Cool, thanks. That makes sense. I think I might be a rep guy for everything except DL based on how 531 has worked for me since March.
I weigh 210, and that hasnāt changed at all for about 2 years.
Iām very aware that Iām pathetically weak. Thatās why Iām trying to get stronger!
Everyone here may be saying the same thing, but that thing doesnāt make sense to me and Iām asking for more explanation. Sorry if that has put a lot of people on the defensive! What can I say? I ask a lotta questions.
I was skeptical of this program for the specific reason that it doesnāt look like enough time is spent in actual work sets. There is really only one work set per workout, the two prior sets feel like warmup sets. Conventional wisdom has it that to get stronger, one must lift heavy weights for a lotta reps. Other programs (such as Stronglifts 5x5) has you lifting heavy weights for many work sets across. 5/3/1 lacks that kinda volume, but I thought maybe by introducing some periodization, that would make up for it.
As I said before, with the exception of cardio work, I am doing this program to the letter. My original TMs were actual weights that I was using prior to beginning this program.
To MarkKo: kpsnap tells you " Repping submaximal weights doesnāt seem to translate into an increase in my 1 RM" and you say āCool, thanks. That makes sense.ā Iām basically saying the same thing, but you tell me Iām wrong, Iām stubborn, I suck, etcā¦ It wouldnāt bother me if you quit this thread. Youāre not all that helpful.
If heavy volume work is what you want, thereās a 5/3/1 template for that as well. In it, you do 5x5, 5x3 and finally 5x1 volume work as assistance after the 5/3/1 sets.
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Three or so cycles a couple of times is very different to a month with a TM set too high. Just saying.
For the record, I didnāt say you suck. I said youāre kind of weak. Thereās a massive difference, and Iām sorry you find me unhelpful.
I stand by what I suggested. Drop your TM to 215, push for rep PRs on your plus sets and do BBB or FSL (even throw joker sets in if you want) and ride it out for four cycles (or two six week cycles, doesnāt matter much), which would take your TM to 245. If youāre still not seeing progress, fair enough, then 531 might not work for you. I suspect youāll be a bunch stronger though.
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Best advice, do what they are telling you or find another program that you like the look of better.
Jim has always said that the best program is the one that speaks to you. If this one dosent then no matter what is said you wont follow it correctlyā¦in fact you decided to not follow it correctly from day 1.
Everyone thinks they are a special sunbeam who needs a unique program but that really isnt the caseā¦ just pick a template that you like the look of do what is written for that cycle.
As for why are you weaker, I dont know perhaps you overstreatched on your last program, you then entered this one with too high a TM and really should have been deloading this week from your last program rather than pushing too hard on this. If you had started with the correct TM this may not have happenedā¦ who knows?
Either way either pick a different program or pick a 5/3/1 template and follow it to the letter.
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To the OP, listen to @MarkKOās advice, this guy knows what does he say very well and he is very wise with great experience. He helped a lot of people here (me included) and always his advice shows to be correct.
5/3/1 is the best damn thing introduced in the powerlifting world. Jim put all of his experience in the program, many many people followed the program and success stories are always there. The program is very simple:
- You train smart
- You get the result gradually (donāt expect increases in your TM over a cycle)
- You pay attention to your recovery
I think your recovery is not in check. Do you eat well? and have a quality sleep?
I strongly advice you to follow Training Log of MarkKO or The_Myth, in their logs you will find unlimited information and will see how the program really goes.
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@hanymamdouh is too kind and overestimates my wisdom.
He makes a great point though: one thing 531 doesnāt do is bring your limit strength up quickly. It does bring it up, and continues to do it for a long time, but not quickly.
In some cases it may take several months for you to see an increase in limit strength - joker sets are a great way to track this. I think this is one reason some people get disappointed with 531. Especially if youāre someone who only slowly improves limit strength from rep work, it may take a considerable while for you to get that increased max you desire. That doesnāt mean 531 doesnāt work for you, but that it works a little more slowly.
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Iāve been doing it for 8 months, so relative begginner here. BUT when i started i felt exactly like you, āthis weight is way too light, im never going to get strongerā. Well, for starters, its 5/3/1, your GOING to get stronger if you stick to it, but it might help to think about it as a ā1 step back, 2 steps forwardā approach. Yes, you have to go to a weight that is lower than you would prefer to admit, but in the long run you are going to be way ahead, and VERY glad you chose that low weight. Dont forget, your squat usually goes up 10 pounds a cycle, and it wonāt be long till your squatting way more than your current 1RM.
Hope this helpsā¦
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This is true. My wife is on 5/3/1, her bench press was very bad, not balanced and not showing any progress. I switched her to floor press instead of bench press to work on the balance, added high reps for upper back work and avoided any isolations. She followed this modification for 6 months, the progress was very very slow, even experienced degradation in some weeks. Suddenly in our last day in the BBB challenge she felt that last rep (the 95% TM rep) was very easy, she continued to add weights to test her true 1RM% and was shocked that one time she added 50% of her TM to the 1RM. Actually she went from 35kg to 52.5kgs which was a huge improvement in her work. I insisted not to increase her TM for the next cycle more than 5kgs, so her progress not to stale so soon. She weighs only 48kgs, and 52.5kgs for bench press is more than wonderful for small lady. However, I want to emphasize that 5/3/1 may not show rapid increase in the limit strength but it does gradually over time.
OP; keep working slowly, take your time and donāt give up. Let your body to adapt to the work, watch your recovery and be patient.
Good luck to you.
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OP: I didnāt comb through the previous responses to your post, but gather that the general consensus is to use the program properly, which you do not appear to have done. I have used this style of training for the long-term with good results, so can offer some ideas.
First, I do not think much of your template. I donāt know of any 5/3/1 based templates that do without any supplemental work (FSL/SSL/BBS or similar with the lift or a close variation). I agree what you have written does not devote enough work to the lifts.
Second, getting strong is the product of logging a lot of work over time. You are admittedly not strong, which is fine, but if you mean to become strong, you must not be afraid to take a little weight off the bar for the sake of logging more quality reps and giving yourself a running start.
Third, if you are truly unable to press and unwilling or unable to address the problem preventing you from pressing, Iād add another pressing movement (e.g., closegrips, incline press, floor press) as the second major pressing movement. Your current template has essentially one difficult set of pressing of any kind each week. This is obviously not going to work well.
To offer you something to work with, Iād recommend the following template, which is what I always go back to when my training goes adrift:
SQ - 5/3/1 or 5s pro
DL variation - FSL or SSL (5x5 or similar)
Assistance
BP - 5/3/1 or 5s pro
BP variation - FSL or SSL
Row/Pullup - 25-50 reps
DL - 5/3/1 or 5s pro
SQ variation - FSL or SSL
Asst
Secondary press - 5/3/1 or 5s pro
BP variation - FSL or SSL
Row/Pullup - 25-50 reps
This template is basically foolproof. If you want to train 3x/wk, just roll the 4th day to the following week.
It seems to me like it is psychological. I know that I and many other people have made serious strength gains doing 5/3/1, specifically including increasing the 1RM while working at much lower weights. A friend of mine just tested his maxes and had a 455 squat even though he has had months doing 5/3/1 with never going above 305. Also, with that quick a loss of strength it seems like it has to be psychological, unless you are not recovering properly. Most people can go a week or more not lifting at all without any negative effects on their strength, and certainly 3 weeks of lifting less, so I cannot see how you would lose that much strength that quickly just by lifting a little lighter with higher volume for a few weeks. So, perhaps you just expect it, lose confidence in the lift when it is heavier than you are used to, or whatever.
Regarding the recommendation to start even lighter, if indeed you are not getting weaker but are just having trouble with the lifts when they start to get a bit heavy again, then a lighter training max allows you more time working the reps before getting to the weights approaching your old maxes. Personally, it is what I would recommend (along with acknowledging that you are probably just psyching yourself out of the heavier lifts and working past that). Of course, if you donāt believe in the program, think you need to lift heavy all the time, or whatever, then maybe it would be best to just do another program, like maybe DeFrancoās Westside For Skinny Bastards since it has max effort work, you can still to the main lifts for that pretty consistently, and it has a fair bit of volume.
Iām 48; I follow 2x2x2 program. I have never been stronger. I did lose strength recently; though, it was due cutting calories and dropping 20 lbs. As soon as I increased my calories again, my strength shot up. Iām not as strong as most people on 531, but Iām stronger than most 48 year olds.
Keep with the program; be patient. You have to set your ego aside. And make sure you eat properly.
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What is the 2x2x2 program?
IMHO opinion, 531 builds strength through repetitions and hypertrophy(my apologies to the guys who donāt want to admit theyāre training for muscle).
Yes, ONE top set done with ball busting intensity is enough to induce a hypertrophic response despite all the studies and shit being thrown around these days. I have been doing similar shit since the 90s, just with the lack of a proper progression model, despite being a ābodybuilderā. However, like the guy above, I am overhead pressing your squat for reps so I donāt think Iām not qualified to give an opinion.
Hence, it may not be very effective if:
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You do it for too short a time frame. Muscle takes time to build.
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Your hormonal profile at your age is not optimal for muscle building(e,g Iām talking about being hypogonadal or boderline, not just lowered T levels that come with age). However, do realize that there are people who have gotten big and strong despite this so my point is simply to get a check up and medicate if necessarily.
Limit strength is gained by utilizing a proper peaking protocol with emphasis on the aspect of neural adaptation(or you can do joker sets but I would advise you to stick with a basic set up for a couple of months before fucking around with these). It is often transient and doing this too often is pointless if you are not a competitive powerlifter and you are wasting time not building the base that will allow you to maximize that strength in the first place.
Now, hereās the real problem. Your results from so many years of training are pretty lackluster. This is not meant as an insult, but rather an observation of a fact that is a result of several underlying problems that should be solved first instead of going āwhich program is bestā and attempting to dissect things yourself because, again not intending this as an insult, you still donāt know shit about training(and possibly diet).
My advice, for a start, is to shut out every thing you think you know - what you have read, heard, etc, with regards to training and listen to people who have achieved the results you want to achieve without questioning the method.
Good luck.
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Itās normal to have bad days or bad weeks, you shouldnāt overthink it based on failing one session. Iād say make sure you eat enough clean carbs like oats and rice the day that you workout and make sure youāre mentally jacked up and donāt overthink it. As long as it was a maximum effort on your side, youāre not losing your time even if you failed the prescribed number of reps.
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To add to the mounting evidence that your training max is most likely too heavy, I have been using 5/3/1 for my bench since December, and on my 5s week workout this week I hit 270 for 12 reps, and even that was a little lower than I expected. You hitting so few reps this early is a sign that it is too heavy.
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Ok, Iām starting to see where Iām differing from what you guys are doing. For starters, Iām following the book to the letter. The book says 5+, 3+, 1+. It seems like most of you guys are doing something more like 10+, 7+, 5+, and then some additional sets like jokers, FSL and SSL. Those terms arenāt even mentioned in the book Iām working from.
My guess is that the vanilla, 5+, 3+, 1+ version 1.0 that Iām doing has been greatly improved upon by Wendlerās subsequent program modifications, the ones that you folks seem to be using to great effect.
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Not exactlyā¦ + means keep going until you cant do any more reps.
On your first month you should be getting 10-12 , 6-10, 5-7 those kind of numbers.
As the months progress the numbers come down as the weight goes up but you just keep doing as many as you can with a good bar speed.
When you start getting to the point where 5/3/1 means 5/3/1 bar speed will probably be lower than it should and its time for a reset.
I assure you I am following the book even closer than you are. For starters, I am also overhead pressing.
I am doing 5+ reps on my 5s week. It ended up being 12. That is how many reps I could do at the prescribed percentage using my current training max.
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Follow the program and the advice here.
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Lower your TM.
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Profit.
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