Hey, I’ve read through 5/3/1 forever and I’m not sure about how Jim intends original 531 BBB to be run?
He’s clear that it should be a leader template, which I get, and he does give a version on page 47 that has “5/3/1 sets” as part of it, however he never explicitly says to do AMRAPs there, and I want to make 10,000% sure I’m not toasting my programming by inappropriately having an AMRAP in a leader.
I love the idea of a leader having an opportunity to push myself, but I worry it’s too good to be true. PROs are fine if I have to go that way, but I do love a (RPE 8-ish) AMRAP.
Also open to any general advice on what to run for a long bulk. I have 18-24 months of bulk ahead of me where I’ll be adding about 35lbs, so I really want to make good use of it.
The goal with BBB is to get bigger and not necessarily stronger, I’m not saying the two are mutually exclusive but if you’re after a leader to push yourself I’d look for another template to run. Your main goal in BBB is really crushing the supplemental work which is done with the aim of putting on size. You don’t want to jeopardise this by going AMRAP on top set work, rep work on the supplemental needs to be clean with great bar speed and every rep hit - you ain’t gonna achieve that for 5 sets after having done an AMRAP
I don’t have the book to hand to check the wording but the 5/3/1 sets he’s referencing are in reality 5s pro
I believe AMRAPs are only used in Anchors in Forever. For BBB Leader you just crush the volume with supplemental work after 5sPRO. Push the main sets in an anchor with a more classic 531 setup.