Building The Monolith: Review By a Skinny Fat Guy

Bigger Stronger Leaner Jim Wendler 5/3/1 Coaching
1

Hi guys, finally I had a chance to run the BTM template. I tried to stick to Jim’s Recommendations as close as possible though I made some changes to better fit my schedule and preferences.

  • First change: I skipped Jim’s Recommendations about conditioning. I made this decision because I already was hard conditioning 3x week with my soccer team.

  • Second change: I switched some exercises. Snatch grip high pull instead of shrugs and snatch grip deadlift insted of regular deadlift.

  • Third change: I switched monday workout to friday and viceversa.

I followed Jim’s diet and I religiously ate one pound of ground beef and 12 eggs a day. Obviously I ate carbs only on training days and I think this helped me to keep myself relatively lean.

I added some neck and forearms work at the end of every session.

I supersetted all I could.

My workouts:

MONDAY

  • Back Squat 3x5 + Widowmaker set
  • Military Press 10x5 @70%
  • Weighted Chin Ups 5x5
  • Snatch Grip High Pull 100 Reps (10x10), instead of Shrugs
  • Face Pulls 100 Reps (10x10)
  • Ab Rollout 3x12
  • Forearms Work

WEDNESDAY

  • Snatch Grip Deadlift 5x5 instead of regular Deadlift
  • Bench Press 7x5
  • Dumbbell Row 5x15
  • Curls 100 Reps (10x10)
  • Neck Work

FRIDAY

  • Back Squat 7x5
  • Press 3x5 + AMRAP @70%
  • Chin Ups 50 Reps
  • Dips 100 Reps
  • Face Pulls 100 Reps
  • Forearms work

Supersets:

  • monday: Press 10x5 with weighted chin ups 5x5, snatch grip high pulls 10x10 with face pulls 10x10

  • wednesday: Deadlift 5x5 with curls 5x10, Bench Press 7x5 with curls 5x10.

  • friday: back squat 7x5 and press 3x5+AMRAP with sets of 5 chin ups and 10 dips.
    I completed all workouts in 90-110 minutes.

  • Numbers:
    Age: 28
    Height: 188 cm (6-2 ft)
    Weight: 77.8 kg (171,5 lbs) - - > 81,5 kg (179 lbs)

  • 1RMs:
    Back Squat: 93 kg (205 lbs) - - > 102 kg (225 lbs)
    Snatch Grip Deadlift: 130 kg (287 lbs) - - > 153 kg (337 lbs)
    Press: 53 kg (117 lbs) - - > 57 kg 126 lbs)
    Bench Press: 90 kg (198.5 lbs) - - > 95 kg (209.5 lbs)

All my new 1RMs were tested on deload week with the 7th week protocol.

  • Conclusions and lessons learned: The program is AWESOME. The first week it was hard to get all the reps in and I finished every workout completely exhausted. In sixth week I managed it easily. Incredible change in a small time frame!

I learned a very important lesson: quality>quantity; the basics are always the best. How much time I wasted with useless exercises!

Despite my very bad genetic, I can put on some mass if I do the right things!

3-4x week is the perfect training frequency.

5/3/1=STRENGHT. (ok, I know that my numbers are ridiculous, but with 5/3/1 finally I am progressing!)

And that’s all. I’ll surely run this program again in the future!

2

@raoh1990
I’m no expert but does this follow BTM, or is it your interpretation? Just curious.

3

This isn’t really the Building the Monolith program, so it’s not really fair to provide a review of a program you didn’t run.

You:

The program:

  • Squat - 70x5, 80x5, 90x5, 90x5, 90x5, 90x5, 90x5
  • Press - 70x5, 80x5, 90x5, 70xAMRAP
  • Chins – 100 total reps
  • Face Pulls/Band Pullaparts – 100 total reps
  • Dips – 100-200 total reps

I realize you probably just omitted squats to list your supersets, but you swapped chins with weighted chins and snatch grip high pulls for dips.

You seemed to make other swaps/alterations on the other days, as well. For example, your squat and press on friday follow a different rep scheme than the program. While some alterations may be acceptable to still be considered following “the program”, I think you’ve changed it too much.

4

I made a error, I only wrote supersets I’ve done. I also switched monday and friday workout to better fit my schedule. I apologize if this is not clear, I’m fixing it as soon as possible.

5

I changed some things but basically it is BTM.

1 Like