Dumbell rows superset with dumbell bench:
4x10x22/ 3x10x22
Face pulls: 4x15x12.5 Crunch machine: 3x12x20
First set of bench with 82.5kg I badly misgrooved the first rep by bringing it too far down my chest then to compensate pressed too far towards my face. I tried for a second rep but failed straight away. I realised I can’t get away with mistakes like the first rep so close to my 1RM. I came in wanting three reps and hoping for four so I gave it another go planning to stop at two, which I did. I should have been more clever about it though. I went to the gym at 8:30pm after a long day and felt like I could fall asleep at any point- the smart thing to do would have been to go with 80kg again or even 77.5kg and try for five reps.
Next week I’m going to aim for 5x47.5 overhead press. Off the top of my head my current PR is six reps with either 42.5kg or 45kg.
Split squats: 3x12xBW Back extensions superset with double hand plate pinches:
3x8x10/ 3x30s x10
I was confident I could get 5x120 but I didn’t expect it to be as easy as it was which is great. A sixth rep was definitely there, a seventh probably if I pushed it and maybe even an eighth if I went to my limit. Assistance gave me a good pump and split squats are starting to really click. The 10kg plate is a lot thicker than the 5kg one so it was a lot lot harder and I had to use both hands to hold it for any amount of time. Squats next week.
Tricep rope pull downs: 3x15x10 Lat pull-down: 3x15x35, 12x35
Did this first thing in the morning after a rubbish night’s sleep and only eating a banana so I wasn’t expecting a PR but the effort was still there. Went hard on the assistance and got a really good pump, my forearms were painfully achy after the lat pull-downs. The area I do the rest of the assistance was full of girls sat on their phones and doing stretches so I left because I was in a rush. Got through what I did in about 20 minutes including waiting for equipment.
Dumbell rows superset with dumbell bench:
4x10x24/ 3x8x24
Crunch machine (30s rest): 3x12x20
Nice PR for me today, previous best I could find was 4x45 in April and a few months ago I failed 50kg for a single. Will aim for three reps with 50kg next week but that’s basically my 1RM so could be fun. Only had half an hour to do this and the cable station was busy when I wanted it so I skipped the face pulls.
Split squats: 12, 10, 8xBW Back extensions superset with plate pinches:
3x10x5, 12xBW/ 3x30s x5
Working up in squats 80kg felt fairly heavy so I decided to hit a single with 100kg before trying 5x105. 100kg felt really heavy so I decided to just aim for five with that but the third was a big grind and I stopped there. I’m really disappointed since I got 5x100 about six months ago and it wasn’t even a 5RM for me then. I’d like to think I was having an off day but I don’t think I was. The worst bit is I feel like all the effort I’ve put into squatting since then has been for nothing. I can understand making little to no progress over six months if I’d be lifting a bit longer but I’m hardly squatting my BW and I’m stuck. Not sure where to go from here.
I took a brief look at your squats in the last month.
I don’t think BBB was a good idea- Specifically, I’m wondering whether the load was too light to be meaningful.
The entire point of BBB is to be 5/3/1’s bodybuilding split. You just do a shit-ton of volume, eat, and recover.
Have you seen any visible changes to your lower body while doing 3 months of BBB (3 cycles=3 months right?)
Another thing to consider is whether your training time and other variables changed.
I trained mornings (~9-10AM) while studying and woke up at 6AM to go lift by 7AM for a good two years.
I basically stagnated and made no real improvements in anything for 2013-2016.
I then changed my lifting time from the morning to evening. Now I see improvements and am generally getting stronger month by month, though it is inconsistent. The fact that I added 60lb to my 10RM within a span of 10 or so months with 0 weight gain was satisfying enough to me though.
If lifting is not an important part of your life and you’re just doing it to see some strength gain and look somewhat better, then I still believe that the double-progression method is the easiest thing to do. You literally just try improving in whatever method you deem fit to what you did last session until you hit some arbitrary limit,then you add weight and do it all over again. It’s impossibly simple and it makes it easier to have an idea of what is affecting you.
Plus it has the added bonus of letting you choose whether you want to bury yourself that particular day or not. Both are ok as long as you’ve made some sort of improvement.
As hyped up as 5/3/1 is, I don’t think it’s that great a program. The idea behind it is solid though, since it’s basically the double progression method.
Having used it, I agree. It’s only as good as it’s user (not a dig, btw) in that you need to know what works for you across all the factors (nutrition, recovery, frequency, exercise selection, the lot) and tweak it accordingly.
@magick first of all thanks for your comments. My legs do seem to have grown, specifically my quads, but I haven’t measured them so it’s completely subjective. As for training times there’s never been too much of a pattern with them as I’m busy at different times each day so i can count that reason out.
It seems like you’re right and BBB perhaps wasn’t the best idea, at least for my squat. Thinking about it my conditioning was probably challenged more than my strength. About double progression, it’s interesting you mentioned it because I’ve just been planning to do that in a few months after I’m finished with WS4SB.
@MarkKO I suppose that’s one of the pros and cons of 5/3/1 in that it’s massively customisable. At this point I don’t really know what works for me or not but at least I know this didn’t work this time and I won’t try it again until I’m a decent bit stronger.
Future training plan
So to expand on the above comments, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do after WS4SB. I think I’m going to run it for either 12 or 16 weeks, including the weeks I’ve already done, then I want to give Dan John’s 40 workout strength challenge a go. I’ll change exercises every 10 workouts like he mentions at the bottom of the article. I still haven’t decided whether I want to alternate between two variations or do a different variation every time but I will be doing some variations. My reasoning for doing it is to become as technically sound as possible in the big lifts that I’m doing very infrequently at the moment before moving onto a different program and also because I just like the look of it a lot.
After that I’m going to try out a program I’ve made for myself based on this article.
Again I like the look of it and I want to try my own thing. I think it’ll be a good way to get stronger and like mentioned above it’s quite similar to how 5/3/1 progresses.
I’m going to add in a bit more conditioning than I do now instead of or as some the assistance. I’ve put it first each day to act as a warm up and as a way to make sure it gets done. It will be bodyweight circuits, barbell complexes or maybe a carry medley if I can find space. It’s an idea I first got after reading one of Alpha’s old logs.
The actual template I want to do is as follows:
Monday:
Conditioning
Overhead press ss chins- 3 sets LP
Back extensions ss front plate raise 5x10
Ab roller- 3 sets
Wednesday:
Conditioning
Squat ss chins- 3 sets LP
Single leg ss press ups 5x10
Ab circuit- 3 sets
Friday:
Conditioning
Bench press ss DB rows- 3 sets LP
Deadlift 3x8, 4x5, 5x3, 8x1
Hanging leg raises- 3 sets
For the deadlift I’m going to add 5kg each week, cycling through the rep schemes, then restart in week 5 with 5kg more than I started week 1 with. After two cycles (week 9) I’ll have a deload, probably 3x5 with week 5’s weight then I’ll repeat.
So basically do some conditioning, make it hard if I feel like it. Hit the main lift hard and then if I feel like it there’s assistance. This is the first time I’ve designed my own program but I feel like I can do it now without anything going too wrong and most importantly I know I will enjoy it which is important to me at this point.
Went to my first athletics track session today. I’ve been meaning to go the last two weeks but I was busy unfortunately. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to do throwing and jumping or sprinting and ended up picking the former. Didn’t get to do any jumping but spent an hour or so throwing javelin which was fun. By the end I was getting the hang of it fairly well and consistently throwing it properly. The coach was emphasising technique at this stage so other than the last few I didn’t throw too hard. Only downside was it wasn’t really that physical at all, I was more tired from a brisk 30 minute walk each way to the track.
Since I’m not going to be competing anytime soon and it’s just for fun really I think I’m going to alternate weekly between sprinting and throwing/jumping. It’s very relaxed and you can do whatever you want on the day with professional coaches for each.
Ab circuit (3 rounds):
Lying leg raises x5
Russian twists x5 each side
Mountain climbers x5 each side
Lat pull-down: 12x30, 8x40, 6x50
Next week is last week of dumbell bench and it’d be nice to hit 50 total reps, my right arm was definitely fatiguing first today. Pull downs felt good.
Face pulls: 4x15x10 Crunch machine: 2x12x20, 15x20
Really good day today, lifted a good amount of weight. I was debating going for a 4th rep with 50kg but I don’t think I would have got it in hindsight. I’m really happy with how it’s going though, 40kg feels like 30kg used to. Last time doing flat bench for a few weeks so decided to push them and rows- the actual press isn’t too bad but I was wobbling a fair bit on the last set. I normally only record PRs for the barbell lifts but it’ll be useful to have something to aim for when I rotate dumbell bench back in later. I think I’ve dumbell rowed 8x30 before so I’ll aim for that before I call it a new PR. Even the crunch machine was pretty intense, I bent to pick my drink up immediately after and got cramp all in my right side.
Next week I’ll be doing close grip bench as my ME movement and incline dumbell bench as assistance. I think I’ll keep dumbell rows but I’ll have my supporting hand on an incline instead of flat. Hopefully squats go better than last week tomorrow.
As I suspected last week it wasn’t just a bad day, my squat has actually gotten worse. Perhaps once I practice it regularly again it’ll shoot up but for now I’m much weaker which I’ll have to accept. As a result of this I went for a token PR with 105kg. The assistance absolutely ruined my legs though, one of the best pumps I’ve had, so that’s good. Didn’t like plate pinches so I’ve swapped them with hangs.
Still need to decide on assistance exercises for next week but will probably keep back extensions and just change the emphasis from hamstrings to lower back. Also can’t decide whether to use snatch grip or trap bar deadlifts for my next max effort movement.
How often are you squatting would you say? I’m not super familiar with WS4SB but I think there’s only 1 lower body lifting day/week right?
In my experience I need to squat at least once a week, preferably twice if I want to push the movement. If I don’t follow that advice to myself I notice my squat suffers, more so than the other lifts. You and I are at similar strength levels so this could be true for you as well.