Good evening everybody,
Starting January I want to switch over to 5/3/1 to continue making progress but am limited to three days per week and want to finish each cycle every four weeks, as the original 4 day plan. I looked up some variations and came across the beginner variation posted on Wendler’s blog. It is set up as follows:
Monday:
Squat 5/3/1
Bench 55%x5, 65%x5, and 75%x5
Assistance
Wednesday:
Dl 5/3/1
Ohp 5/3/1
Assistance
Friday:
Bench 5/3/1
Squat 55%x5, 65%x5, and 75%x5
Assistance
I seem to like the way it’s set up as it allows me to play recreational sports on my off days but wanted to know what assistance work to use. For assistance, I was think something along the lines of:
Monday
BBB Squat
Calf Raises
Ab work
Wednesday
GHR
Form of curls
Chin Ups or Lat pulldown
Friday
BBB Bench
DB row
Reverse Flies
I’m not sure if it is balanced enough to follow for a long time and if it is too much assistance work.
Personally i think thats quite a lot of assistance work, especially for following a full body template.
Viable for maybe 1/2 cycles but i feel you would burn out quickly with playing sports.
i know quite often people say do it as its written and ofcourse you should… really, but if you have to add assistance work just dont add so much, think of it all for the long haul.
just my 2 cents.
p.s. i currently run 5/3/1 full body, only assistance i add is back extensions/abs and face pulls
d3 squat deload
bench
db rows 3x sets
2x sets of abs
I have been doing different fullbody-templates most of my time with 5/3/1, and have noticed that you need to keep assistance light to fully recover for the next session. Its assistance, it should not drain you in this kind of template. Do you seriously think you can do well with you deadlift, if you have just squatted 5/3/1 sets and 5x10 sets just a couple days prior?
This is only what I would do, you know what kind of assistance you need. Just limit it to 1-2 exercises. Don’t do BBB as assistance with this kind of template.
Jim generally recommends 1-2 assistance exercises at most. As noted previously, pick 1-2 exercises that best meet your goals. I’ve never done that much assistance work, because it’s not the focus of the program.
You can switch up assistance work as you wish, though the best time to that is arguably after running 1-2 full cycles.
[quote]eggs420 wrote:
I would and have done something
Like this -
Day 1
Squat
Day 2
Bench
Day 3
Deaflift
Overhead
Simple and fun[/quote]
Everybody finds their way. I tried that split for 6 weeks, and actually did not like it. I’m planning to try this next January (when my current cycle ends):
Thanks for all the answers, I think I’m leaning towards
d1 squat
bench deload
chins/lat pulldown 3x8
abs
d2 dl
ohp
back raises 3x10
Curls 3x8
d3 squat deload
bench
db rows 3x8
abs
I’ll be coming off two weeks of rest and no lifting. But currently I’m running starting strength but not progressing that fast because of the amount of recreational sports I play.