5/3/1 Main, 10 Manliest Assistance

Bigger Stronger Leaner Jim Wendler 5/3/1 Coaching
1

After skimming through articles, I came across Bret Contreras’ 10 manliest workouts. I thought a challenging but possibly rewarding few cycles would be to use Wendler’s 5/3/1 for my main lifts, and using the 10 manliest exercises after as assistance. I’ll just base the assistance volume per exercise on how I feel for the day. Came up with this:

5/3/1 OHP
Clean and Press
Farmer Walks
Overhead Barbell Walks

5/3/1 Squat
Zercher Squat
20-Count Breather Squats
Parking Lot Lunges

5/3/1 Bench
Pause Bench
Chain Dips
Plate Pinch Prayers

5/3/1 Deadlifts
Anderson Deadlifts
T-Bar Strip Rows
weighted Chin-ups
Kroc Rows

Felt it looked pretty brutal, perhaps too brutal to make decent progress before burning out. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions?

2

My quick reassembly sitting in a waiting room:

5/3/1 OHP
Pause Bench
Kroc Rows
Overhead Barbell Walks

5/3/1 Squat
Anderson Deadlifts
Zercher Squat
Parking Lot Lunges
Plate Pinch Prayers

Clean and Press
5/3/1 Bench
Chain Dips
weighted Chin-ups

5/3/1 Deadlifts
T-Bar Strip Rows
20-Count Breather Squats
Farmer Walks

3

Some Dude’s Manliest 10…

Squat, deadlift, power clean, overhead press, bench press, barbell row, Kroc row, weighted chin-up, weighted dip, weighted Ab wheel rollout.

4

Here’s my humble opinion: Too much. Many of these “assistance” movements seems to be quite exhaustive and I personally think that doing these all in one workout forces you to compromise volume on each lift. I dont know about your strength levels or the amount of volume you’e used to, but you would probably benefit more of choosing the 5/3/1 with 1-2 assistance movements which you hammer home with violence.

I was also thinking that how many regular lifters need all this stuff? Just make sure you pull, press, squat and lift things from the floor. If you want to use movements you listed I would recommend choosing at least clean and press (done before main lift with relatively low volume) and farmers walks.

Or just pick a ready template, there are plenty of great ones to choose.

5

Chins, dips and krocs are also good options. These are also recommended by Wendler.

6

[quote]TX iron wrote:
After skimming through articles, I came across Bret Contreras’ 10 manliest workouts. I thought a challenging but possibly rewarding few cycles would be to use Wendler’s 5/3/1 for my main lifts, and using the 10 manliest exercises after as assistance. I’ll just base the assistance volume per exercise on how I feel for the day. Came up with this:

5/3/1 OHP
Clean and Press
Farmer Walks
Overhead Barbell Walks

5/3/1 Squat
Zercher Squat
20-Count Breather Squats
Parking Lot Lunges

5/3/1 Bench
Pause Bench
Chain Dips
Plate Pinch Prayers

5/3/1 Deadlifts
Anderson Deadlifts
T-Bar Strip Rows
weighted Chin-ups
Kroc Rows

Felt it looked pretty brutal, perhaps too brutal to make decent progress before burning out. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions?[/quote]

This really isn’t organized very well. You need to do better than this.

7

I appreciate the reply. I think you offer a more prudent approach. My strength is alright, I pull double bw off the floor which at 175 isn’t great. Volume-wise, I was training to try out for special ops for about 6 months, doing full-body workouts daily and running and swimming miles upon miles every week. I had to do some pretty odd GPP, and frankly I loved it and got a taste for unique exercises.

I had to re-evaluate my entry due to family issues. So now I’m looking to keep most of what I gained and add some strength and mass.

As you say, it’s probably best to just hammer a few basics with violence.

8

Thanks Jim. Would you recommend shaving off some of the redundant assistance exercises while I “hammer a few with violence”, keeping more true to an upper/lower as opposed to a BB-style split, and 86ing the overload techniques in favor of some jokers?

9

@mattyb83 I like this structure over mine.