, you're doing these full-body workouts. Doesn't the body need recovery?" It all depends on the person, the muscle fibers, the training experience, etc. There's no one-size-fits-all, "everybody needs 48 hours of recovery." BS. So don't buy into that nonsense of, "You need recovery here." However, listen to your body. If you feel you need more recovery then take a day off. Stay active—don't just sit around, you still want to walk around at least—but take it easy. Listen to the body.

So, you don't really want to just flip through these workouts Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and the repeat and fast-track it. You could, that's completely fine, as long as you realize that the results you get probably won't be as dramatic because you didn't give yourself enough time to adapt to those shorter rest periods.

Not Used to Resting Between Sets? It May Be Time to Start

That's the other question I get: People are saying, "Resting a minute—I don't rest now, I just move right to the next set, so do I have to rest a minute or can I just stick with the no rest period and assume I'm at Week 4 and just do the whole thing?" Again, I myself generally don't rest that much in between sets. I keep it moving. However, with this workout I would highly suggest that if you don't take any rest between workouts, instead of continuing in that fashion—because remember, the best workout is the workout you're not doing, meaning if you're taking no rest right now the better plan for you is to add some rest.

If you've been training with little to no rest between sets for a while, there’s a good chance your body has adapted to it, so maybe it’s time to switch things up in that area. Weights, reps, and volume aren’t the only aspects of your workouts you need to manipulate. You should manipulate rest periods, too. That’s the sole reason I incorporated the Rest Rundown technique in the Five & Dime program.

Don’t worry, it’s not “resting easy.” It’s resting for a purpose: to help you build more strength and size.

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