Stop it!
1 Like
It’s my cranky SI joint! I can usually adjust it myself, but several times a year it gets locked up and won’t release. I might need a little help from my chiropractor.
You really like to trick a Wendler fanboy don’t you.
Main lift: the big 4 squat, bench, DL, OHP, 3 working sets.
Supplemental lift: usually the above lifts af FSL or SSL. However you can use another big BB movement SSB Squat, RDL, CGBP, push press
Assistance here the advise is: 50 - 100 of push, pull, one leg/core work.
no BB is advised, use BW, DB’s, Cables, bands.
Main lift you have PR sets, 5’s pro, rest pause, rule of 10, training maximally.
supplemental: BBB, BBS, 5x5, AMRAP, PR, rest pause, rule of 50, widowmakers.
assistance whatever suits you to get to 50 reps, you don’t even have to do the same exercise every week and you can do 30 pushups and 30 triceps kick backs for 60 reps of push.
THE ONLY thing staying as a constant is the main lift progression with a light week, a medium week and a heavy week. Unless you’re Training maximally.
Yes he do likes dips and pull ups. (But you do not have to do it)
Sorry J he provoked me.
2 Likes
Yer @mortdk but the question is. If people kept it boring and didn’t use all those fancy techniques as variations you listed above, would the gainz be better or worse?
I didn’t say to use them all @dagill2 just said that Wendler had no variation.
If you keep the main lift and pound away on them forever and forever, increasing ever so slight ly you’ll be stronger.
You can add a little extra work with FSL/SSL stuff.
And then do your variations on the assistance.
I’m all in for the boring stuff.
Probably better for the goals Wendler sets out.
@mortdk I don’t mean to provoke, I’m a massive Wendler fanboy, if a little more old school Wendler (pre Forever, haven’t pulled the trigger there yet).
My take, purely open for interpretation is that Wendler would program with only about 10 exercises, total for almost all of his templates given a choice. He “allows” people to do other things, because he knows they will, but believes better results will come from using the absolute bare bones basics consistently.
1 Like
Should have made a smile around it, I know it wasn’t.
And you’re very right he truly believes in the big basics.
If you read the first books, Jim is all about putting ALL the work in the main sets leave nothing.
His best work I think is the one were you do you main work and only pick 2 more exercises that will build the weak parts.
One day I will try this.
1 Like
I’m slowly starting to buy in to it. Intellectually, I know he’s right, certainly for someone of my level. I just find it hard to convince myself when I’m programming that I don’t need pump sets and fancy techniques just because they “feel” like they’re working.
I think this period might be a great opportunity to rediscover the benefits of training without fancy. Deprivation leads to expansion and all that.
1 Like
I have always kind of assumed that Jim prefers people sticking to the basics and not changing it up overly much. That he apparently now has 1000 variations is probably A) to satisfy people that need variation, and B) because he like the sweet sweet cash.
I always do the most boring variation, but I think the AMRAP tweak on it makes it anything but boring in reality. Every session is terrifying. I can be talked into trying something else.
1 Like
I can do AMRAP on bench and press indefinitely, but AMRAP on squats and bench takes a special kind of mentality to keep doing for longer than a cycle or two.
I think there’s an element of Jim assuming people could take his sensible principles and guidance and make their own templates with little drama. I certainly get the feeling Wendler is evolving his training partly as he refines it but also in an attempt to make it more idiot proof.
No such thing, people just find a new higher level of idiot.
1 Like
I could take this as either a compliment or an insult, well crafted my friend.
And honestly it also sucks for OHP and Bench when the weight gets heavy enough. It can get really intimidating.
Luckily I’m weak enough for it not to be an issue. When I run this approach though I tend to fail pretty hard on OHP. On bench it works everytime for me though.
You keep saying that, and I keep wondering why that is so. But I guess we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
Which bit? That I’m weak or that 531 doesn’t work well for my OHP?
The OHP part.
I’m not quite clear, honestly. Especially because it works so well for me for bench.
I don’t know if it makes any difference (for me or for you), but when I approach 531, I usually adjust the weights so that the so Money Set - the set where program calls for at least 5, 3 or 1 depending on which week your on - actually end up being something closer to 15, 12 and 10. Those are the AMRAP sets, and I am always going for at least 10. You have probably seen in my log in the past being disappointed with only hitting 8 or 9, but that is because I use this ethos. Why? Dunno. Because it seems to work for everything. It is always way harder, in my opinion, but everyone is different.
I only hit rep PRs doing 531, not PRs for singles. That comes when I take a break or a “deload” or just plain done with the program.
1 Like
I make my best progress on bench with the same kind of rep ranges, for sure. I usually start to try and figure out what’s going wrong when either my reps start going into single figures or I stop getting rep PRs.
Do you try a similar approach with the OHP?
And while we are at, how does your OHP even compare to your Bench? I mean, maybe you are already in the realm of what would be considered normal.