You are a legit great dude. I’m happy to know you.
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I truly want everyone to know that I didn’t know. A friend on this very site sent it to me because they thought I’d enjoy it. I also don’t think they had any bad intentions or theft-related thoughts.
But all is well now and we’re on the right side of things. I’m also getting an awesome t-shirt I otherwise wouldn’t have found. It says “Discipline Over Motivation” and I’m taking that to the weight room to teach my kids. The school is pushing vocab this year and it’s time they learned about grit, discipline, and truly working towards a goal.
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2.15.26 Bodybuild Upper/Athlete Lower Leader 2
C2 W1 D1 - Bench
Warm-Up
Stretches, foam rolled key areas, box jumps
Bench
135 x 5
170 x 5
195 x 5
220 x 5
Superset With
Leg Raise
10, 10
then
Flutter Kicks
10, 10
Bench FSL
170 x 5 x 5
Superset With
Broad Jumps
3, 3, 6
Kroc Rows
70 x 10 warm-up
100 x 20
I’ve never actually done these because they suck and I know they suck before starting. But might throw them in one of the templates as a personal challenge at some point. I guess today is day one of a new cycle, so…
45 Deg Back Ext
BW: Right leg only x 20, rest, the left leg only x 20
Seated DB OHP
70s x 7, 7, 4
Should’ve used 60s and tried 3x10 but I sat on the far left of the DB rack and that’s where the 70s were.. The 60s were the last set at the other end. It was about 40 feet away so I decided it was a good day to go heavier. 
Rev Cable Fly
30 x 12, 9
Cable Hammer Curl
50 x 12, 14
Edit: I’m reading through some of Wendler’s stuff now to try to see how to trim down a template for my 35 minute class periods (50 minutes total, but more like 35 when you account for time to change at the start and end of class and walking to and from the weight room). Krypteia Redux on his personal site offers some different things and focuses on training teams in an efficient manner. As I’m reading, I see that Kroc Rows are supposed to be 20-50 reps, so I’m barely scraping the surface with today’s effort. I might need to drop the weight but that’s a shot to the ego since Jim says a “beginner” is supposed to be able to do 1/2 bodyweight x 20 per arm.
4 Likes
5/3/1 Limited Time for High Schoolers
This is for all my 5/3/1 friends out there. I know and understand 5/3/1, but I’ll be darned if the clock doesn’t defeat me when it comes to planning for a short window of training. It’s not as easy as you or I going to the gym and having 35-40 minutes to get after it. I have kids who are just there. They’ll get some work done, but they’re not like us yet. Trusting them to stay on task and on time is tough to do.
I think I’m going to give this a shot after Spring Break. The class will max right before that and I’ll use their numbers to group them. It’s not ideal, but I think I’m going to have kids use the same weights to save time on changing plates. They also still can’t do weight room math. They’ll tell me they lifted 60 and they mean 60 per side which is 165 total. I think I’ll take 80ish% of the lowest max in the group so no one is grinding reps. The stronger ones will just have to do more reps on their final set. Here’s what I put together so far:
Squat Day
Squat 5/3/1 PR set
Circuit (3 Rounds Minimum)
- Split Squat x 10 ea
- Good Mornings x 10-15 (maybe seated)
- Weight Crunch x 10-15
Press Day
Bench 5/3/1 PR Set
Circuit
- DB Bench x 10-15
- Chin-Up x 10
- Band Face Pull x 15
Deadlift Day
Deadlift 5/3/1 PR
Circuit
- DB Squat x 10-15
- Side Crunch x 10 ea
- Push-Up Plank x 30 sec
Bench Day
Bench 5/3/1 PR Set
Circuit
- DB OHP x 10-15
- Barbell or Trap Bar Row x 10-15
- Barbell Curl
I’m thinking of pushing the kids to hit 5 sets of the main lift in 15 minutes. I’m hoping to have no more than three kids per rack and they’ll hit two warm-up sets and then their three working sets.
After that we’ll try to transition in 2 minutes and set up for the circuits where they will need to share weights again (hence the rep ranges on some things). I would like to run the circuits as EMOM but the single leg/single side stuff might make that tough. I might try 75 seconds on the timer instead to see if we can get the work done. EMOM would be 9 minutes for three rounds and 75 seconds would be 11:15, so I think the time is there. So in theory, this plan should look like this:
- 2 minute set-up for first set (2:00)
- 15 minutes for main lift (17:00)
- 2 minutes to set up for circuit (19:00)
- 3 rounds EMOM going every 75 sec (30:15)
- Remaining time to clean up
Again, here is my time crunch:
Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday have 50 minute class periods. I give them 5 minutes to get ready after class starts and then we go to the weight room. I try to leave the weight room with about 7 minutes remaining to get back to the locker room so they can change and get ready for their next class. The other 3 minutes are thrown into the time it takes to move from one place to the other, leaving me about 35 minutes per class.
The exception is Wednesdays where school releases 40 minutes earlier and we ADD an 8th class period. Wednesdays feature a 38 minute class period, leaving me about 22-23 minutes. I usually treat Wednesdays as a bonus day, but weeks like this one (where we’re not in school today) mean one of our main days has to be shortened.
I’m trying to treat the kids like myself and not neglect core or single-leg work. Something that is missing is the warm-up. I can add a 3 minute warm-up or sprinkle jumps and throws into the main lift. They’re meant to prime the body, but Jim gives examples about how to pair them with the warm-up sets, so I guess that’s acceptable in a time crunch.
The above layout is what I might do for the first cycle. I would change the circuit exercises for the second one because students get bored. I’m not training a team that is there to get better because coach says so. I’m training kids who elected to take the class or were placed there to fill a hole in their schedule.
So what do my fellow 5/3/1 veterans think? Any ideas to get more done in less time? Anyone have ideas on how to use a two or three day template and use the extra days to focus on other stuff (for example, the Limited Time template has lifting, assistance, and conditioning split into their own days)?
Edit
I’m back to add some thoughts before any of you post a response. I looked at the Limited Time template in Forever and it might work. It recommends a six day rotation of Lift/Assistance & Jumps/Mobility & Conditioning and repeat. That puts mobility and conditioning on a Saturday and I’d just have to tell the kids they should do it on their own if they care. The lifting days would consist of 5/3/1 PR sets for two lifts - say squat and bench - and Kroc Rows. That’s it. It might work.
3 Likes
2.16.26 Bodybuild Upper/Athlete Lower Leader 2
C2 W1 D2 - Squat
Warm-Up
Stretches, foam rolled key areas, box jumps (15 total), Cossack squats, deep squat hold…
Squat
135 x 5
205 x 5
235 x 5
265 x 5
Squat FSL
205 x 5 x 3 sets
Hang Power Clean
185 x 3 x 3 sets
Impromptu choice, but I’m not happy with how sore I am from Saturday’s cleans. That tells me I had a long break for those muscles so I think more frequency will help (and I just like them).
Kickstand RDLs
75s x 8 ea x 2 sets
Almost did a third set to get close to my 25 reps, but one thing that jumped out to me from Forever is that the assistance isn’t supposed to wreck you. I find that a lot of single-leg work does that, so I’m trying to find a balance. This is partly to match his recommendations and partly because I’m a wuss and really don’t like the single-leg work other than to maintain joint health. Also, this isn’t part of the original 5/3/1 stuff, but in one of the Krypteia Redux versions they skip single-leg work because the athletes run hill sprints that day. If hill sprints can count towards some of the volume, then why not sled work?
Sled
Tank M4 L3 + 45 lbs
Alternate pull 25m/push 25m x 5 ea
Time: 9:56
That’s two workouts in a row where I’ve beat the 10 minute goal after training legs instead of doing this on non-leg days. I think I’ll stick with this pairing. I guess my next measuring stick is to see if I can get this with the Rogue Sled + 135 lbs.
Seated Calf Raise
90 x 13 w/ 2 sec hold at top and bottom
90 x 25 fast reps
I never want to do these before the sled and finally thought of them afterwards.
Food prep for the week is looking good. I found my mom’s meatloaf recipe and my wife was happy to make it (doubled it, of course). I smoked eight chicken breasts and eight burger patties today. The burgers were on sale for $6 per pack and contain 1.33 lbs or 600 grams. They claim each burger is 150 grams so I assume that math is correct. Silly Americans mixing measurement systems again. The patties look good. One pack is ground chuck with bacon and cheddar mixed in and the other is ground chuck and brisket.
I also bought a top round roast and made my own roast beef lunch meat. I cooked it in the oven at 325, let it cool, then put it in the refrigerator overnight. I used a knife to slice it this morning and it’s fantastic! I did this for two reasons - 1) it came out a bit cheaper than buying the 22 ounce pack of roast beef at Sam’s, and 2) I think it’s healthier. They’ve discovered a decent link between processed meats and colorectal cancer. I’d like to say I avoid processed meats for the most part, but lunch meat would be the exception. I thought I’d try to cut whatever it is that’s poisoning us out of the process by making my own. And as an added bonus, my daughter said it tastes better than the store’s version.
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Loving that meal prep! Definitely leaning forward and being economical.
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We quit buying lunch meat years ago for the same reason. I don’t miss it.
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Back to vent a bit… And still seeking advice.
I’ve spent a decent amount of time and mental energy trying to come up with a solid program for my students. It’s tough to check all the boxes. The kids always ask about maxing out so I still think the overall goal of most kids is to get stronger. But today I realized I care way more than them.
I started tinkering with my idea and added some box jumps to the end of a 4:20 warm-up today. And then it was time to squat. I challenged them to get it done in 15 minutes and that’s when it all went wrong. Most didn’t even try in my first class. I would say about 7 or 8 kids out of about 80-90 kids gave decent effort throughout the day. I can’t for the life of me figure out why they’re taking the class. I’m really struggling to put myself in their shoes to help me see the difference in perspective. It’s like having that acquaintance that bugs you for diet and training advice but never does anything with it. Except in this case, they show up to train with you but just sit and watch.
Back to the drawing board I guess.
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I see it as a carrot and stick thing here. If the only carrot was personal pride, teenagers are in a race to see who can care the least about something because being aloof makes you cool, so it’s going to backfire and they’re all going to slack on it to see who can slack the hardest.
If you make it something like “Whoever finishes last has to squat twice as many reps on the final set”, then there’s some incentive to finish, but it also makes exercise a punishment. But you can pit them against each other and make it something like “the first half that finishes gets to design the workout for the second half”, and then you aren’t the bad guy forcing them to workout. And then they can just hate their peers. And THEN they might try harder the next time to get revenge on their classmates for making them suffer.
Or you can unify the group against you and make it something like “We got until the last person finishes, and however long after 15 minutes that takes, we’ll spend that much time doing wind sprints next practice”. This still makes exercise a punishment, but it incentivizes them to push their fellow teammates to succeed, even if it’s because they personally don’t want to experience the consequence of failure. This can result in a “blanket party” situation ala Full Metal Jacket though, so there’s that.
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Both of my sons are in Athletic Weight Lifting. What little information that I have gathered from them is that the class is based off of 5/3/1 except every week it is week 3. My oldest has told me that most of the guys in the class only care about maxing out, not progression. I assume that’s a guy thing. Anyway, the thing that I have found that seems to drive my son is the T-shirts. They have shirts that they give once you can do a certain weight for each lift. Personally, I think the shirts should be given when you can do a body weight percentage, but it’s based simply on weight. Even stupid prizes seem to work for kids though. As far as motivation for being in the class, my oldest wants to improve his race time, so lifting was his choice. My youngest needed to replace another class and this one seemed like one he would like I think. I think they both try, but both of their parents are very involved in lifting, so I assume that changes things for them compared to other kids a bit. Also, my oldest has slightly lost interest because apparently the football coach is the one who runs the class and mainly focuses on his players. I guess he has kind of turned it into a football workout class. So, slightly less helpful for a distance runner. Don’t know if any of that rambling helped. Lol.
This is a good idea to get some moving and thinking.
We run into the problem of just flat out defiance, “Nah, I’m not doing that.” They don’t care about GPAs or grades.
I would love this, but it’s not a team that I’m training. These are 10th through 12th graders who only know a couple other kids in class (because why would a kid want to learn the names of his/her classmates?).
That’s probably true in a lot of high school weight rooms across the country…and I hate it. It’s why the job should go to someone like me who has a B.A. in Exercise Science and a certification from the NSCA as a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist. Encourage your kids to find a classmate who can kind of play “coach” and help them with things. I was lucky and a guy two years older than me took me under his wing and basically taught me everything for the class during my first semester. Also, if they’re in the 5/3/1 realm of things, Jim coaches everyone the same. Pretty much all athletes will benefit from improving hip strength, the core, shoulders, arms, coordination and balance. They may be training for football, but it should still help other athletes, too (hopefully).
I started a t-shirt incentive program. Boys must total 1000 lbs on the squat, bench, and deadlift and girls need to hit 500 lbs. We also give them out for certain bodyweight ratios. I think it’s 8.0 for boys and we total the big 3 plus a clean (squat+bench+deadlift+clean / bodyweight). I think girls have to hit 5.0 to get it (I’m just mirroring our other male coach’s standards).
We don’t have an “Athletic Weights” but the classes tend to get sorted a bit anyway. The football players go with the other guy and I get lots of beginners. I don’t mind it because they deserve the attention I can give them as they learn.
Here’s a fun fact about our culture problem here. Our Athletic Director pulled stats from the system that keeps track of physicals. If you’re not in the system and approved, you can’t play sports, so it seems like a good database to track total number of athletes. Out of 259 kids who have uploaded physicals, only 64 are enrolled in a weight training class.
Time to get back to work…
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I had a thought about a “Leaderboard”, where you post the results of the students for the workout. But instead of it being ONLY leaders, you post EVERYONE’S scores. A little public pride and shame.
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We have four tv screens that connect to a computer. I could easily do that. Maybe I need to start treating them like a CrossFit class. Prescribed weights could be a percentage of bodyweight (ballpark number to group kids together) instead of using the same weight for everyone. Get the work for time or AMRAP…
2 Likes
2.18.26 Bodybuild Upper/Athlete Lower Leader 2
C2 W1 D3 - OHP
Warm-Up
PT stretches, foam rolling, Cossack squats, leg swings forward/back & side/side, 50 pogo hops, and 10 box jumps.
OHP, Pull-Ups, and Single-Leg Jumps all done like a circuit.
OHP
45 x 10
95 x 5
110 x 5
125 x 5
Pull-Ups
BW x 7, 7, 7, 6, 6
Single-Leg Jumps
BW x 2, 2, 2, 2, 2
OHP FSL
95 x 5 x 5
Depth Jumps
BW x 4 x 3 sets off 20" box
DB Incline
80 x 10, 7, 4
Conditioning - 4 Rounds
- Lateral Bounds x 4 ea (only 2 on first round b/c I forgot how many)
- 5-10-5 Shuttle (longer because I used the width of a basketball court)
- Lateral MB Throw x 5 ea
Feels like it’s been a busy day. Work, then an appointment, then gym, then home for a bit to eat and then off to my son’s basketball game. Came home, showered, and got on the computer to chip away at my college homework until now. And now I’m off to bed.
I’ll be back to share tomorrow’s teaching experience and bounce more ideas off everyone.
5 Likes
2.20.26
Sitting here drinking my pre-workout because I forgot to take it with me to 7th hour, so I thought I’d brag about the workday. The frustration I felt Tuesday was completely flipped today. I’ve done some short workouts and warm-ups with a Tabata-style timer. If we do three rounds of 20 sec on/15 sec off, then it takes 5 minutes to three exercises three times each. The class does great with that. It’s weird. So I decided to bring that for a regular workout. I gave them 12 minutes to do 5 sets of bench and 5x5 on a row variation of their choice. After that, I changed the screens and we cleared the bars. I then had them do three rounds of 20 on/15 off of standing DB OHP, band face pulls, and barbell curls. All but one class followed that with two rounds of band overhead triceps extension, push-up plank, and plate overhead raises. I only had ONE student sit out the entire day and she never lifts a finger.
Huge win today with programming. Most kids seemed to like it and some even said so. We’ll see how they feel Monday when we do the same format with legs and abs. I must admit the start of class was clumsy because some kids just don’t move. They’d spend the entire hour trying to do a bench workout if I let them. Hopefully they start to figure it out after a few more days of this format.
6 Likes
That’s exciting! I hope it continues to work!!
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Bodybuild Upper/Athlete Lower Leader 2
C2 W1 D4 - Deadlift
Warm-Up
The usual plus about 17 jumps (12 double-leg and 5 ea single-leg) plus some MB slams.
Power Clean
135 x 2
185 x 2
Didn’t like this, so switched.
Hang Power Clean
205 x 2 x 3 sets
Box Jumps
30" x 4, 4
36" x 4, 4, 4
with cleans
Trap Bar Deadlift (High Handles)
225 x 5
255 x 5
295 x 5
330 x 5
Trap Deads FSL
255 x 5 x 3 sets
with
Squat Jumps
BW + Bands x 5 x 3 sets
Reverse Lunge
35s x 8 ea x 3 sets
Core - 3 sets back, 2 sets everything else
- Back Extension: BW x 20, 35 x 15, 15
- Windshield Wipers: x 12, 12
- Crunch: 25 lb plate behind head x 10 - cramp!
- Leg Raise: x 10 instead of crunches on round 2
This all took about an hour. No conditioning for the sake of time and location - did this at school instead of going to the Y. This would’ve taken longer there.
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Did you love these?
I meant the crunches. Apparently I got carried away with the highlighting. Lol
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Right up until my abs cramped. That’s a problem I’ve been having. I had started to do decline crunches without weight and tried to build the volume from 1x15 to 1x20 and so on but I stopped. Now that I’m cutting, I care about abs again and need to train them with resistance to help them grow and pop through my fat.
But it was nice only using 25 and struggling compared to putting 80 lbs on my chest. I’ll try them again.
1 Like