5×5 program. What do you think ?

Due to a variety of reasons (among which laziness plays a non-negligible part) I’ve been away from the gym for quite a few months now. This has meant that I’ve lost what little muscle I had built up, but I’m hoping to start again now, and I’d like to know how people’s experiences with programs for the initial stages are.

The first time I started weight training, I settled on a 5-day body part split program, doing Mon : chest, Tue : back; Wed : legs, Thu : shoulders + abs; Fri : arms. Pretty standard stuff, using volume training, 8-12 rep ranges, ~20 sets per day. I got good results out of this.

Many would say you shouldn’t mess with what works, but I’m just not that kind of person. This time around, I’ve started doing full body workouts, 3 times a week, mainly using a 5×5 approach. It’s very streamlined; every session, I do one compound leg exercise, one compound chest exercise, one compound back exercise, using 5 sets of 5 reps, with the same weight throughout. I round things off with 2-3 sets each for shoulders/biceps/triceps/abs.

I’ve been doing it for about 2 weeks now, and of course so far it works, because let’s be honest, when you’re starting out, just about anything works. I’m looking to put on muscle overall quickly, which is why this approach appealed to me. Now I’m open for advice; what do you think ? Cheers !