I think I agree with most of Jordan's conclusions with a few caveats for the assessment itself.
531 indeed feels like it's too light in weight/intensity and I never liked doing lifts like the squat just once a week with a decent weight. But to be fair there are many variations and in Boring But Big for instance you would double the frequency of each of the 4 lifts throughout the week (although to be fair in a 5x10 scheme iirc). So that wouldn't be that bad.
TM's 5x5 volume day might be too much volume for most people indeed but that's probably the first thing users of this program are gonna change up (except maybe for swapping the PC and DL around). Sure technically speaking it's not the stock TM anymore, but it's still the "TM" even when you go for 4x5, 3x5, DE, Ascending Sets, Descending Sets, Pyramids etc. for volume day. I think it's part of the process/progress of it... you start with 5x5 and once you can't recover from that tonnage you tweak the volume and intensity. TM to me is "just" VD, LD, ID.
What I somehow miss in this article is the view from principles discussed in PP (though maybe that's intended). Concepts like where the light day in the TM is not really intended to disrupt homeostasis by itself anyway but as active recovery, "practicing" the movement and preparing for the intensity day. And while it does indeed accumulate stress it's not the key for driving progress. Furthermore the article views each individual workout and each exercise as an "overload event" with a 48h window of upregulated muscle protein synthesis and ideally a full recovery and thus kind of criticizes the programs for not ideally repeating each lift after being recovered 48h later to maximize gainzZz . It seems to ignore the view of PP where the more advanced a lifter is, the longer it takes to accumulate enough stress over multiple workouts to disrupt homeostasis. For instance:
But I guess everyone that has done the TM knows that you're not fully recovered after VD when LD comes up and even those light weights on the squat still feel heavy on that day. And that's precisely what the graph of the intermediate stress/recovery/adaptation cycle in PP confirms as well.For example, after the conclusion of the SSLP, German Volume Training (10 sets of 10 reps across) certainly meets the criteria for an overload event, and muscle protein synthesis rates will increase for the two days we’d expect. However, as we learned from the story of the over-ambitious Icarus who flew too close to the sun, the dramatic increase in training volume from 15 to 100 reps on the squat in a single session will leave any lifter cripplingly sore and unable to train productively 48 hours later. In this case, the added volume and resulting fatigue was not intelligently managed.
At the same time while it views each workout as an overload event it compares the weekly (or bi-weekly) accumulated volumes, tonnages etc. and tries to come to conclusions of the effectiveness of each program. But how is that even comparable if the ways these programs work (or are supposed to) are so different? SSLP is indeed set up in a way that allows each workout to be an overload event (and being fully recovered 48h later), while TM has an accumulated overload over 3 workouts with each of the workouts being different types of stressors.
Then the view on "hypertrophy" seems a bit simplistic and doesn't correlate with PP either. The same goes for volume, intensity etc.
According to this I should be doing hundreds of bodyweight squats if I'm just after hypertrophy.VOLUME:
Contribution to hypertrophy improvement: Significant. For hypertrophy, volume is the nearly the sole determinant of a workout causing a resulting increase in muscle protein synthesis. ... Tonnage is of minimal concern when it comes to hypertrophy.
The same again here although the code word "at the appropriate intensity" is mentioned. In general though we see in PP that usually once a lifter progresses through the same program (be it SS -> advanced novice, TM, HLM, ...) the volume goes down and a lot of times the intensity increases.Contribution to strength improvement: Significant. Volume at the appropriate intensity is one of the most important programming variables when it comes to strength development. In general, volume should increase as the level of training advancement increases. Similarly, the more advanced a lifter becomes the more volume they can tolerate, relatively. An interesting exception appears to be larger lifters who, for whatever reason, tend to poorly tolerate the volume that their lighter counterparts can use effectively. Still, volume requirements trend upwards with training experience. Tonnage by itself is not terribly important unless viewed through the lens of volume.
I'm not sure whether I just misunderstand this or it's meant in a different way. If I keep the volume constant shouldn't it be possible to progressively overload the lifter just by adding more weight to the bar? Since his strength/1RM will increase when we add more weight to the bar (given sufficient recovery) and intensity is just the percentage of 1RM it wouldn't necessarily have to increase. Plus at one point it just wouldn't be physically possible to increase the intensity (let alone keep the volume constant while trying to do so). Also I don't see how it would be possible long term to keep adding volume while keeping the intensity constant.INTENSITY:
Contribution to strength improvement: Moderate to significant. Much like tonnage, intensity cannot be discussed outside the context of volume. Strength improvements as measured by performance of 1, 3, or 5RM tests in the Big Four are best improved by progressive overload and the proper application of the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle. It is possible to progressively overload the lifter by adding intensity at a constant volume with sufficient recovery. Alternatively, progressive overload can be achieved by adding volume while keeping the intensity constant.
Apart from this I just don't see how intensity is less important to strength development than volume. Sure one could argue that it's written above that volume at the appropriate intensity is one of the most important variables... but that is still tied closely to the intensity part. Also when it comes to deadlifts PP takes the stance of reducing volume/frequency the further along the lifter is, while the article criticizes just that in the TM and 531.
Lastly I don't see how the HLM program for instance (at least if it's done on the standard 3 day setup) is much different to the TM in the criticized aspects. Frequency, slots, DL volume... all seem very similar.
I hope this doesn't come across as harsh. I'm not even saying anything of what's in the article is wrong but the view on things is certainly different to that of PP.
That is exactly the point I was trying to make, perhaps too subtly or in too snarky a fashion.
I have only one (major) bitch with Jordan's incredibly detailed, beautiful, and thoughtful analysis of why TM and 5/3/1 are unsuitable/bad programs. And that is that I have seen no demonstration that they are, in fact, unsuitable/bad programs--in fact, I've had a lot of personal experience to the contrary. I think that with this important article Jordan has shown us the way with regard to how we should drill down into an analysis of various programming methodologies. But in the absence of good data, such an analysis will always be a bit incomplete, and a bit like putting the cart before the horse.
And yes, Rip's point that field data and coaching experience are what we have to go on, and that it shows us that so much published ExFizz is stoopid, is entirely correct, hence your comment above. But field data is by its very nature incomplete and imperfect. The biomedical literature is full of examples of Stuff That Worked, because it had to, and made sense, and all the biology and biochemistry said it must work, and everybody knew it worked, and it was part of everybody's experience that it worked...until somebody actually studied it with good methods and found out that, oops....it actually didn't work.
Jordan has shown us why we might expect 5/3/1 to be a bad program. But is it? That is something I don't think we actually know. Do we? How do we know? A lot of people have put forward good arguments (seriously, I think they're good arguments) for why RPE programs are better than non-RPE programs for advanced lifters. But are they? That is something I don't think we actually know. Do we? How do we know?
So I'm sorry if you're annoyed, but I think there are real limitations to what we actually know as opposed to what we think we know. We should use our field experience and our best judgement and proceed with the best analyses and information we can get, because that's what we have, no thanks to ExFizz. But acknowledging the holes and limitations in our knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and humility--both of which qualities I sorely lack, as I'm sure you would observe if I didn't do it first.
Great post. I found Jordan's article very convincing, and have been convinced in the past about the flaws of 5/3/1 from a frequency/intensity perspective, but there is always a creeping doubt in the back of my mind based on the reality that *at least* Wendler himself uses the program, and he presumably *gets good results* with it for his athletes / clients.
I agree that it is imperative to be used at that stage. I don't it's necessarily reserved exclusively for these populations, but probably more accurately used then in any evevent.
I don't think that the lack of personal experience in that stage is a barrier to entry with regards to having an opinion, but I do think that suggesting RPE is not useful when it is (likely) used when you train and certainly when you coach. If a lifter's last warm up looks like a limit weight I would imagine you adjust the loading and the workout to accomodate their readiness to train on a given day. Sounds an awful lot like RPE to me even if not explicitly stated. Additionally, I don't see many percentage based or absolute loading based programs working without some component of subjective on-the-fly adjustment in the intermediate and advanced lifters. So, with that being said I'm not sure what the gripe is- though I certainly have no problem with ayou or anyone having it.
Especially in light of all the well controlled, well powered, peer-reviewed, carefully obtained experimental data in appropriate subjects showing that RPE programming is clearly superior to well matched non-RPE programming.
I'm not sure that's a road we want to go down with regards to any training protocol for any cohort, like novices perhaps. If we're using that standard to validate the methodology, then we have to reject much of what we do.
I would argue that this just isn't enough exposure to guaging RPE and using the ego. I would also argue that this is not how RPE works. Had you been rating RPE on all your sets of all your lifts then you'd be better at rating the RPE vs. on a random set at the end of a workout where you're already fatigued and are supposed to stop one rep shy, but also make a linear improvement. Those two things- having a subjective stop point while also requiring (more or less) a linear improvement- are at odds when fatigue is high.
It's just practice, which does seem to help doing the thing being practices.I have seen it suggested that getting in the habit of recording RPE's early on (without making any training decisions based on that information) will help people develop that awareness earlier than they otherwise would. Seems to make sense, although I haven't tried it
I disagree. In my opinion it is a very powerful way to communicate the loading required to apply the desired stress on the lifter.
This statement- fraught with obvious confounders- ignores the fact that the stress placed upon the lifter from a set is more than just mechanical. It also ignores the fact that many succesful templates- including ones I've written- have used RPE with success. Finally, the statement reads like you think that most of a lifter's training should be done @ 8 or higher, which I vehemently disagree with outside of the novice phase.If you asked a sissy little girl, DirtyRed, and a Navy SEAL what an RPE of 8 was, you'd get drastically different answers. As such, writing a program template with "RPE 8" sets or the like probably wouldn't work except by dumb luck.
Please read the response to Dr. Sullivan about how everyone whose been training for some time is using subjective feedback in order to alter training on the fly. This includes you, likely, and you might be better served by having an actual plan in place vs. just winging it. Or hey, you might have written 405 x 5 x 5 on paper and after 385 x 1 as your last warm up feels like a near limit single you still load 405 on the bar and squat it for a high single instead of the prescribed volume. I mean, I don't know what you do but I assume most folks wouldn't be that bull-headed."Advanced" or "elite" type powerlifters themselves have been at it long enough that they have a decent idea of what "RPE" they need in order to progress. They are also likely talented enough that the minutia aren't super important.
I purposely picked the template so I could talk about exercise variations and their detriment, benefit, efficacy, and incoroporation into intermediate and advanced level templates. It is also a template Wendler has been quoted saying he "prefers" as recently as 15/16. Finally, the basic setup of the programming for the main lifts has not changed and is, in my estimation, the most damning portion of the program for reasons stated in the article.
Did you read the article and, if so, what are your exact disagreements?It makes me question your integrity and why you have done this article. Is it to give an honest review and to help people? Were you just being lazy? Or is it because he has a new book out today and you thought this was a good way to get attention?
I will try to live up to your expectations from now on.I haven't done 5/3/1 and never intend to. I don't care if you give it a bad review but I expect better than this.
See above.
Not really. The joker sets' intensities are not optimal and I think that the volume contributed from them is still suboptimal in addition to the frequency concerns stated. The boring but big assistance intensities are far too low to be useful outside of hypertrophy, but would improve the frequency, though not optimally for hypertrophy (with excessive intraworkout volume) and strength.Wouldn't the addition of joker sets, boring but big assistance, and using the schedule that puts squat assistance on deadlift day, with deadlift assistance on squat day, substantially change the results of your analysis?
I have seen it recommended by Wendler as recent as 2015/16, as I recall.I've already heard criticism of your article because the triumvirate is not recommended any longer.
Personally, I think there are things to like and plenty to criticize about 5/3/1 even with those additions. It just seems the relevance of the analysis would have been greater if a more widely recommended template was chosen instead of the original.[/QUOTE]
Depends- too many variables to consider before recommending any sort of template, which should make sense.
Very lazy, I agree.
Yes and being off by 1 point on the scale is not detrimental either.
Yes, exactly.
The intensity and volume is wrong there, however.
Is is though? If so, what definitively makes it "not TM" any longer?TM's 5x5 volume day might be too much volume for most people indeed but that's probably the first thing users of this program are gonna change up (except maybe for swapping the PC and DL around). Sure technically speaking it's not the stock TM anymore, but it's still the "TM" even when you go for 4x5, 3x5, DE, Ascending Sets, Descending Sets, Pyramids etc. for volume day.
eh, I think most of those modifications are just changing the goal posts in a way and doesn't look at the stresses being applied.I think it's part of the process/progress of it... you start with 5x5 and once you can't recover from that tonnage you tweak the volume and intensity. TM to me is "just" VD, LD, ID.
I disagree with that assessment of Light day- though I don't think that's the totality of the explanation of the rationale behind a light day, rather light day serves as a stress to prevent decay of stimulus from volume day, increase frequency (skill and hypertrophy), and add weekly volume.What I somehow miss in this article is the view from principles discussed in PP (though maybe that's intended). Concepts like where the light day in the TM is not really intended to disrupt homeostasis by itself anyway but as active recovery, "practicing" the movement and preparing for the intensity day. And while it does indeed accumulate stress it's not the key for driving progress.
From hypertrophy standpoint, stresses are not accumulated over a long time- which is why I made that argument within the article. For strength, stresses are accumulated of a series of workouts for later intermediates and advanced lifters, which requires a ceertain amount of exposures and total volume.Furthermore the article views each individual workout and each exercise as an "overload event" with a 48h window of upregulated muscle protein synthesis and ideally a full recovery and thus kind of criticizes the programs for not ideally repeating each lift after being recovered 48h later to maximize gainzZz . It seems to ignore the view of PP where the more advanced a lifter is, the longer it takes to accumulate enough stress over multiple workouts to disrupt homeostasis.
I'm not sure what your argument is to my statement in the article. If the soreness resulting from the training is so great that it limits subsequent training intensity and volume, then it the intraworkout stress (of a single session) is too great.But I guess everyone that has done the TM knows that you're not fully recovered after VD when LD comes up and even those light weights on the squat still feel heavy on that day. And that's precisely what the graph of the intermediate stress/recovery/adaptation cycle in PP confirms as well.
SSLP was included for comparison purposes only and when you consider the current tenents in strength programming, we know things need to increase as a lifter develops so doing less than SSLP would be inappropriate.At the same time while it views each workout as an overload event it compares the weekly (or bi-weekly) accumulated volumes, tonnages etc. and tries to come to conclusions of the effectiveness of each program. But how is that even comparable if the ways these programs work (or are supposed to) are so different? SSLP is indeed set up in a way that allows each workout to be an overload event (and being fully recovered 48h later), while TM has an accumulated overload over 3 workouts with each of the workouts being different types of stressors.
Please explicitly state how they are at odds. The hypertrophy section in my article is very precise, in my opinion.Then the view on "hypertrophy" seems a bit simplistic and doesn't correlate with PP either. The same goes for volume, intensity etc.
I think you misunderstand, but yes if you just wanted to get bigger legs you could do frequent (q24-48hrs) bouts of submaximal weights (as low as 30% 1RM) at a fairly high volume (depending on the person and the loading) to optimize hypertrophy. This is the current model of hypertrophyAccording to this I should be doing hundreds of bodyweight squats if I'm just after hypertrophy.
Which I think is wrong. I think that if the % of 1RM used on VD is > than what was used for a SSLP session, then someone is doing TM suboptimally.The same again here although the code word "at the appropriate intensity" is mentioned. In general though we see in PP that usually once a lifter progresses through the same program (be it SS -> advanced novice, TM, HLM, ...) the volume goes down and a lot of times the intensity increases.
You could, though this cannot occur forever AND just because the weight goes up on the bar and volume stays constant for the period of time that can happen- the training effect may not be optimal depending on goals. tl:dr- you can't just add 5lbs to your 5x5 forever, obviously.I'm not sure whether I just misunderstand this or it's meant in a different way. If I keep the volume constant shouldn't it be possible to progressively overload the lifter just by adding more weight to the bar?
This is a major assumption with the population being discussed. I wouldn't agree with it without serious caveats.Since his strength/1RM will increase when we add more weight to the bar (given sufficient recovery)
Because of the above caveats, I wouldn't agree that just because one's 5x5 went up their 1RM went up. Hell, I wouldn't even agree that just because someone's 5RM went up that their 1RM went up. That all being said, the text you quoted was me suggesting that for a given volume we can add weight while keeping the volume the same, e.g. SSLP and TM. It will go up for a period of time and function as the nidus for progressive overload that can, hopefully, be transformed into a higher 1RM.and intensity is just the percentage of 1RM it wouldn't necessarily have to increase.
Intensity is % of 1RM. Volume is sets time reps. It is possible to have a template like the below work well:Plus at one point it just wouldn't be physically possible to increase the intensity (let alone keep the volume constant while trying to do so). Also I don't see how it would be possible long term to keep adding volume while keeping the intensity constant.
Week 1: 70% 1RM 5x5
Week 2: 70% 1RM 5x6 sets
Week 3: 70% 1RM 4 x 8 sets
And let the volume function as the nidus for progressive overload.
Intensity is very important, but it is far less important for hypertrophy. For strength it is much more important, but "more" isn't better at a any volume when discussing stress application. 5 reps @ 90% (high intensity, low volume) is not "better" than 5x5 @ 70%. They are different and a program's total volume, the intensity it uses, and overall progression is germane to this discussion. It seems you cannot see how looking at the big picture of programming is extremely important, but it obviously is.Apart from this I just don't see how intensity is less important to strength development than volume. Sure one could argue that it's written above that volume at the appropriate intensity is one of the most important variables
I absolutely disagree with the idea that a developing lifter should decrease volume/frequency of deadlifting if they want a stronger deadlift.... but that is still tied closely to the intensity part. Also when it comes to deadlifts PP takes the stance of reducing volume/frequency the further along the lifter is, while the article criticizes just that in the TM and 531.
Depends how it is setup, but the volume, intensity, and number of exercises are all up for grabs. Consider the following:Lastly I don't see how the HLM program for instance (at least if it's done on the standard 3 day setup) is much different to the TM in the criticized aspects. Frequency, slots, DL volume... all seem very similar.
Day 1- Heavy:
Back squat 5x5 @ 70%
Bench Press 5x5 @ 70%
Rack pull, mid shin 6 reps @ 7, 6 reps @ 8, 6 reps @9, -5% x 2 sets
Day 2: Light
3-0-3 Tempo Squats x 6 reps @ 7, 6 reps @ 8, 6 reps @ 9, -5% x 2 sets
Press- 5x5 @ 70%
Pendlay Rows- 8 reps @ 6, 8 reps @ 7, 8 reps @ 8 x 4 sets
Dumbbell Bench- 8 reps @ 6, 8 reps @ 7, 8 reps @ 8 x 4 sets
Day 3- Medium
Deadlift- 5 x 4 @ 70%
2ct paused bench -4 reps @ 7, 4 reps @ 8, 4 reps @ 9 x 3 sets
2ct paused squats- 4 reps @ 7, 4 reps @ 8, 4 reps @ 9 x 3 sets
I suppose I could've mined the logs of all the failed TM and 5-3-1 attempts based on improvements in objective metrics like 1RM, meet performance, etc., but that simply was not what I wanted to write about to make the argument. I think that the analysis comports with the vast majority of most folks' experience. I think that most folks who have made no-shit progress with the programs crop up, they have been heavily modified and/or coached. I would not argue that this does not occur.
I think this is a very good point, though I would counter if we're going to hold that practicioner experience that "5/3/1 and TM do work" in great esteem, then we cannot deny that RPE programs do work either. Similarly, I would be very surprised to hear that folks who coach lifters for money or who train and are no longer novices have not regularly adjusted the workload based on subjective feedback. I think we definitely need more study, of course. Finally, do we value practicioner experience equally? Hard to answer that one for sure.Jordan has shown us why we might expect 5/3/1 to be a bad program. But is it? That is something I don't think we actually know. Do we? How do we know? A lot of people have put forward good arguments (seriously, I think they're good arguments) for why RPE programs are better than non-RPE programs for advanced lifters. But are they? That is something I don't think we actually know. Do we? How do we know?
Having had Jordan do my programing and having also used programming of other SSCs, I can attest that RPE can be a very useful tool even for an early intermediate. It's usefulness is amplified when the lifter is trying to lose weight or may be experiencing work/ life stressors that would otherwise interfere with expected progression. I don't find it that difficult, and while there may be times when you low ball yourself, it does not seem to be so detrimental as to invalidate the benefits of its use. I'm quite sure that there were times that I called an 8 an 8.5 or 9 but it wasn't a big enough lie to hinder progress. I never called an 7 a 9 and can't imagine anyone serious would do so. You get better at it as you do it and it can be applied to any program. I was skeptical about RPE until I used it.