For those of you who are on 5/3/1 or use the Military press as a main lift, what to you find to be the best assistance lifts?
Do you also find it beneficial to do triceps work overhead? (overhead triceps extensions, etc?)
On my military day i do Miltary press, incline presses, rows, high rep tricep extensions and power cleans are usually in there some where as a break or warm up.
I like seated pin shoulder presses. I’m not doing 5/3/1 but that exercise will kick your ass.
I do BBB MP after 5/3/1 MP, but havent been doing it long enough to analyse results (4x cycles)
the BBB works well for squats for me and now that i think about it it would probably work really well on military’s
You guys are nuts. BBB for squats after 531 main sets would be brutal!
Could also experiment with doing MP assistance on BP day. The following seem popular, would recommend whichever you have not done in a while.
MP Press from Pins
Incline
DB Press
Regular standing MP press but using different set/rep schemes than 531, either after your 531 sets or on BP day.
Also keep in mind the MP will progress the slowest. Bench press is set at 5 lbs a month (smallest increment using 2.5 weights) but your MP press will always be some fraction of your Bench. This means the MP should progress slower than 5 lbs a month, basically means you repeat your MP cycles more often.
I did BBB for 6 or 7 cycles. Now I do 3 ladders of 2-3-4-5-6 reps, with about 10-20 secs rest between rungs. That allows me to get in more reps with more weight in less time than doing 5x10r. After that I’ll do hammer grip chins which I do as no-rest singles for a total of 50-75 reps (split into 2-5 sets). Finish off with 3x30r band pushdowns to get some blood flowing.
I switched to push presses for my main 5/3/1 overhead lift, and did DB or BB military presses for BBB assistance. After 3 or months I hit a 21 pound PR on military press while only focusing on push pressing. Just some food for thought.
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
I switched to push presses for my main 5/3/1 overhead lift, and did DB or BB military presses for BBB assistance. After 3 or months I hit a 21 pound PR on military press while only focusing on push pressing. Just some food for thought.[/quote]
I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I had a similar experience.
[quote]coffee wrote:
You guys are nuts. BBB for squats after 531 main sets would be brutal![/quote]
Its what I (almost) do, I dip out and do 4 sets of 10 not the full 5