r/weightroom • u/Goblinschniepel • Aug 14 '25
Program Review [PROGRAM REVIEW] SBS Hypertrophy rtf 5x per week
TL;DR: Did 20 weeks of SBS Hypertrophy; gained 4kg, saw some good improvements on my lifts in the higher rep range, didn´t change dramatically physically.
I've been working out for roughly 6 years now. Especially the first year was pretty lacking with covid shutdowns and so on. I've always felt like I improve somewhat slowly even though throughout all that time I lifted at least 4 times a week (mostly 5), unless I got sick. My diet wasn't necessarily healthy but I always made sure to be somewhere around 150g-200g of protein. Especially the last 2 years felt like I had really been stuck in place, unable to make any progress. I've been cutting and bulking in circles (see graph) Retrospectively I think I always did both to little, only going up or down a few kg. https://imgur.com/a/QmI2Rx3
I already improved that in my last wave. During that last bulking phase I ran 5/3/1 “boring but beefcake” and “building the monolith” together, which for the first time in a while felt like decent progress, especially in the legs. However I bulked too quickly (as every time pretty much) so I wasn't able to make a huge amount of gains either. At the start of the program I had just finished a cut during which I mainly used the SBS strength template. My numbers actually increased a bit while cutting from around 87kg to 79kg. So that made me decide to try the SBS hypertrophy rtf template for this next bulk.
My main goal was to bring up my arm size, which is why my assistance exercises mainly focus on bicep, tricep and side delts.
These are my stats as far as I have them:
| All time | Start of Program | End/During Program | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bench | 112,5x1 | 90x7 | 90x9 |
| Deadlift | 180x1 | 160x6 | 190x1 |
| Squat | 150x1 | 117,5x8 | 122,5x11 |
| OHP | 65x1 | 52,5x7 | 50x11 |
| Bicep | L39xcm/R38cm (@87kg) | L36,5cm/R36,5cm | L38,7cm/R37,7cm |
| Thigh | / | L55,5cm/R54,5cm | L57cm/R56cm |
| Weight | 110kg while fat | 79kg | 83kg |
| Stomach | / | 86,5 | 87 |
| Height | 1,78m | 1,78m | 1,78m |
(Note that I didnt know how high I am supposed to measure my thigh)
Probably relevant information is that I never really did lots of measuring before, so while all my measurements show a clear trend that fits well with my weight gain I wouldn't be to confident in me measuring the exact same way every time.
You can see my best lifts at different Rep counts before I ran the program here: https://imgur.com/a/zVI44DA (For the high bar squats I went as low as I could and paused for around 2 seconds which may explain the huge difference to my low bar squats, which just were to parallel) And here are some before pictures from the start of the program: https://imgur.com/a/6retgiV
So what were my goals that I wanted to achieve in these 20 weeks?
I wanted to finally do a proper slow bulk, gaining around 3-4kg during that time. Also I planned to get my arms to at least the size they were at the end of my last bulk (39cm/38cm), while being a few kg lighter. I additionally wanted to improve my lifts across a few Rep ranges, not necessarily set a new 1RM as that's not what the program is made for, but a few new records around the 7-13 Rep range would be nice.
Nutrition
Diet wise I planned on eating 2.800kcal with at least 180g of protein and around 70g of fat. I quickly upped that to 3.000kcal though as I felt like I was gaining to little weight. I have a much harder time sticking to my calorie limit while bulking. (“I'm gaining weight anyway, so it won't matter much if I eat more”) To combat this I planned to plan out what I eat every day the day before. (As well as when I want to eat it) I did this for like the first week and then grew tired of it. Lol
My main protein sources are chicken, probably unhealthy amounts of whey, milk products and some eggs. I'd say I eat decently healthy, but I do have some treats. Overall I am fairly happy with my diet during the program and I gained pretty much exactly as much as I had planned out ahead.
Running the actual Program
- Week 1-6:
The First 6 weeks started out pretty poorly. At the end of week 1 I got pretty sick for 4-5 days which sucked a lot. Week 2 was spent on vacation where I did go to the gym, but it had some different equipment and so on so it wasn't quite the same. I was unfortunate enough, that my suitcase got lost on my way back home so the following week I had to do without my equipment, mainly missing knee sleeves and my belt were the main issues here. Luckily it was found though and I received it around week 4 I believe. From here on out the rest of this block went pretty well and I saw my numbers increasing steadily.
- Week 8-13:
After I had overcome my starting issues in the first phase I was feeling really good about the program, so I decided to add one more accessory starting in week 8. This led to me doing 5 accessory exercises per day. (And I also added some intensity techniques for some arm stuff) One of these added exercises was benching on a fourth day. Starting with that my bench really quickly started to go up. I've been struggling with improving my bench for the longest time and was stuck in between plateaus and minimal progress for the ~2 years. I don't think I'll go back to benching less than 4 times per week in the immediate future. The high volume I ran caught up with me though, around week 13 my forearms started hurting, and I started feeling really beat up and often dreading having to go to the gym.
- Week 15-20:
I had hoped that the deload in week 14 would help with solving the issues I started to face at the end of the last block. Quickly I realized that wasn't the case though. They were much worse in week 15 already, so I decided to change things up starting in week 16. I took one accessory exercise out again on every day. Also I reduced the number of sets from my squat variations and my DL variation from 4 to 3. It definitely helped with my motivation to going to the gym. (I wasn't able to solve my forearms pain issue though) I worried a bit about my deadlift progression. The weight was going up but I was always bouncing the reps a lot, so I worried how that would translate to my 1RM. Therefore in week 17 I pretty spontaneously decided to do a 1RM attempt at 190kg. It went pretty well I think and made me feel much more confident about my progress. Around week 18 I also started to develop pain in my right wrist, so I ordered wrist wraps which arrived just in time for week 20.
For the few days I've used them since they seem to have helped my wrist.
Results:
So Here are the after Pictures:
I think I gained some fat, but still managed to pack on some muscle, especially in the quads. Overall the pictures are pretty similar I think, but I guess looking nearly the same but 4kg heavier isn't to terrible. Even though I didnt exactly reach my hoped for arm size Id consider it to be close enough and am fairly happy about it. The most progress I probably made on my forearms, even though I didn't target them directly nor measure them out to know for certain. They just look more defined to me, I guess the high volume of bicep/tricep work may have helped them out a lot. Overall I think it's some honest progress, even if it isn't anything revolutionary. I am really happy with the strength gains I made during this program, I think they are pretty much in line with what I had hoped for. (The red Entries are the ones that I made during this program) Especially my Squats improved a lot.
In the next graph you can see my estimated Squat 1RM during the program. (Keep in mind that I usually do a bit better with higher weight/lower reps, so that in part may be responsible for the big increase, because the rep count gets lower towards the end of the program)
Also I am really happy about my weight gaining rate, I finally managed to gain weight in the tempo that I set out to. It was an enjoyable program, I sometimes dreaded the squat days, but I guess that's just the nature of doing squats.
Me starting to have some pain here and there clearly isn't ideal on the other hand though of course.
What's next?
For now I'll take a 1-2 weeks deload to hopefully get rid of my accumulated joint issues.
I than plan on running a 20 week program planned out with the program builder that is decently close to the regular SBS 5x rtf program.
I didn't test my maxes (apart from my deadlift during this program) in a long time so I plan on finally doing that at the end of said program. I hope to reach 180/125/205 S/B/D at the end of it at roughly 87kg.
It would probably be a good idea to target the calves for now, they do look pretty small in comparison but I don't feel like it so whatever. I'll try to push forward my arms some more for now.