Jordan Feigenbaum MD SSC: The Texas Method and 5/3/1.

[Matt Jones]

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.

Can you show me this quote please? Be nice to know the context it was said and the date.

I don't have a problem with you not rating 5/3/1 as a program but surely you understand it's not right to review a program based of an article. If you mentioned why you didn't like fsl, bbb, joker sets and why they didn't improve the program I wouldn't have a problem with it. To leave all that out seems lazy.

Just one example. In that article you're comparing tonnage and frequency of the main lifts. Both of these can, and often are increased within 5/3/1 but you don't mention this at all.

[Barry Charles]

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.

No doubt. Even Ed Coan shit himself at least once. And, although that would be objectively observable, it had to have a subjective effect.

Get article, coach! Actual analysis is what keeps many of us coming back for more.

[George Christiansen]

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.

I think an article on this very idea is in order. Michael Wolf mention the same thing in another forum discussion and it had got my wheels turning, but I don't really know what to make of the idea or really what it fully entails.

Also: I imagine that a lot of the qualms with RPE is the that the other reps are kind of like Schrödinger's cat: we don't really know how far we are from missing a rep, but we never really do with absolute certainty without RPE until a rep is missed and we know that pushing until we miss a rep every time is not productive.

There is also this idea that RPE is used to decide the number of reps to be done during a set while you are doing the set. My understanding is that this isn't the case (although in reality we all generally bail on a set before we absolutely have to). It is really, as far as I understand it, used to evaluate and adjust after the set is over, which most people seem to learn to do one way or the other anyway.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

As an early intermediate I would like to point out that we early intermediates have no clue about our RPEs. If you'd ask me to do a set @9 I'd have to rep to failure and then could say ex post what my @9 would have been. This seems to me to be the main flaw in the system (if you want to use it for early intermediates).

Can you show me this quote please? Be nice to know the context it was said and the date.

I don't have a problem with you not rating 5/3/1 as a program but surely you understand it's not right to review a program based of an article. If you mentioned why you didn't like fsl, bbb, joker sets and why they didn't improve the program I wouldn't have a problem with it. To leave all that out seems lazy.

Just one example. In that article you're comparing tonnage and frequency of the main lifts. Both of these can, and often are increased within 5/3/1 but you don't mention this at all.

I don't have the one I was searching for handy but this popped up too

https://forums.t-nation.com/t/do-man...l-5-3-1/212499

In any event, I'm comparing the main tenets of the program and analyzing them. I'm not going to completely dismantle everything he's ever written just so his supporters have even more to gripe about. It's an analysis piece and I do not think there is any iteration of 5/3/1 that is optimal.

[Matt Jones]

I don't have the one I was searching for handy but this popped up too

https://forums.t-nation.com/t/do-man...l-5-3-1/212499

In any event, I'm comparing the main tenets of the program and analyzing them. I'm not going to completely dismantle everything he's ever written just so his supporters have even more to gripe about. It's an analysis piece and I do not think there is any iteration of 5/3/1 that is optimal.

Even that forum post was 2015, hardly recent.

The problem is you're missing a huge amount out but I guess it's easier to just go by a small t-nation article. I'm not sure you know anything he has written since. Did you do any research other than search on t-nation?

This isn't about whether or not 5/3/1 is a good program. I don't care. This is about you writing an article criticising another program (someone else's work) and missing most of the options of the program out. One of the good things about 5/3/1 is you can increase the frequency, volume and use heavier weights easily.

The headline should have been The Texas Method and 5/3/1:The Triumvirate template. The article could then say how The Triumvirate template isn't any good rather than 5/3/1. At least that would have been honest.

[John Hanley]

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?

Shit man. The only "in-house" content I've read that included anything resembling p-values or confidence intervals was Dr. Petrizzo's piece.

I could ask the same questions you ask above of any claim made in any of the books or articles associated with this brand.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Hanley, what's the real problem here?

[nykid]

Even that forum post was 2015, hardly recent.

The problem is you're missing a huge amount out but I guess it's easier to just go by a small t-nation article. I'm not sure you know anything he has written since. Did you do any research other than search on t-nation?

This isn't about whether or not 5/3/1 is a good program. I don't care. This is about you writing an article criticising another program (someone else's work) and missing most of the options of the program out. One of the good things about 5/3/1 is you can increase the frequency, volume and use heavier weights easily.

The headline should have been The Texas Method and 5/3/1:The Triumvirate template. The article could then say how The Triumvirate template isn't any good rather than 5/3/1. At least that would have been honest.

Seriously? The Triumvirate template is one of the original 5/3/1 templates that is still recommended by Wendler himself - it is a FAIR REPRESENTATION of the 5/3/1 program. That's the point. You have not made a convincing case otherwise.

The article was not an attempt to do an exhaustive analysis of all 5/3/1 iterations. Your objections have been responded to reasonably, and you've essentially just repeated yourself, here. I suspect because you DO care whether 5/3/1 is presented as a "good" program, despite your claims to the contrary..

One of the good things about 5/3/1 is you can increase the frequency, volume and use heavier weights easily.

Not really. How? The core of the program - virtually all templates - is to use a training max that is already 90% of 1RM (or even 85%) and then work mostly at 70-90% of that. I.e. the intensity is low. I have both the 5/3/1 books and have read many templates and I think you're just wrong in your assertion here. Care to enlighten me? Name a template with significantly greater frequency and intensity than TM.

[John Hanley]

Hanley, what's the real problem here?

The problem might be my struggle with idiomatic speech. I might not understand what this means:

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

What's "good data"? If analyzing program structure in the absence of "good data" is "putting the cart before the horse", we're in an impossible position & kinda fucked. How do we make any programming decision for advanced athletes?

[nykid]

Even that forum post was 2015, hardly recent.

https://forums.t-nation.com/t/where-...h-5-3-1/218012