5/3/1 general thread(please post questions, template, progress/reviews, etc)

[Cmanuel]

OK. I might as well give upper body BBB a shot (5x10 of benching on press day, 5x10 of pressing on bench day).



What's the consensus between weighted GHRs vs. band GHRs?

I personally like band GHRs because it teaches you to explode as you ascend in the lift...so you Explode to the top and slowly let yourself down. I feel like that has more carry over to the way I deadlift (i Pull very fast) than other ways.

I was too big of a pussy to try weighted GHRs. I feel like they are higher on the totem pole

[Cmanuel]

[QUOTE=Sevag;479716]OK. I might as well give upper body BBB a shot (5x10 of benching on press day, 5x10 of pressing on bench day).
I think this is a great idea. Don't be afraid to mix it up and throw in some exercises other than Bench / Press (like fat grips, DB work, etc). BBB was well, boring to me, so the variety helped me out

[JCavin]

Cmanuel,

Have you tried his newest template that has you programming the assistance exercises too?

[Cmanuel]

Cmanuel,

Have you tried his newest template that has you programming the assistance exercises too?

Nope, I've been out of the 5/3/1 loop for a while. I hopped off of it around February in favor of a custom program that allows me to peak for competitions. I think 5/3/1 is fantastic for general lifting and fitness/strength, but I needed something more specialized to prep me for a meet.

Where can I find his new template? I've already purchased 1 and 2nd edition e-books, does he have a new one out?
-chip

[JCavin]

Nah it's in his 2nd edition. It's the newest one that I know of. Not necessarily his newest.

The one that has you doing incline on bench days, close grip bench on press days, SLDL on squat days, and front squats on DL days.

I'm switching to it next week after 6 months on BBB(yeah...I think I was REALLY close to being overtrained). I made a lot of size and strength gains, but man was I beat all the time. This new setup should allow for hill sprints and the increased frequency in exchance for volume work will hopefully make a big difference while allowing for more gains.

[michael dowling]

Deadlift Day

• Deadlift
• GHRs (Work up to being able to do 5x10 BW, then add bands)
• 5x10 heavy ab work

Squat Day

• Squat
• Good mornings or RDL (alternate each cycle) 5x10
• Back Extensions 5x10

I'll give this a shot, BBB seems to work better for upper body than lower body, but maybe it's jut me. Thanks!

[Sevag]

What would you guys do if you severely underestimated one of your max lifts? I was suffering from a piriformis injury so I put my deadlift down at a conservative 315lbs max (of which I took 90% as Wendler advocates), but my rehab is going much more smoothly than I thought and I just hit 13 reps of 270lbs on my 1+ rep day. That's a Wendler-calculated max of 387lbs. Should I set my max next cycle to 380? Maybe a smaller jump, 360?

[hsilman]

What would you guys do if you severely underestimated one of your max lifts? I was suffering from a piriformis injury so I put my deadlift down at a conservative 315lbs max (of which I took 90% as Wendler advocates), but my rehab is going much more smoothly than I thought and I just hit 13 reps of 270lbs on my 1+ rep day. That's a Wendler-calculated max of 387lbs. Should I set my max next cycle to 380? Maybe a smaller jump, 360?

13 reps is useless for a max calculation. Anything over 5, maybe 6 will not be accurate. If you want, do a 20# jump instead of 10# for your next cycle. Then, if you still get a ridiculous number of reps for 5/3/1 weeks, do another 20# jump.

Once you get to 8 reps or less, do normal increases from there. No reason to stall out faster.

[Sevag]

13 reps is useless for a max calculation. Anything over 5, maybe 6 will not be accurate. If you want, do a 20# jump instead of 10# for your next cycle. Then, if you still get a ridiculous number of reps for 5/3/1 weeks, do another 20# jump.

Once you get to 8 reps or less, do normal increases from there. No reason to stall out faster.

Adding 20lbs per cycle seems reasonable. I'll do that.

[SQUAT_316]

I started 5/3/1 for the deadlift this last January. I played it safe coming of a back injury (disks) so I started with 1RM of 315. 90% of that was 285. Now for my next meet (Aug.4) I aiming for 410-415 pull. Slow but steady gains. My template:

Wed Squats (just linear progression for one all out set of 5. After the meet I will use 5/3/1)

Sat. Deadlift 5/3/1

As for assistance....usually is "Not doing jacked Shit". This has help my recovery due to age and work. But sometimes I'll do deads off 100lb plate or light GM's. For warm ups, I like doing power cleans or power snatches. My training partner (almost 20 years younger) sets up like this:

Sunday Press
Monday Bench Press
Wed. Squat
Sat. Deadlift

Since we have a meet 4 weeks out, we follow 3/5/1. After the 3 and 1 we add two singles.