Am I Doing Something Stupid Here?

First of all - thanks for the great program. Here’s some info about my situation:

I’m an intermediate level lifter and have been in weight training somewhat 2 years now (most of the time doing 5/3/1). My calculated maxes with 200lb bodyweight are S:340 DL:420 B:230 OH:145. I have been taking a month break from 5/3/1 because of back injury (doing mostly upper body and rehab training), but starting again next week with lowered TM’s.

My life is full of everything (study, work, baby on the way…) and I’ll have time for training 3x week with no regularity in days/training times. In other words I’ll train whenever I’ll find time.

My main goals is increasing strenght while being in decent shape. I have extremely long back, and therefore I must do lot of work for my abs and lower back for not breaking down during heavy DL and Squat sessions.

I have been doing different templates of 5/3/1, and were doing full body before my injury. I liked the frequency of the template, but made some changes in it.

Template:

D1 Squat 5/3/1 (fsl)
Bench 5/3/1 sets (no PR, do 1x80% 1x90% 1x100% in 5/3/1 week)
5x chins
2-3x sets of low back, abs

D2 Sumo Dl 5/3/1
Press 5/3/1
Front Squat 5/3/1 sets (no PR)
2-3x sets of low back, abs

D3 Squat 5/3/1 sets (no PR, do 1x80% 1x90% 1x100% in 5/3/1 week)
Bench 5/3/1 (fsl)
5x rows
2-3x sets of tricep pushdowns, rear lateral raises

NOTES:

  • Do fsl only in the 5 week.
  • Try PR sets specially in 5 and 5/3/1 weeks - take it easier in 3.
  • You can try ONE joker set in dl and press in week 1+ if you hit a PR.
    -Do conditioning 3x week (low stress - such as weight vest walking, swimming, sled working).
    -Never do conditioning in the day before of D1 or D2.

In short:
Am I doing something stupid here when I start making something my own instead of just doing a ready template?

Is the program too much with the 3x week moderate conditioning and somewhat stressful life?

Would it better for someone with my levels just do some more volume based strength program (such as bbb or 5/3/1 with jokers and fsl) instead of this kind of “frequency-based” template?

Should I drop the fsl and TM sets? (I really like doing them thought!)

Any advice is appreciated!

PS. Sorry for the possibly typos/bad writing - English isn’t my first language.

  1. Why do you have three main lifts on D2?

  2. I would try to find a way to insert conventional deadlift in there. I have a long torso and can lift more sumo as well, but I found sumo doesn’t train my back effectively due to the shorter range of motion. If your goal is to get strong then the conventional deadlift is a better movement in my opinion. If your goal is to compete then use whatever form allows you to move the most weight (in your case, probably sumo). Be honest about your goals and keep your ego out of your decisions.

  3. The assistance work you’ll adjust over time as you get a feel for how your template is functioning.

The movement split is quite similar to Full body, full boring template. There’s 3x5 bench and 3x5 squat on DL day. I have used front squat as assistance movement for DL and liked it much.

You’re right about the conventional DL. My sumo is significantly stronger than conventional, but I’m not competing and know all the benefits of conventional dl’s.

Maybe I’ll drop the FS and do 3x5 deficit conventional dl’s after my sumo pulls?

About the assistance - thats what I thought. I need to focus on my “core” and shoulders/triceps which feel relatively weak at the point. So I just hit the areas after the main movements with couple long sets.

[quote]Rattus wrote:
The movement split is quite similar to Full body, full boring template. There’s 3x5 bench and 3x5 squat on DL day. I have used front squat as assistance movement for DL and liked it much.

You’re right about the conventional DL. My sumo is significantly stronger than conventional, but I’m not competing and know all the benefits of conventional dl’s.

Maybe I’ll drop the FS and do 3x5 deficit conventional dl’s after my sumo pulls?

About the assistance - thats what I thought. I need to focus on my “core” and shoulders/triceps which feel relatively weak at the point. So I just hit the areas after the main movements with couple long sets. [/quote]

What I did for awhile was conventional during the warmup and sumo’d the work sets, then conventional 5x10.

What I found was that both lifts stalled. I suspect it’s because I wasn’t training conventional very heavy and I had very little volume with sumo. I tried for awhile to find a way to fit both into my program but in the end I decided that splitting my effort was derailing my progress. I cut out sumo and focused entirely on conventional.

What I’ve been doing for the last little while is conventional 5/3/1 and SLDL 5x10/Ab Wheel 5x12. The last two sets of SLDL I’ll do at a deficit (2" then 4").

That was my experience anyway. I recommend trying out multiple ideas until you figure out what works for you.

A lot going on in there. Jim wrote down a great full-body template in Beyond 5/3/1, I would suggest just using that as it seems to work quite well. His website has a couple very good full-body templates as well.

I’d consider something more along the lines of boring but big to help build you back from the injury with more reps at the lighter weights:

D1 Squat 5/3/1
Bench 5/3/1 sets (no PR, do 1x80% 1x90% 1x100% in 5/3/1 week) - not sure what that’s about, but why not just to the normal percentages and do jokers if you feel like it?
5x chins
5x dips or triceps (or insert 5x10 press at 50-70% here)

D2 Sumo Dl 5/3/1
Press 5/3/1
Front Squat 5x10 (50-70%)
2-3x sets of low back, abs

D3
Conventional Deadlift (I like deficits here, but probably too much at first coming back from injury) 5x10 (50-60%)
Bench (perhaps close grip)5x10 (50-60%)
5x rows
2-3x sets of tricep pushdowns, rear lateral raises

Like I said, just more reps to make up for the weight that you would probably re-injure yourself doing with doing 5/3/1 percentages with squat twice a week. The extra muscle is also a nice bonus too :slight_smile:

Thanks for the helpful feedback. I think I’ll drop this for being too complicated and having too much intensity for my situation.

It is true that mr. W recommends not to overthink an has done plenty of great templates to choose from. Still he also gives a lot of space to modify the templates and says that everyone must make them own choices. I’m just combining different 5/3/1 aspects, not pullin’ things from nowhere (why? Because its fun - and if I fail I have nobody to blame than myself).

Anyway. I liked the idea of BBB for recovery, first I thought it was too much volume for my life situation, but maybe I just pull myself together and do it. I didnt like the idea of two heavy pull days in a week, so I decided to do conventionals with volume. My sumo has been going up nicely without much volume work and I totally suck at conventionals and need to do some base work before trying any PR’s with them. Thats why I think my solution might work for me.

So I ended up 4 days split done 3x/week with one lower- and one upper body movement per session. This is actually really close to beyond program, but just with BBB- sets and reps.

D1 Squat 5/3/1
Bench BBB
chins
back raises

D2 Sumo DL 5/3/1
Press BBB
lateral raises
power wheel

D3 Bench 5/3/1
Squat BBB (possibly high bar - figure out it later)
chins
back raises

D4 Press 5/3/1
Conventional DL (don’t know the percentages - start too low us probably the best idea).
lateral raises
power wheel

I was thinking of using BBB-propgression, which is in beyond book:

Cycles 1&2 5x10@60%
deload
Cycles 2&3 5x5@70%
deload
Cycle 4 5x3@80%
deload and repeat.

Actually percentages go slightly different in progression to what I wrote, but that does not really matter.