If I’m doing the 3/5/1 variant the 3 week is hardest.
I find the fist day of 5s week is hard regardless of exercise. I think it’s because of coming off the deload week. I usually feel pretty normal for the subsequent days of 5s.
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Wendler has said that an alternate setup is to do 3/5/1
Week 1: 3’s week as normal
Week 2: 3x3 or 3x5 w 85% of your adjusted max, stop at the prescribed reps
Week 3: 5/3/1 week as normal
Week 4: deload as normal
Basically alternates hard weeks w backoff weeks, and lets you focus on the higher intensity weeks[/quote]
This is basically what I do. Atleast for sq/dl since I need that 5+ day to make any gains on upper body lifts. But I really hammer the assistance work and really work on form on that middle week. If I’m feeling great I’ll go for a rep record anyway.
I hate when people complain about high rep dead-lifts. The fact that you suck at them means you need to get better at them. I hit 510 pretty easily in the begginning of summer while never going above 415 in training.
I think 5 week is the hardest too. As for getting strong on 5’s Coan said 5’s are the best. His opinion > your opinion…
5’s is tough because the reps are highest… Many, MANY power lifters (or those looking for strength more than hypertrophy) fall in love with the 1-3 rep range, and almost NEVER venture into 10-15 rep range on anything but assistance work, which is hardly taxing.
If you are used to doing triples, a balls out set of 12-15 will absolutely floor you.
My grip is always too weak with 5’s on the deadlift. I stopped using straps for deads and have started working on grip to fix this. I only have 100s at the gym but am gunning for 50+ reps, also I’m going high rep shrugs without straps/chalk
I have completed six cycles of 5/3/1 and definitely saw a rhythm after a while. The 5s week was always a slog, but by the 1s I just felt like crushing the weight and would push as hard as I could. It was funny is always coming back after the deload I just felt a bit sluggish. Then by the 1s again, just revved up.
There is a reason there are many fans of the program!
I just started my 3rd cycle and the 5s week is pretty brutal for me (I’m doing the boring but big program and todays squat and deadlift was killing me), I’m not sure if it’s just because it really is the toughest or if its because I just came off the deload week.
[quote]dreadlocks1221 wrote:
I just started my 3rd cycle and the 5s week is pretty brutal for me (I’m doing the boring but big program and todays squat and deadlift was killing me), I’m not sure if it’s just because it really is the toughest or if its because I just came off the deload week.[/quote]
I think it’s a bit of both… I always go for a max rep bench PR attempt on week 1 and it’s tough because I feel somewhat detrained after deload week. For this deload week, I did some dynamic work for bench while taking everything else easy to see if it’ll help. In the past, I have responded well from doing dynamic work a few days before a PR attempt so I’ll try it again. I’ve always used the exrx.net one-rep max calculator, http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax.html, because it has been more accurate in predicting my maxes. That calculator shows the 5s week as being the most difficult so it’s likely the 5s week is the toughest for most people.