DRice311's Bastardization of 5/3/1

[Oldster]

I'll never forget my experience with flyes. I used to do them back in the stone age especially after a brontasaurus kill. I had worked up to some pretty heavy stuff and then one day during a warmup with a very very light weight, there was just this tiniest of pops in my shoulder/bicep area. The bell hit the floor and I was in pain. 6 months later the pain was just starting to ease up.

That is what I always think about when I read Dana's stuff and reading about flyes..

Carry on!

Friday (2/15):

Deadlift/Squat - Last day of deload:
Deads:
5 at 225#
5 at 275#
5 at 330#
All done DOH, all easy.

Squats:
5 at 195#
5 at 235#
5 at 285#
Again, done with all of this in around 10 min. No belt, didn't even switch my shoes, just wore the flat chucks. Felt pretty good today, looking forward to next week. My weight is down about 7-8 lbs, but I think alot of that is 1) I just started eating normally again 2-3 days ago, and 2) I've been off creatine for over a week. Time to start that shit up again.

Assistance:
Speed Deads - 8x3 at 245# + green bands (130lbs)
SLDL - 3x10 at 195#
Preacher Curls - 3x10 at 110#
Ab Wheel Rollouts - 3x15 from knees, followed by 3x2 from feet
Cable Crunches - 3x20 at 190#
Planks - 3x 30s

A LOT more than I was expecting to do today. My buddy, who hasn't done shit all week, showed up and wanted to do some ab work, so I did it with him. I also wanted to get 1 more round of light squats in, since my week was kind of screwy from being sick.

Cripes. Just when I was thinking I could keep up with you on your deload day you do something like this!

[DRice311]

(Week 1/Day 1 Smolov Jr Bench):

Monday (2/18):

Bench:
6x6 at 280#
Video of my 6th set below. Finally - it begins. This was much, much easier than I anticipated. I am used to a ton of volume, so when my 6th set was done, I was itching to do more. I resisted the temptation, and kept to the plan. The 280# is based off of a 400# max. We'll see how it goes.

Assistance:
Band Pullaparts - 3x12 - black band (1 1/8"), hands about shoulder width apart.
Kroc Rows - 50 reps at 110# dumbbell - done as 1x30; 1x13; 1x7.

[AdamW]

Awesome session man. I can't believe my eyes looking at how little assistance you did, haha... This still would've taken me an hour and a half, but how long did it take you, 9 minutes?

[KyleMask]

Looking forward to this, Dana. You might be benching 425 by the end of it.

[DRice311]

Awesome session man. I can't believe my eyes looking at how little assistance you did, haha... This still would've taken me an hour and a half, but how long did it take you, 9 minutes?

haha - I was done with the benching in about 20-25 minutes, and that was really dragging it out. The pullaparts and rows were afterthoughts really and took maybe another 10 minutes. Then I relaxed, put together my fancy little video using some new editing app I downloaded - and kicked back and drank my shake for another 15 minutes.

I am guessing as it progresses, I am going to need more rest between sets. Tomorrow will look like a somewhat normal deadlift day (still 5/3/1), but with the assistance cut in half - and I may limit my top set to no + reps, haven't fully decided yet.

[DRice311]

Looking forward to this, Dana. You might be benching 425 by the end of it.

Thanks dude - I hope so. That would be awesome. I am going a little conservative - I am going to take a 10lb jump on week 2 and additional 5lb jump on week 3.

[Oldster]

That was a picture perfect set, Dana! It can't be done any better than that. IMO.

[Eric Larousse]

nice work man! Got a couple of questions for you....On those ungodly pullups are you going chest to bar? Would you say all the assistance exercises attributed to your pressing strength or just volume on the main lifts mostly? ALso i noticed you were using speed sets with your 531 how were you running that percentage wise? thanks

[Mac Ward]

Smolov is still more volume than other programs, but nothing nuts. I have always thought your training volume has limited your top end strength by limiting recovery. I think you will see mas gains here. Nice work.

[DRice311]

nice work man! Got a couple of questions for you....On those ungodly pullups are you going chest to bar? Would you say all the assistance exercises attributed to your pressing strength or just volume on the main lifts mostly? ALso i noticed you were using speed sets with your 531 how were you running that percentage wise? thanks

Thanks Eric. With the pullups, my unweighted sets are always a good deep chest to bar. With the weighted sets, I try to pull as deep as I can, but admittedly, when the weight gets 100+, and the reps start adding up, it gets increasingly difficult to the point where I am just clearing my chin over the bar. I usually post videos of my pullups on the top end set, if you dig back a few pages you can see about where I am getting.

With the press - i actually think I am a little behind on this lift, with the bench - I honestly think it is a combination of both. Its difficult to pinpoint, because there was never a point where I simply added one thing and then the lift started to take off, but based on personal experience - I'd say it was a combination of both. I've stated this before, but I basically approach my assistance with the mindset to accomplish 3 goals: add volume, try shore up weak spots, induce hypertrophy. I also really like/need the variety. Lifting, to me, has to be fun. If I went in and just did 5x5 of the main lift or whatever, I'd get pretty fucking bored, pretty quick. With the speed sets, on press I run it at 65% of my training max, and do 8 sets of 3 with about 30 sec rest between each set. I don't use accomodating resistance, because it is just too big of a pain in the ass to try to set up at my gym. This is the reason I upped the % to 65%. Reverse banding would work though. With the bench, I do 50% of training max, again with 8x3 and 30 sec rest - and I add ~200lb of band resistance (supposedly - but its not that heavy) from the floor.

Hope this helps - let me know if you ever have any other questions about what I'm doing.