Full Body 1000% Awesome Template Review
This week after finishing running Full Body 1000% awesome template for a total of 12 weeks I thought I’d chuck a review up.
I’d come into this off the back of running Fat Loss and Prep template and having some decent results off that template. The actual fat loss of that template went reasonably well considering I don’t track macros or calories, but the strength element didn’t progress/maintain as much as I’d of liked. So went into this template dieting at a deficit and knowing I’d be getting some decent volume in on the main lifts and I could use the non-lifting days to emphasis conditioning and be a bit more aggressive with the diet those days. I used the last week of fat loss and prep as a PR/test week and got the following results:
Swiss Bar Bench 95kg x5 – estimated 1rm of 111kg (-5kg from last test)
Zercher Squat 95kg x10 – estimated 1rm of 127kg
BB Incline Bench 81kg x8 – estimated 1rm of 103kg (a non fat bastard PR for me)
BB Deadlift 133kg x9 – estimated 1rm of 173kg
Briefly, these lifts are down to injury and movement restrictions. I swapped out to Zercher squats and BB deadlifts from SSB and Trap Bar deadlifts recently due to some aggravations in my hip and this seems to have worked. Swiss Bar I love benching with but conversely hate straight bar and as my gym is in my shed I don’t have room to do a standing OHP.
Based on this I reduced the Swiss Bar Bench TM down to 91kg and increased the other TM’s in line with Jim’s recommendations and used an 85% TM to base my percentages from.
Obviously out of respect that the programme details are in the 5/3/1 Forever book which as always I’d encourage anyone with an interest in training to own I won’t outline the minutiae of the template here but will give a basic overview. Each day is a proper full body day and there are three lifting days per week, each day starts with a lower body movement and followed by an upper body movement with main lift being 5s pro and the other a higher volume set total IF bar speed remains fast the lifter can choose to increase number of sets. Two days are Squat and Bench day the other middle day is a Deadlift + Press day, on the second squat/bench day I did SSB squats for supplemental volume and had no issues with my hip. During the leader cycle which I did for one cycle the supplemental lift goes to a lighter load and fewer prescribed sets however there is the option to do some jokers post PR set.
Accessory work, I chose fairly intensive exercises such as weighted chins, SLDL, seated OHP (with a view to replace Incline Bench as main lift next template) and saw some good improvement in numbers across these exercises. Pretty much every single workout was a good one during the leader and I found the training all really enjoyable so decided to run three cycles in the end. I love full body training, the feeling post workout for me is one I’d liken to eating a meat that is properly satiating. Despite being in a calorie deficit most of the week I didn’t find recovery from the workouts was an issue at all and that’s on some kind of conditioning 3-4 times per week. I did up the calories during the anchor cycle with a view to eating for performance which meant an increase in carbs pre and post workout and then adding some fats across the day.
Mostly the leader sessions were done in under an hour and anchors a bit over and played the total reps for accessory by ear and feel. Carried on with the habit of performing daily work of pullaparts, direct neck work and banded pushdowns/curls also tried to chuck in some calf work to help strengthen them up for the running.
Conditioning wise I did hill sprints a couple of times most weeks using a weighted vest as progression so once I’d hit 10 hill sprints I added a weighted vest and started increasing the weight gradually. I also did a crossfit style WOD most weeks at the end of each week. For easy conditioning I was doing low intensity steady state jogging between 4-5 miles once a week and then either some steady state exercise bike work (pace as per Tactical Barbell recommendations) or a weighted vest walk when I could fit it in, some weeks I didn’t have time others mainly when the kids were at school I managed to get a couple of workouts when working from home.
Strength wise my anchor produced the following results:
Swiss Bar Bench 91kg x8 – estimated 1rm of 115kg, increase of 4kg from last template and 1kg off all time PR. The all-time PR was set when I was about 15lbs heavier so taking that as some progress
Zercher Squat 114kg x10 – estimated 1rm of 152kg, increase of 25kg from last template, think some of this was down to getting used to the exercise again as I used to run Zerchers fairly regular
BB Deadlift 152kg x9 – estimated 1rm of 198, increase of 25kg from last template, again some of this is getting used to the lift after using solely Trap Bar Deadlifts for nearly a year
On conditioning I ended up using an 8kg weighted vest and getting 9 or 10 reps of hill sprints during the last week of the anchor and also did a best effort 5k at start of the template and end and took 1min 40 off my time. Time for 5 mile at a steady state also went down over the template.
Weight wise I dropped about 4lbs during the leader which wasn’t a massive amount, I had a simple rule about generally avoiding carbs other than pre and post workout (I train first thing in the morning) and at dinner and keeping fats relatively low. The anchor as mentioned I kept a mind-set of eating for performance which is something I’m going to be adopting going forward, this entails just eating good quality foods in the main and responding to the stresses and pressures I’m setting my body to accordingly and so far seems to be paying dividends.
On the whole I would definitely run this or another similar full body template again when dieting, it keeps the focus on strength during the workouts and with it being full body allowed me to put a fair amount of time and effort into conditioning and recovery was generally never an issue. Vast majority of the workouts were good quality with all the numbers met, the only exception to this was my final workout where I missed a rep on the bench PR set and that bled into skipping some accessory work, I also had one workout a couple of days after playing rugby which was a bit of a struggle but that’s not surprising. On the subject of rugby I would definitely look to this template as one to run preseason if my focus was strength and conditioning and maybe adding some cleans in but not so much for Hypertrophy. I’ve found the whole thing thoroughly enjoyable truth be told and am relatively pleased with my progress on this template.