5/3/1 questions

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

I’m starting the 5/3/1 4 day split and had some questions about assistance work.
My goals haven’t changed–I’m still mostly after strength gains and (to a secondary degree) fat loss. Over the last month I’ve lost about 8 lbs of weight and gained significant strength (I’m still weaker than I’d like, but certainly improved). My waist is down about 1.5" as well which is nice.

I’ve started to run into recovery problems, though and in a prior thread it was suggested that 5/3/1 might be a good fit so I bought the book.

Now, I can’t follow his assistance templates exactly because I don’t have the equipment; I don’t have a leg press, or a dip station, or a GHR. But I do want to follow as closely as I can, because I want to give the program a shot.

So here’s what I’m thinking:

OHP on day one.
Assistance: work pull ups in between sets
DB bench
curls (I want SOME biceps…vain maybe)
lateral raises

Deadlift day 2
Assistance:
squat
kroc rows
abs–planks for now, stronger stuff when I’m stronger

off

Bench day 3
assistance:
work pull ups in between sets (I can only do one at at time)
DB OHP
rows
flies
skullcrushers (worried I might be doing too much tricep work here? should I just ditch them?)

Squat day 4
assistance:
straight leg dead
lunges
abs
curls at the end.

Several available templates had you doing the alternate lift for assistance; for dead day doing squat as the main assistance lift, on OHP doing bench as the main assistance lift, etc. and I’ve tried to stick with that.

I’m wondering if this looks good?

I’m also wondering WHY he says 5x10 for assistance lifts? I’ll do it because that’s what it says but it seems weird to me to have that many sets and reps.

2

Your plan looks perfectly fine. Try to increase the intensity of your ab work as you are able for sure. Also I assume you are working the conditioning in there somewhere.

5 sets of 10 is pretty much for hypertrophy/pumping blood to the area to build up your muscles with the accessory stuff and the 5/3/1 lifts are where you build more strength. Also don’t worry about doing too much tricep work. I have heard about tons of pec tears, bicep tears, and complete shoulder meltdowns, but i actually don’t know of anyone who has had a tricep injury. I’m sure they happen, but compared to other parts of the body triceps seem virtually invincible.

3

The split looks pretty good from what I am seeing due to a lck of proper equipment. Not really a problem as you can always improvise. But what I would do is match his exact template with exercises that mimic or atleast hit same muscles as the lift he recommends.

For Leg Press- old fashioned hack squats, front squats, lunges or split squats.
For GHR- stiff leg deadlift, hip thrusts(the best posterior exercise IMO),
For Dips- Close Bench or JM Press if for the triceps.

What you have is not bad though. Also not a 100% sure about why he recommends 5x10 but I know every one who follows this program to the T makes awesome gains in size and strength.

4

I couldn’t get the rows today–my arms started shaking real bad pretty quick. I guess still dead from yesterdays. I got 2 sets in but I’ll try again next week.
I’m a bit nervous though; 5x10 on squats kicked my ass horribly today, even with only 115 (about 45% of my 1RM).

The straight leg dead and lunges are in there, so I guess I chose well :slight_smile: I’m probably goingto have to use body weight for lunges though with that high of reps. but oh well. Will get better.

Thanks for the explanations on the 5x10 scheme; it always helps to know WHY I’m doing something!

5

Yeah, pretty much any time you see something like: 5x10, 4x10, 3x12, 3x10, 3x8… it’s the bodybuilding approach to set/rep ranges. In my current 60’s-era program, it’s 3x12 on OHP and bench, and 3x15 on rows.

5x10 on squats sounds pretty rough. I’m not sure I’d use squats as an assistance lift, personally. I’m not sure what’s a better option though.

6

I have a lot more respect for your 20 rep squats after doing it, I’ll say that much :stuck_out_tongue:
I went with it because Wender said to. Otherwise I wouldn’t have. I’ll give it at least 2 cycles before deciding if it’s good or bad.

7

But it’s one set of 20 reps… for 20 reps total. Not 50 :slight_smile:

8

I’ve been doing 5/3/1 for just about 2 years now, and I’ve set up my assistance work in all different kinds of ways.

A couple points:

1- if you’re going to do 5x10 squats, deadlifts, etc. That is basically the boring but big template. When you do this, you need to limit other assistance work. Doing 5x10 squats and then 3 other assistance movements for 5 sets is overkill.

If you want to do 5x10 on squats, deads, etc. You should set it up like this:

5/3/1 deadlifts
5x10 squats
3 sets of ab work

5/3/1 squats
5x10 deadlifts (or stiff leg)
3 sets of ab work

5/3/1 Bench (keep chins between each set)
5x10 Press
5x10 rows (any kind of row, you can superset these with the presses)

5/3/1 Press (keep chins between each set)
5x10 Bench
5x10 rows (any kind of row, you can superset these with the bench)

2- If you want to do more assistance movements, you need to lower the sets. Don’t do 5 sets for 4 different movements.

You could set it up like this:

5/3/1 Bench (chins between each set)
3 sets of rows
3 sets of biceps and triceps

5/3/1 Press (chins between each set)
3 sets of rows
3 sets of dumbbell bench
3 sets of shoulder and upper back work

5/3/1 Squat
3 sets of stiff leg deads
3 sets of lunges
3 sets of abs

5/3/1 Deadlifts
3 sets of front squats
3 sets of hamstrings
3 sets of abs

3- When in doubt, just follow one of the templates jim laid out in the book. If you don’t have the equipment for a movement (say glute ham raises) then just substitute with another movement that hits the same muscles, like stiff leg deads for example.

4- ALWAYS remember that assistance work is not NEARLY as important as the main lifts. Do enough assistance work to build muscle mass, provide balance, and strengthen weak areas. Do not let the assistance work effect the main lifts. It is not as important as you think.

9

that was one thing that confused me. And I’m probably going to limit the assistance stuff on leg days just because oh holy god 5x10 is brutal on squats or deads.

I honestly didn’t know SLDL and GHR were the same motion but it’s good to know. I’ve never even seen one of those machines.

your point 4 is going to be hard for me to remember. I’ll try to keep it in the forefront of my mind.

10

[quote]paulwhite959 wrote:
that was one thing that confused me. And I’m probably going to limit the assistance stuff on leg days just because oh holy god 5x10 is brutal on squats or deads.

I honestly didn’t know SLDL and GHR were the same motion but it’s good to know. I’ve never even seen one of those machines.

your point 4 is going to be hard for me to remember. I’ll try to keep it in the forefront of my mind. [/quote]

The aren’t the same movement but they hit the same muscles, which is the goal.

Have you bought the book? If not you need to.

11

yep. Had to contact customer support because download didn’t work but they sent me the PDF file via email.
I’m kind of leaning MOST towards the periodization bible template I think. but I just don’t know yet.

12

[quote]paulwhite959 wrote:
yep. Had to contact customer support because download didn’t work but they sent me the PDF file via email.
I’m kind of leaning MOST towards the periodization bible template I think. but I just don’t know yet.[/quote]

That template will be just fine.

I would still do a set of chins between bench and military.

Also I would add 3 sets of curls once per week, probably do them on overhead press day, since that is usually a quicker session than bench. This is just to give your arms some balance.

13

[quote]Chris87 wrote:

[quote]paulwhite959 wrote:
yep. Had to contact customer support because download didn’t work but they sent me the PDF file via email.
I’m kind of leaning MOST towards the periodization bible template I think. but I just don’t know yet.[/quote]

That template will be just fine.

I would still do a set of chins between bench and military.

Also I would add 3 sets of curls once per week, probably do them on overhead press day, since that is usually a quicker session than bench. This is just to give your arms some balance.[/quote]

x2 this is almost exactly what I do. Periodization bible with pullups between bench and OHP.

14

If youre having trouble recovering, then cut down on the volume. You could do 4x10 for a start. I would also get rid of the tri extensions and the flies. Ask yourself, is this really making me stronger? Youre already getting plenty of chest and tri work done.

If youre still having trouble recovering ditch the bench assistance on ohp day and dead assistance on squat day and vice versa. This is for people who feel that they recover quick enough so that they can train the same movement 2x a week. If you just do bench assistance on bench day this will give you a full week to recover.

Hope this helps with your recovery problems.

15

I should also point out that wendler only recommends using 50% of your max for the BBB assistance exercises. So if you can bench 200, you are only using 100 for the assistance sets

16

Last week went pretty well. I’m dumping the flies–they seem to hurt my shoulders pretty bad (when the hell did my shoulders get bad?! Did I start to fall apart after my early 20s?).

Last week I did fine for recovery, which is pretty nice. I mean, don’t get me wrong I was sore as hell on the body parts the day after I lifted, but I was fully recovered by the next time around–legs weren’t still sore from deads on squat day or anything, which was a nice change. This week I’m planning to do more conditioning work, we’ll see how it goes. Walks on upper body day, sprints in the alley on lower body day.

I’m working up on chins and pull ups; it’s taken me 6 or 8 weeks to get to the point of doing A pull up, let alone doing reps over the course of the workout. Today I managed one pull up and one chin up (unassisted) between each set of OHP and the first 2 sets of db bench, then switched to band assisted chin ups for the rest of my DB sets and before my curls because I couldn’t complete the last chin up.

After doing a squat workout, I am leaning towards dumping the deadlifts on squat day and just doing squats, lunges and abs. It’s amazing how much that kicked my ass (literally, my cheeks were sore as hell) already.

I am kind of wondering about that last set–I’m just shooting for at least 8, maybe 10. I’m looking forward to seeing where I am 3 cycles from now; I know about where I started on all 4 lifts (1RM on bench was 250, 2RM on deads was 305, 3RM on squats was 245, and 4RM on OHP was 165) so I’ll be able t0 measure progress.

17

[quote]paulwhite959 wrote:
Last week went pretty well. I’m dumping the flies–they seem to hurt my shoulders pretty bad (when the hell did my shoulders get bad?! Did I start to fall apart after my early 20s?).

Last week I did fine for recovery, which is pretty nice. I mean, don’t get me wrong I was sore as hell on the body parts the day after I lifted, but I was fully recovered by the next time around–legs weren’t still sore from deads on squat day or anything, which was a nice change. This week I’m planning to do more conditioning work, we’ll see how it goes. Walks on upper body day, sprints in the alley on lower body day.

I’m working up on chins and pull ups; it’s taken me 6 or 8 weeks to get to the point of doing A pull up, let alone doing reps over the course of the workout. Today I managed one pull up and one chin up (unassisted) between each set of OHP and the first 2 sets of db bench, then switched to band assisted chin ups for the rest of my DB sets and before my curls because I couldn’t complete the last chin up.

After doing a squat workout, I am leaning towards dumping the deadlifts on squat day and just doing squats, lunges and abs. It’s amazing how much that kicked my ass (literally, my cheeks were sore as hell) already.

I am kind of wondering about that last set–I’m just shooting for at least 8, maybe 10. I’m looking forward to seeing where I am 3 cycles from now; I know about where I started on all 4 lifts (1RM on bench was 250, 2RM on deads was 305, 3RM on squats was 245, and 4RM on OHP was 165) so I’ll be able t0 measure progress.[/quote]

Don’t worry about that. As long as you get at least the prescribed reps, you will continue to move foward.

Looking for progress after 3 months is short sited.

18

I figured 3 months would be enough time to judge if it’s working? I mean, if my lifts haven’t budged and waist measurements haven’t dropped that’d be a bad sign right?

edit: I don’t plan to actually retest my maxes, but if I manage to add 5 lbs per cycle to each upper body lift and 10 per cycle to each lower body lift like his book says to do that’ll be sufficient for me. I’d like the legs to go up more but eh. I have time.

19

[quote]paulwhite959 wrote:
I figured 3 months would be enough time to judge if it’s working? I mean, if my lifts haven’t budged and waist measurements haven’t dropped that’d be a bad sign right?

edit: I don’t plan to actually retest my maxes, but if I manage to add 5 lbs per cycle to each upper body lift and 10 per cycle to each lower body lift like his book says to do that’ll be sufficient for me. I’d like the legs to go up more but eh. I have time.[/quote]

The program works. Just trust it.

10 lbs a month is not slow progress. If you add 10 lbs a month, that’s 120 in a year. That is a lot of progress.