Slow and Steady Programming

[AdamW]

Hey Andy, thanks for doing this Q&A stuff, your insight is invaluable. First things first...

Age: 25
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 212
Squat: 473
Bench: 330
Deadlift: 550

Hitting some walls lately and every session is just grinding and beating the shit out of me. I just recently lost about 20lbs so that hasn't helped matters either. I have been running 5/3/1 for my upper body stuff and a volume/intensity sort of setup on my squats, but I'm finding I can't keep up with the ever increasing workload and stress of trying to set PRs.

I was considering setting something up using a heavy/medium/light approach but extrapolated over the course of 3 weeks, rather than 3 workouts in one week, so I would have a light, medium and heavy week, where 2 of the weeks I'm guaranteed to nail everything and feel good, and only one of those weeks would I have to worry about really bringing my A game and occasionally trying to set a PR.

Have you ever used anything like that or do you have a better suggestion? If you've ever used 5/3/1 with your clients, how do you normally manage squat volume since it's traditionally pretty low on 5/3/1?

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Are you deloading every 4th week on the 531 program like Jim recommends?? At 25 you should be able to do 531 for 3 weeks without getting beat up too bad. Maybe just try doing the prescribed reps on the last set for squats and deads on most weeks and not pushing for a max rep all out set????

A second squat day on 531 is advisable, usually before deadlifts