5/3/1 to Elite.

Training Training Logs
161

[quote]dez6485 wrote:
training first, personal reflections of some personal stress at the bottom:

the pressing actually even went ok:
5/3/1 day (75,85,95%)
150 x 5
170 x 3
190 x 6

but after the pressing my intention was to do 5 sets of dips with a 45lb on the dip belt, supersetted with 5 sets of supinated barbell rows. as i set up to dip, my left tricep just felt very weak, so i slowly lowered myself into the first rep and i could feel that i had no strength in the tricep, so i cut the dips.

did my barbell rows, then i decided to finish the lats with a few sets of “standing cable straight arm pulldowns” i forget what the hell to call them, but a pullover only standing with a cable machine. i wasnt going super heavy on these, but at the end of each set there was a sharp pain when i let go of the bar.

so, a small set back. ive had this happen before, i dont know what the fuck it is, it’s annoying, but it’s usually fine within a week or two. i went to the doctor’s office to get it checked out a few years ago, must have been the first time it happened, and they werent able to tell me anything, found nothing wrong, and essentially just told me not to lift heavy. fuck that. that will always be the doctor’s answer for injuries/pains brought about by lifting heavy.

instead of deadlifting on friday like i planned, ill take an extra day, deadlift on saturday, and then bench on monday if this hasnt gotten worse. im hoping it will simply get better, but my plan if it AT LEAST hasnt gotten worse is to still bench, but not go all out for the reps on that last set, just get the prescribed and get out.

Im new to 5/3/1 and a friend who also got a sharp shoulder pain during 5/3/1 also did not go all out on reps for the last set. He told me not too as well. I feel like I will not get as strong if I do not go all out, or 1 rep before failure as Wendler states for the last set.

Lets say i should go for 5 reps for benching on the last set, but I can do 9, should I only do 5 or go halfway and stop at 7? Has your shoulder pain come back? Thanks you seem to know what you’re talking about when it comes to 5/3/1

162

Yogi-

The sharp pain that I had at that time was in my forearm, had to re-read that as I had no recollection of sharp shoulder pain. Anyway, looking back I’m sure what I was experiencing was tendonitis.

For your question, It doesn’t matter if you’re doing 5/3/1 or any other program, you need to know your body a bit and know the difference between some little nagging pain that is little more than an annoyance, and something that’s fucked up. This comes from experience with some heavier weight training. I would always say if you experience some sort of pain in the gym you need to pay attention to what’s going on, and probably back off and re-evaluate. If benching consistently causes the same pain, maybe drop the benching and figure out what’s going on with your shoulder. Obviously the more reps you can do with heavier weight, the stronger you’ll probably get, but at what cost? If benching X weight for 10 reps would make you stronger sooner than benching X for 5 reps, is it worth it if benching X for 10 reps also gets you closer to injury? No.

So, maybe your answer is to cut the benching and figure out the shoulder. Maybe your answer is to just not go balls out on the benching and train to maintain while you figure out your shoulder- only you can figure this out. My best advice is if you don’t have experience with this kind of pain, back off- it may be a shoulder mobility issue that is easy to fix with some specific exercises and drills, and it may be an injury waiting to happen if you don’t address it. I think Mike Robertson or someone has shoulder mobility articles on here, check the archives.

163

Legs (deadlift)

335x5
380x3
425x7! Booyah!

Few days ago I wrote in here and said I was going to pick some numbers next few workouts and FUCKING HIT THEM! I knew when I wrote that I had 425 coming up on deads and 7 was the number! Wore my North of Vag shirt to the gym, so I was hoping to offend all that might be offended, and of course I couldn’t wear that and lift like a puss!

“squat press machine”
6pps x 8 x 3 sets

Power squat machine GMs
3pps x 12 x 3 sets

Seated calf raise machine
2p’s x 12 x 3 sets

Ab wheel
10 reps x 3

Felt great on this, got done in less than an hour, this is more work than I usually do on a deads day, in same time or less. Maybe excited about new split, maybe tired of sucking, who knows but I’ll take it!

164

Nice work!

165

thanks Trav!

“PUSH”

5/3/1 bench

215x5
245x3
275x3
225x8

…the 275 i really should have had for 5-6+, but im very tired today, and i wouldnt normally lift the day after deadlifts, im a bit sore today, to say the least. also, ive been doing pullups between my pressing movements for so long, it’s very weird to not do anything in between. anyway, im not upset about this in the slightest- overall picture.

incline dumbbell bench- did not push these, will see how i recover and prob add 4th set
75x12
80x8
80x8

military press- crazy how weak i was at this point, tris were dead. also, same as incline, may add 4th set
135x8
95x12
95x12

machine lateral raise- might stick with these over dumbbells for a bit, felt good
60x20
70x16
70x14
60x15

overhead tricep extension machine
5 sets x 12 reps

stretched the tris and chest a bit

166

also thinking i may alternate flat bench and military press for the first movement on push day, that way i can also keep doing military press 5/3/1 style. at that point, kind of a 5/3/1 + bodybuilding hybrid, as i will have more back work, and consistent, planned arm work. will see how this goes, but so far im feeling very motivated. i like the pace of the workout, i like the pump that im getting, etc.

could look like this:

PUSH
5/3/1 bench
chest
shoulders
tris

PULL
5/3/1 weighted pullups
back
back
bis

REST

LEGS
5/3/1 squats
legs
legs
abs

PUSH
5/3/1 military press
chest
shoulders
tris

REST

PULL
back work
back work, etc
bis

LEGS
5/3/1 deads
legs
legs
abs

REST

PUSH
5/3/1 bench
etc…

167

posting so i can look at this tomorrow at work, get an idea of what im doing in the gym tomorrow night:

5/3/1 chins/pullups?
dumbbell row
seated wide grip row
pullover machine
barbell shrug
rear delt
guns

168

lots of thinking here, i think i will basically adopt 5/3/1 to bodybuilding. as i look at the schedule i wrote out above, i might as well rotate the 5/3/1 push as i mentioned, push 1 bench, push 2 military press. therefore, instead of doing a little bit of chest and shoulders on each day, i might as well focus push 1 on chest, push 2 on shoulders, and just trash those muscle groups on that day.

i think this will allow me to continue to work on getting stronger at those main moves, will hopefully putting on some mass with the extra volume that i will be giving to each muscle group. the funny thing is, this way will have me working out 5 days/week, whereas most of my time on 5/3/1 i have spent doing 3 days/week, with some 4x here and there. i dont think the increased frequency to 5x is going to burn me out at all. i think its the sessions where i would try and cram in bench, 50+ pullups, additional back work, shoulder work, traps, and bis or tris that burns me out. just cramming too much into one session, because i knew i needed more volume, but was going about it the wrong way. i think the way im thinking now is what ive needed for a while.

169

How do you like doing 531 for pullups?

170

ive never done it for pullups, i was considering doing it for pullups. thinking it over more though, i may just leave that alone to give me a workout day that im not using 5/3/1 scheme. that way i can focus that back day- which when you break my new “routine down” it’s basically just going to be 5/3/1 rearranged a little + a back day- i can just focus that day on moving some weight and getting some volume in, rather than focusing on numbers that i have to hit for the 5/3/1 pullups.

i have known people to do 5/3/1 pullups, and im sure they are successful. you can probably find some opinions on it in the 5/3/1 thread in the powerlifting section- currently on 4th thread.

171

PULL/back+biceps
inspired (aka copied from) a Dorian Yates vid i saw on here

Nautilus pullover
80x15
110x12
150x10

V-Grip/Parallel, Narrow pulldown
120x12
140x10
110x10

HS Iso-Low row
3pps x 12
3p + 25 x 8…or was it 10?

wide grip seated row
140x10
120x12
100x10

one-arm cable curls
30x12
30x12
40x8

one-arm cable hammer curls- no handle, hold onto ball at end of cable
3 sets of? dont remember

Reverse grip E-Z bar curl
70x10
70x10
70x9

driving home from the gym i was thinking about the workout, and i think it was “good”. i think there will be an adjustment period to this style of training, figuring out my weight selections a little better, stuff like that. also, dumbbell rows were due after the v-grip pulldowns, but i was already feeling those sets and knew i wouldnt be able to move the weight i wanted to on the dumbbell rows, so the HS iso-low row was a good alternative that replicated the motion fairly well, and just allowed me to concentrate on moving the weight, instead of worrying about keeping good form and not yanking a dumbbell around. after a few workouts im sure i will get the hang of it, add some sets here and there, etc. biceps should have gotten some dumbbell curls, barbell curls, etc- but they were already tired, and it was all i could do to get some work in.

now, some thoughts on all of this in general: another thing that i thought of was that getting bigger is what is most important to me right now- at least in terms of what im trying to accomplish with the weights. i certainly want to get stronger, and im going to get stronger, but if i dont bench X by such-and-such a date, as long as im seeing some progress physically, im not going to cry about it. same with squat, deadlift, etc. i will continue to do these things on a regular basis. it was very refreshing to not worry about hitting X weight for Y reps tonight, and instead get in there and make sure i didnt bullshit around, but moved weight that challenged the muscles i was trying to challenge. for that: mission accomplished.

172

Crap leg workout lastnight!

So my gym has one power rack, one “half rack” that has diagonal sides up top where you can adjust height for squatting, and then pins down low for doing pulls, etc. Then a crap rack that has 3-4 fixed rack positions that I can only use for military pressing. Anyway, the power rack and the half rack are in the corner adjacent to each other- I think adjacent is the right word, but maybe it’s perpendicular- they form basically an L, with the side of the power rack facing the opening of the half rack. They are close, but I’ve squatted in the power rack while others were working in the half rack many times- not a problem.

Well, this jackass was in the half rack, lower pins set like he was doing the top 2-3" of a bench lockout, legs way out of the rack. Working his fucking abs! He would push the bar up, then do leg raises to front, side, etc. I couldn’t possibly squat while we was doing this, so I stood around and waited, dead obvious I was waiting for him. He had what appeared to be a new girl in his life with him, so I just let him do his thing. She must have been a new girl he was trying to impress because they didn’t seem to know each other that well, and he was explaining his workouts to her as if trying to impress.

Didn’t want to blow up his spot, and the way he was performing this bullshit, I didn’t really see a way of him continuing his work without doing it elsewhere (which he should have- even if he did it in the power rack, which had no one in it, he wouldn’t have been in anyone’s way).

Anyway

Finally didn’t have ab-man in the way, got under the empty bar and did 6-7 reps and stopped. Something felt very off on the inside of left thigh, groin area, but it was horizontal across where my thigh meets my torse, not vertical running down the inside of leg like groin pulls have felt in the past. Was pissed, packed up my shit, went into locker room, got more pissed and did some bodyweight squats to “feel it out”. Turns out a narrow stance didn’t seem to both it so much.

Worked up to 295x5 squats, used a much narrower stance than normal and ATG, so not bad- will keep working with this stance, but it will require more warm up. Put 335 on, was going to try 5 with that, just too heavy right now, did one and racked it.

After this I put what must have been 450 or so on the bar and walked it out of the rack, held for 5 seconds and walked it back in. This is good because a month or two ago I put 405 on, walked it out a bit and it felt heavy as shit. This 450 or whatever it was, definitely felt heavy, but I wasn’t about to crumble- so I guess my upper back is getting stronger.

173

Almost forgot,

After squats I was going to do RDL’s, set up the rack, empty bar was too much for lower back, so I did something “easy”.

3 sets lying leg curls

Then ran/jogged a mile.

It seems that on squat days my following movements may need to be things that don’t hit my lower back, leg presses, etc. On deads days I may have a little more room to work on 2nd and 3rd movements that include lower back. Or, I will simply get better. This is going to be a learning process for the first few weeks figuring out the best way to structure this.

174

Shoulders

Military press
125x5
145x5
165x5
185x5

Seated db OH press
65x12
65x12
65x9

Lateral raise machine
5 sets 10-12 reps

BB shrugs
225x12
315x8
405x8
455x8…cut these because I knew I had back the next day, and deadlifts coming just a couple days after that. Couple days later, I feel I should’ve gone 5 plates, not as sore as I thought I’d be

Cable upright rows w/ rope
4-5 sets 12 reps

Tricep pushdowns
5x12x stack

Overhead tri cable ext w/ rope
4x12

175

Back

V-grip pulldowns
Warm up weights x whatever
160x8
140x10
120x10

Db row
120x8
120x8…good stretch at bottom, pause at top

HS iso-low row
4pps x 8

Wide grip seated cable row
160x10
140x10
100x12/3sets

Rear delt machine
4 sets of 12

Wide grip cable curls
5 sets 8-10

Hammer hold curls
3 sets of 8

176

In working like this for a week or so, I like it. However, I may change to a complete body part split, and have an arms day to itself as opposed to tagging them onto chest/shoulders and back days. One big reason being is I cannot lift nearly as heavy for them as I feel I would be able to on their own day. Another important reason is time- I could get my lifting done in 45 minutes no problem if I was just doing chest or shoulders or back, as opposed to chest/tris, etc. This would mean I would have the extra time to do the running that is also important to me at this time. Tomorrow is legs(deads) so I have a couple days to think about this.

177

You’ve got a strong press, man. Keep it up.

178

Thanks dude, will keep working for sure!

179

What kind of conditioning are you doing?

180

Running, some kettle bell swings, hills to start soon now that weather is getting good.