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Thread: DRice311's Bastardization of 5/3/1

  1. #1
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    Default DRice311's Bastardization of 5/3/1

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    Since I am finding myself frequenting this site more and more - I am going to go ahead and post a log.

    A little about myself:
    I am 33 years old, 5'10 and last weighed at 192lb. I have been lifting for about 5-6 years, most of that time wasted not really knowing what I was doing, and started 5/3/1 about 14 months ago. I lift with a group of 4 guys. In 14 months, all 4 of us have seen pretty significant progress.

    I competed in my first USAPL meet in early June, and really enjoyed my experience. Going in, I said I was just going to do it once to test myself, but I may do it again next year. I totalled 1339lb (607kg)

    My current best lifts are:
    Press: 225lb
    Bench: 380lb (not-paused)
    Squat: 457lb (at the meet)
    Deadlift: 535lb (at the meet)

    Here is my opening log, for this past week (5/5/5+ on Wendler's Program):

    Monday (6/25):
    Press:
    5 at 150#
    5 at 175#
    5+ at 200#
    Got 5 (barely - last one was a real grind) then did 1 additional push press. I really hate 5+ week. I felt so strong last week (1+), and so weak this week.

    Assistance:
    Bench - 2x10 at 245#
    Incline - 3x10 at 205#
    Pullups - 3x15
    Fly's - 3x10 at 185#
    Dips - 3x12 at 100# + BW
    Pushup variation - plyo pushups - 50 total

    Tuesday (6/26):
    Squat:
    5 at 275#
    5 at 315#
    5+ at 360#
    Got 6 at 360# - Not bad, not great either

    Assistance:
    Deadlifts - 2x10 at 295#
    Back Extentions - 3x15 at 35# + 20lb band
    Dumbell Curls - 3x10 at 60lbs
    21's - 75lbs

    Wednesday (6/27):
    Bench:
    5 at 245#
    5 at 280#
    5+ at 315#
    Got 6 at 315# - early workout, earlier than normal. Felt tired and sluggish, happy to just maintain - no pr's this week.

    Assistance:
    Press - 2x10 at 150#
    Arnold Press - 3x10 at 80# dumbells
    Front Raises - 3x12 at 50# dumbells
    Bent Over Raises - 3x12 at 60# dumbells
    Dumbell Shrugs - 3x20 at 100# dumbells

    Thursday (6/28):
    Pullups - feel I need to explain here. I work out during my lunch break. If I don't go to the gym, I basically sit at my desk for an hour, which sucks. So I added a 5th day of lifting, and about 4-5 months ago wanted to experiment by putting pullups on a 5/3/1 schedule just to see what would happen. My pullup strength has definetly increased. When I started, my 1rm weighted pullup was around 70# + BW. Last time I tested (about 2 months ago, I as able to get 5 with 110# +BW. I would of gone heavier, but that was the biggest DB my gym has, and I didn't feel like messing with plates. I would of liked to have added Power Cleans, but my gym doesn't have bumpers, and I would not feel comfortable bailing on a heavy rep. Instead, I occasionally do Powercleans in my garage on Saturdays before I do a conditioning workout. So here is what I did for the week.
    5 at 65#
    5 at 75#
    5+ at 85#
    Got 8 at 85# - Hurt my shoulder deadlifting about 4 weeks ago somehow, and the only thing that seems to bother it is pullups. Not to the point where I cant do them, just to the point where it is annoying.

    Assistance:
    Chins - 2x10 at 45#
    Pendlay Rows - 3x10 at 275#
    Seated Rows - 3x10 at 235#
    Ab rollouts - 3x10
    Knees2Elbows - 3x15
    Decline weighted situps - 3x20 at 20#

    Friday (6/29):
    Deadlift:
    5 at 320#
    5 at 370#
    5+ at 420#
    Got 8 at 420# - first time all week I felt strong. This has overtaken bench as my favorite lift. It's official.

    Assistance:
    Squats - 2x10 at 255#
    Lunges - 3x20 at 80#
    Close Grip Bench - 3x10 at 225#
    Tricep Extensions - 3x10 at 150#

    Side note - I FINALLY rearranged my assistance, so that I do squat assistance on deadlift day, bench assistance on press day and vice versa. I blame my crappy bench day on that. Also, we skipped deload week last week, mainly because none of my training partners wanted to deload.

    Hopefully my body adjusts a little better next week.

    Overall - average week. I'll happily take it and put 5+ behind me.

  2. #2
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    Congratulations on your first meet!

  3. #3
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    Thanks, I was pretty nervous leading into it. But it was a really fun experience. I could have done better - I did terrible on the bench, and I think I left a little on the table on my squat. More reason to do it again next year.

  4. #4
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    Lats and Rows the day before Deadlifts? Your volume is "huge" compared to what I'm used to seeing. Your pressing organization is interesting to me: Press + Chest work, Bench + Shoulder work, and a third day with assistance for the triceps. Is that about your thinking there? It's almost like you took a BB Split, used barbells and dumbbells instead of machines, and incorporated 531 into it.

    Interesting stuff, man.

  5. #5
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    I have gone back and forth trying to figure out the best place to put Deadlifts. We used to do Deads on Thursday and Pullups/rows Friday, but then that only gave us 2 days of separation between squats and deadlifts, which seemed to be worse (especially since I am flip-flopping the assistance). In a perfect world, we would do the pullup/row stuff wednesday, bench thursday, and deadlift friday, but 1 of my friends who works out in our group cant make it thursdays because of work schedule. He doesn't want to do bench alone - so we made this compromise for him. So far, it really hasn't been bad, and hasn't seemed to negatively impact deadlifts - as our weights are still going up.

    This was the first week we tried the new upper arrangement with Press + Chest, and Bench + shoulder. Not sure I like it. I did it, to try to sneak in an extra day for each - but Wednesday was harder than normal. Not sure if this was because we went in earlier in the morning than normal, or because recovery was effed up. So - after another week or two, I may switch these two back.

    The original template for assistance I took from Wendler was his bodybuilding template - so there is probably some truth to your insight. I moved triceps to an off day because I found that after the bench/chest volume that we do - we had nothing left in the tank. By doing it on a 'Lower' day - we can still attack it pretty hard, and because it is the last day of the week - it doesn't impact recovery for press or bench.

    Our upper volume is a lot. I agree. I have been working on a variation to our assistance program that would essentially reduce volume for chest and shoulders, spread the pullup/row stuff over these two days, and use the 5th day for conditioning. One of our friends is getting ready to leave after the summer - he has no interest in conditioning, and wanted to finish this out for the next month/2 months. Once he leaves, our new template will look a little different.

    Sometimes having training partners is a good thing, sometimes they make things less optimal than they could be.

    That being said - my bench has benefited the most of any lift since starting 5/3/1 - When I started, I had a 300 1rm, so maybe the high volume has been beneficial.
    Last edited by DRice311; 06-29-2012 at 03:36 PM.

  6. #6
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    Thanks for the response, bro. I appreciate it.

    I've noticed that a lot of raw guys seem to do well with higher volume. They also seem to do a lot more front delt work than I see on a lot of these popular internet templates.

    I know all about the scheduling issues with training partners. I have more than 12 "training partners" and getting even half of them to agree on a time and place is impossible most of the time. We just do the same days every week and go full body every time to compensate for how many missed sessions we have. There's only 3-4 of us that never miss a session.

  7. #7
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    Hey, this looks like it could be a great log to follow. Your lifts are impressive.

    Regarding your scheduling, couldn't you do squats Monday, pullups Tuesday, press Wednesday, deadlifts Thursday, bench Friday? Your press and bench would still have the same separation as now, and so would your squats and deads, but then your pullups and rows wouldn't be so close to your deads. And your buddy who cant make Thursday's would be deadlifting alone, which isn't really an issue since no spot is needed. Just a thought.

    Either way, I like your setup.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Narvaez View Post
    Thanks for the response, bro. I appreciate it.

    I've noticed that a lot of raw guys seem to do well with higher volume. They also seem to do a lot more front delt work than I see on a lot of these popular internet templates.

    I know all about the scheduling issues with training partners. I have more than 12 "training partners" and getting even half of them to agree on a time and place is impossible most of the time. We just do the same days every week and go full body every time to compensate for how many missed sessions we have. There's only 3-4 of us that never miss a session.
    No problem man. I love talking training, I could talk about this shit all day. Thanks for checking out my log. I am still very much learning as I go, and absolutely appreciate any and all feedback..

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Briks42 View Post
    Hey, this looks like it could be a great log to follow. Your lifts are impressive.

    Regarding your scheduling, couldn't you do squats Monday, pullups Tuesday, press Wednesday, deadlifts Thursday, bench Friday? Your press and bench would still have the same separation as now, and so would your squats and deads, but then your pullups and rows wouldn't be so close to your deads. And your buddy who cant make Thursday's would be deadlifting alone, which isn't really an issue since no spot is needed. Just a thought.

    Either way, I like your setup.
    Thanks - I agree your arrangement would be better. The guy who rarely makes Thursdays will occasionally have to miss sporadic days throughout the week. Not the most ideal situation. The only day he is guarenteed to make is Wednesdays. He asked if we could do bench here, regardless of how the rest of the week is arranged. Wednesday is probably the worst day for bench, because it guarentees only 1 day of separation from press, and makes finding a home for deadlifts difficult, unless I put them ahead of squats. But he is a good friend, and I want him to keep training with us. So far, we have still been able to hit our numbers, so I haven't worried too much about it. Once/if I throw in a day of conditioning in a few weeks- it will be thursday, and the Pullups/rows will be spread across Monday and Wednesday- so this will go away.
    Last edited by DRice311; 08-10-2012 at 11:41 AM.

  10. #10
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    starting strength coach development program
    Ok yeah I gotcha. I'd definitely so the same thing if one of my friends was in the same boat. In the long run it probably doesn't matter much anyway, as long as you're putting all the work in.

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