Another 5/3/1 Log

Training Logs
1

Been training for a couple of years, 5’11, 205 Lbs, have done the usual floating around from program to program. Not too happy with the overall progress of the first couple of years training wise, but since I started at 175 Lbs, I guess it wasn’t a total loss. I suppose in the end, I’ll probably be happy with the first couple of years since I really learned what I want to do lifting wise, and hopefully how to achieve it.

Oh well, I started with the Deadlift day.

Trap Bar Deadlifts (Training Max 255)
170 X 5
190 X 5
215 X 13

Started really light, my actual max is probably around 315, but after reading 5/3/1 for about the tenth time last night, I decided it’s better to start slow. I mean, in theory that training max could go up as much as 240 pounds in two years. Not likely, but in theory, so starting light won’t hurt.

Assistance Work
Good Mornings 5/10/45
Kettlebell Swings 5/10/35

Lower back feels pretty sore afterwards, as do my hamstrings, but I immediately went to my favorite Mexican restaurant and ate them out of house and home, so I should be good to go.

For anyone bored enough to read my training log, my goals are to gain a ton of strength (something I’m not going to delude myself into thinking is great at this point, although it’s certainly not terrible), and a lot of overall size. In reality, I’d like to end up around 240-250 as lean as possible.

My diet is probably god awful, but right now I’m just focusing on eating as much as humanly possible, and just trying to get on a good schedule for eating. In the past, I have felt so busy at work that I have routinely skipped meals here and there.

2

Today was Military Press day, and I used a training max of 120, my press has always stalled out around 135 for 5, so I’m going to take things extra slow with this one, maybe just increase the training max 2.5 LBs every month.

Military Press 5/80, 5/90, 100 X 11
Chins BW X 10/7/7
Dips BW X 6/5/5

Chins seem to be progressing pretty well, in the last month, I’ve increased from 11 to 24. The plan is to keep going with three sets until I can get 10 on each set, and try to increase to five sets of 10.

Maybe it was just because I haven’t done them in years, but dips seem to bother my shoulder more than stressing the chest or triceps. Maybe I’m one of those people who has trouble with Dips, but I’m going to give them another try next week and see what happens.

There was a guy at the gym today (LA Fitness) squatting 495. I got excited for a split second when I walked in because I thought maybe, just maybe I had found somebody who was a pretty good weightlifter, but then I saw his sets, and they were barely of the quarter squat variety. I’ve trained at home for the majority of the last 3 years or so, and always read about the guys in the commercial gyms, but never believed it. I’m still astounded by the number of guys in my gym who use appreciable weights, but it’s ALWAYS a partial rep. I’m still waiting to see anybody who can even bench 225 with a full ROM, or squat anything at a full ROM. I don’t even care how much they lift, I just want to see somebody not half-assing everything.

I know that partial reps can be helpful sometimes, but is it really this bad out there in the general public where nobody does full reps anymore? It kind of makes me lose faith in weightlifting when I see it so much, just shows you how rare a true lifter has really become.

3

Squat 135
5/90, 5/100, 115 X 10

Leg Press 10/185, 10/275, 10/275, 5/275

Man, it takes a big hit on your ego to have to start all over again. Over the last few months, I’ve been feeling this pain in the front and outside of my hips, it’s mostly my left hip, but the right one flares up as well sometimes. I really think that I have to start working on hip mobility and foam rolling daily, or this lift is never really going to get anywhere. I can’t make this kind of excuse for it, because if the squat never goes up, I’ll just be spinning my wheels forever.

Legs felt great, and could’ve done a lot more, but these squats and leg presses were really painful in the hips. I hope daily hip mobility work and foam rolling will help out. Need to make this a top priority.

4

Bench Press 195
5/125, 5/145, 165 X 11

Bench Press 5/10/65
BB Rows 5/10/65
BB Curls 5/10/65

First week of assistance work for the Bench, so I started incredibly light. I plan to increase these numbers every week a little at a time. The volume is sure to make me a bit sore tomorrow though.

Bench felt pretty heavy during warm-up sets, but as I built up to working sets, felt better and better.

5

Deadlift 255
3/180, 3/205, 230 X 10

I cut the day short after that, just really didn’t feel like I had anything for Good Mornings. Been feeling lower back soreness a lot lately, but I have been doing some foam rolling, static and dynamic stretching of the hips, and today started to incorporating some glute activation work, maybe that will help the hips enough to squat without pain.

6

Hows the foam rolling going? What are you doing for hip mobility/glute acitivation? Hope this helps out your squats. I’ll be keeping an eye on your progress, maybe check out my 5/3/1 log to see if you can give any pointers.

7

[quote]saskjudo wrote:
Hows the foam rolling going? What are you doing for hip mobility/glute acitivation? Hope this helps out your squats. I’ll be keeping an eye on your progress, maybe check out my 5/3/1 log to see if you can give any pointers.[/quote]

The foam rolling is going okay, if anything it’s making everything feel a lot better, even if it’s not letting me squat like I want to right now. Hip mobility I usually do some fire hydrants, hip flexor stretches, hamstring stretches, and sometimes I throw in some stuff from Joe DeFranco like rollovers into V-sits, Mountain Climbers, etc.

Glute activation has really been helping lately. I do glute bridges, and then one leg glute bridges, I’m going to try to squat again on Thursday, but I’m going to mess around with bringing my stance in, and might switch to front squats to see how that goes.

Anything that will help me squat without pain for the time being until I can get this all sorted out.

8

Military Press 3/85, 3/95, 110 X 11
Wide Grip Pull-Ups BW X 8/6/5
DB Military Press 5/10/30s
Seated Lateral Raises 5/10/10s

I switched to the wide grip pull-ups today just because I think they’ll help my upper back development more than the neutral grip chins I’ve been doing the last few weeks.

The BB Mil. Presses felt really light today, I can’t remember the last time I did 110 x 11, that may be a rep max for me. Wanted to start throwing some extra shoulder work in there, maybe the assistance will help the press, and it wouldn’t hurt to gain some mass there. Started incredibly light on these, and used straight sets, but will probably increase these the next time around.

9

Good to hear. I am just starting to properly warmup(only after experiencing a injury) and its making a difference.

How do you feel with your bench on this?, I read alot that people dont gain much on bench so I was thinking about doing more volume. Something like Smolov Jr.

10

I’ve never tried anything with real high volume like that, but I always like extra warm-up sets with the bench. I always do Close Grips to save my shoulders, so more warm-ups are better for me to practice technique without wearing myself out. I will say, I’ve always felt like the more I benched, the more often I practiced it, the better it got.

11

Squat 135
3/95, 3/110, 120 X 10

Leg Press 10/225, 10/275, 5/315, 5/315, 135 X 50

Called it a day after this. My hips have really been bothering me over the past month, so I’ve started pretty much from scratch on the squats. Today I did take a wide stance, but really focused on shoving all my weight back onto my heels. Wasn’t as painful today as it has been lately.

I think I’m going to ditch the hip flexor stretch as it seems to be doing me more harm than good, but the hamstring stretches seem pretty beneficial.

Just felt like really pounding my legs on the leg press after the squats today, went up a little bit on the weight, only the second time I’ve used the leg press I think ever. The 50 rep set at the end gave me a nice pump in the legs, and had to limp out of the gym. I think that when I take the leg press deep it’s bothering my hips just like the squats have been though.

Weighed in at 204 today, looking to get up to 210 by the summertime.

12

Yesterday’s session…

Bench 195
3/135, 3/155, 175 X 9

These felt pretty light, but was warn out from working the night before and opening up the next morning, so I cut it short after this.

I’m probably going to just go with three days a week on 5/3/1 and use another day in the week for Prowler workouts. I’m wondering if maybe it will strengthen my hips to put in some work with it. Any ideas for how I should go about setting up workouts with the prowler, I’ve done 25yd sprints with either none or light weight before, now I’m thinking about loading up the weight and just pushing with everything I have for 15-20 yards.

13

Yesterday’s session…

Bench 195
3/135, 3/155, 175 X 9

These felt pretty light, but was warn out from working the night before and opening up the next morning, so I cut it short after this.

I’m probably going to just go with three days a week on 5/3/1 and use another day in the week for Prowler workouts. I’m wondering if maybe it will strengthen my hips to put in some work with it. Any ideas for how I should go about setting up workouts with the prowler, I’ve done 25yd sprints with either none or light weight before, now I’m thinking about loading up the weight and just pushing with everything I have for 15-20 yards.

14

Deadlift 255
5/190, 3/215, 240 X 10

Maybe it’s because I trained in the morning (which I always hate to do, but sometimes it’s unavoidable with an ever changing work schedule), but my lower back felt fried on after that last set. Granted, for the max I’m using, I’m pretty happy with 240 X 10 right now.

Thinking about pushing Good Mornings to the squat day, and going with something else as accessory work after the deadlift. Sometimes it’s just too much on my lower back to do Deadlifts followed by GMs.

Anyway, I followed up the deads with some prowler pushes. I had on two 45s and went about 20 yards for two trips. I’m looking for ways to work on leg/hip strength without loading up the back too much, I’m wondering if this would be a good way to go about that. Thoughts?

15

Military Press 120
5/90, 3/105, 115 X 10
Military Press 5/10/65
Pull-Ups BW X 6/6/5

I think 115 x 10 may be a rep max for me. I know it’s not impressive, but they felt strong and were good for me. The foam rolling has been going really well lately, and my hips are feeling a lot better. The biggest change I’ve seen so far is when I took the foam part off and just started rolling on the pvc pipe. I’ve had the roller for about 3 years, so maybe it’s worn out a little bit?

Yesterday I did my bench assistance work since I wasn’t able to do it on the bench day. Did 5/10/95 on Rows, and then did 10/65 on BB Curls, and then followed that up by putting two 45s on the end of an EZ Curl bar just to see if I could do it, and did it for three reps. I feel a lot of pain during BB/EZ Bar Curls, so may just switch those over to DB Curls, not that it really matters much.

Ran Prowler for the second day in a row yesterday, with two 45s for two trips and then using the lower handles, went for one trip with no weight for 15 yards.

Weighed in at 207 today. Weight is slowly going up, so that’s always a plus. Want to be 210 by the beginning of June.

16

Squat 135
5/100, 3/115, 130 X 8
Good Mornings 5/10/45

These felt better than they have in a few weeks, maybe the best since hurting my hip. I’ve been doing a lot of foam rolling everyday, along with dynamic stretching, and have ditched the static stretching of the hips. I brought my stance in to probably shoulder width, kept a low bar placement and really focused on pushing my hips back as far as I could while keeping my back tight, and it seemed to alleviate some of the pain, at least I’m squatting, that’s all that really matters, even if the weight is pretty embarrassing. Oh well. Can only go up from here, right?

It’s a good thing I don’t wait for my training partner anymore. Okay, so he’s not much of a partner if I don’t train with him, he just comes over and I help him out. I call him up when I get out of work, and he tells me he needs to hang out with his girlfriend until she goes to work, and then he’s coming over. C’mon guy, I can’t be waiting two more hours to lift, it’s already 5:00. /minirant.

17

Bench Press 195
5/145, 3/165, 185 X 7

BB Rows 5 X 10
Prowler Pushes 7 trips X 90 LBs (20 yards each)

Bench felt good, and is progressing pretty nicely. Next time around I might be hitting some rep PRs, so that’s always nice. I’m happy with the first wave of this 5/3/1. Prowler pushes 3 times a week really takes everything out of you. Those things really separate the men from the boys.

Next wave’s Training Maxes
Deadlift 265
Squat 145
Bench 200
Military Press 125

18

Been slacking on updating this log, so here are the big numbers from this past week…

Deadlift 5/175, 5/200, 225 X 20

Went crazy on these. Sometimes when the attitude is right, and I feel well, I’ll put up a rep PR that’s really out of line with my usual numbers.

Squat 5/95, 5/110, 125 X 10

Squatted without pain for the first time in a long time. I’ve started using a new warmup and it’s really been working wonders for me so far.

Press 5/80, 5/95, 105 X 5

Just didn’t feel well on this day. Cut it short right after this.

Bench 5/130, 5/150, 170 X 7

Felt okay. The bench for me is always rough whenever I take a week off from going heavy (heavy for me at least), but at least it seems to come back pretty quickly.

Friday and Monday after Squats and Bench I started running hills. I found a pretty good hill that’s around 60 yards at a 45 degree incline. Friday I did 3 sprints, and today I did four. Want to take these really slowly, because I’m finding that I’m in terrible shape.