Hi guys, a little bit of background on me: I have been lifting for a year now, my lifts are as follows:
Ohead Press: 135X4
Bench Press: 200X5
Back Squat: 270X1 (dropped from 270X6)
Front Squat: 225X1
Conventional Deadlift: 405X1
At a bodyweight of 165lbs, 5’6
As you can see, I’m terribly weak in squats and pressing exercises. An awful amount of chinups everyday and one-arm T-bar rows has let me brought up my pulling strength, but my pressing strength is still lagging behind.
I believe its in the way I set up my reps and sets for both squats and presses, which is why I decided to follow a powrelifting template to set myself straight. After three months of stalling on my presses and two months stalling on squats while my pulling strength has gone up, I decided to do a run of Smolov for squats starting next week.
During this period, I intend to hit my ohead and bench presses with 5/3/1. Seeing as I am only doing two of the four lifts for 5/3/1, is it feasible to squeeze the 4-week cycle of 5/3/1 into a 2 week cycle? I would then have 2 ohead pressing sessions and 2 benching sessions per week.
Would anyone experienced with both smolov and 5/3/1 give me your feedback? Thanks…
[quote]Calis wrote:
Terrible terrible idea. When doing smolov you should be doing bare minimum of everything else just for maintenance.
Don’t bother with smolov yet. Just do 531. [/quote]
I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve run right around 6 cycles of smolov and I made the mistake of trying to hit the other lifts hard on one. Just keep it in maintenance and try to eat a ton. Emphasis on eat
These guys are right about not trying to condense 4 weeks into two weeks. My recommendation would be to do 5/3/1 as it is written for all your lifts. I would only try to hit max reps on my last set of squats and one pushing exercise (OHP or BP) each week. For the DL and other pushing exercise only do the prescribed reps. If you feel like you need more volume/practice in the main lifts, then do the boring but big assistance template with 5/3/1. You should be able to make plenty of progress on 5/3/1 if you are patient, do it correctly, and eat enough.
These guys are right about not trying to condense 4 weeks into two weeks. My recommendation would be to do 5/3/1 as it is written for all your lifts. I would only try to hit max reps on my last set of squats and one pushing exercise (OHP or BP) each week. For the DL and other pushing exercise only do the prescribed reps. If you feel like you need more volume/practice in the main lifts, then do the boring but big assistance template with 5/3/1. You should be able to make plenty of progress on 5/3/1 if you are patient, do it correctly, and eat enough.
Hey guys, thanks for the responses, but I am confident that I should be able to pull this off due to the way I have trained over the past year.
Basically, I have squatted, benched, db rowed, oh pressed 2-3 times a week, all going in the 1-5 rep range, for the past 6 months or so. I have always pushed for a PR at least twice a week for every major lift. It has worked great for me last year but now it has stalled for some time.
I’m confident that the frequency and volume of my training has prepared me for smolov and worst comes to it, I will probably drop the bulk of the upper body work during the 4-week cycles. I will be back to report my progress after the first 4 week cycle.
“Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I’d never want another.”
If you choose to do the smolov that’s fine, but I still wouldn’t recommend trying to condense the 5/3/1 upper body stuff. You just said trying to push everything hard 2-3 times a week has you stalled out for several months. At most I would do the 5/3/1 upper body stuff as written with the minimum of assistance work you can get away with.
[quote]OatsNMilk wrote:
Hey guys, thanks for the responses, but I am confident that I should be able to pull this off due to the way I have trained over the past year.
Basically, I have squatted, benched, db rowed, oh pressed 2-3 times a week, all going in the 1-5 rep range, for the past 6 months or so. I have always pushed for a PR at least twice a week for every major lift. It has worked great for me last year but now it has stalled for some time.
I’m confident that the frequency and volume of my training has prepared me for smolov and worst comes to it, I will probably drop the bulk of the upper body work during the 4-week cycles. I will be back to report my progress after the first 4 week cycle.[/quote]
Maybe all your training 2-3 times a week is the reason why your lifts are shitty/have stalled? That doesn’t sound like a good training routine to me.
If you’re rreeeeaallly set on blasting your wheels but realized smolov + much of anything else is usually a recipe for disaster, this might be of interest
I doubt it’d be strictly JW approved but I don’t see it not working.
I did 5 3 1 for four cycles… a bit of condensing worked for Me, but not into two weeks… I simply didn’t need the deload week as often as it’s written… after the fourth round, I did two weeks @ 60% of everything and moved on to buckeye training for a change… four rounds of 5 3 1 increased My squat by about 80 pounds, bench by 50, dead by about 60…
I’ll do buckeye for two cycles, then I’ll go back to sheiko… that’s where My heart is, it’s just mighty rough on the old body…
The purpose of 5/3/1 is to improve all 4 basic lifts. The purpose of the smolov program is to improve your squat. Since you want to improve 3 of the 4 basic lifts, I’d say stick to 5/3/1. If squat is more important than anything, use smolov. I would not mix and match with smolov because of how hard I’ve heard it to be.
[quote]OatsNMilk wrote:
Hey guys, thanks for the responses, but I am confident that I should be able to pull this off due to the way I have trained over the past year.
Basically, I have squatted, benched, db rowed, oh pressed 2-3 times a week, all going in the 1-5 rep range, for the past 6 months or so. I have always pushed for a PR at least twice a week for every major lift. It has worked great for me last year but now it has stalled for some time.
I’m confident that the frequency and volume of my training has prepared me for smolov and worst comes to it, I will probably drop the bulk of the upper body work during the 4-week cycles. I will be back to report my progress after the first 4 week cycle.[/quote]
Why does everyone try to mix and match programs, thinking they are going to make better progress?
Understand this, these programs were designed a certain way by lifers and experts that know so much more than you and have infinitely more experience. Are you an anomaly? Do you have superior genetics? I think not, or you would not have come on here asking for advice.
Don’t be an idiot, do one program or the other and you will make better immediate and long-term gains.
Everyone wants everything and they want it now…sorry but it is not gonna happen. Deal with it.
But “never ever mix up a program someone else has written out and then say it never works. Because if you do , you shall be publicly humiliated and tortured.” Bryn Simon
[quote]Powerhouse366 wrote:
Has anyone had great gains from using smolov as it states would be great to know/hear about??[/quote]
I have. I came off of a layoff on account of a torn meniscus and the ensuing surgery with a measly 330lb squat. I ran smolov with a 320 lb max so to ease the pressure on my knees (hindsight, a great idea) and got the max up to ~385 after one cycle. I just recently finished a squat set up of my own invention based a wee bit off smolov that brought me up to a 455 lb max as of last week.
Hi guys, just wanted to clear things up. Initially, I wanted to do a run of smolov while training my back/chest/shoulders/arms twice a week each.
I have hit each bodypart 2-3X a week each before and have seen progress up until the start of this year. (I was not moving heavy weights though, but I am also not moving heavy weights now.) After a few months of changing some variables here and there, mainly my dietand training frequency, I have come to the conclusion that the main reason im stalling is because of the way I set up my sets and reps. Somehow, working up to a top set in the 2-5 rep range for each bodypart 2 or 3X a week is not working for me right now.
I do not see 5/3/1 as a program, but rather as a method of setting your reps and sets. I decided to use the rep range scheme in 5/3/1, basically training each bodypart in all rep ranges and include a deload session, to see if this will set my progress back on track.
During my first week into the smolov base, I realised the extent of the workload and cut down my upper body work to once a week. I have still progressed steadily on my squats and ended up doing 10X3 of my 1rm in the last workout of the base meso. However, I am only moving pussy weight compared to the others here. (120kg)
Another clear indication that something was very wrong with the way I set my reps and sets for my squat training beforehand.