No Bench, 3 Days a Week Template

Bigger Stronger Leaner Jim Wendler 5/3/1 Coaching
1

Due to time constraints I can only make the gym three days a week for 60 mins. I like focusing on one main lift a day so my plan was to omit Bench as a main movement (current gym only has one and its always busy) and keep the main lift frequency at once a week. I will be DB benching and Dipping as assistance on two days to keep my chest growing.

I stretch every day and cycle 25 miles 5 days a week

Squat 5s PRO, 5x5 FSL
Dips, Chins, Leg Raises

Press 5s PRO, 5x5 FSL
LTE, DB Row, KB Swing/Leg Curls

DL 5s PRO, 5x5 FSL
DB Bench, Curls, Ab wheel

Assistance all 25-50 reps

Any critiques of the program bearing in mind my time limitations? I know this will no longer technically be 5/3/1. Thanks

2

Looks solid.

3

The only thing that technically matters is the program motivates you and you make progress in your goals.

4

Great, just wanted a second opinion to make sure there’s nothing obvious missed from it.

Does anyone have advice on how I could set up a leader/anchor template with this?

5

Leader: 2-3 cycles of the program you laid out
Anchor: 1-2 cycles of the same thing, just replace 5’s Pro with Original 5/3/1 (5/3/1 sets and reps, PR set on the last set each week), take off 5x5FSL and increase the assistance stuff to 50-100 within the time limit you have.
If PR sets each week is too much, change the setup to 3/5/1 and only do them on “3” and “1” weeks, with “5” week being basically 5’s Pro.
If you prefer to keep assistance to the low side (25-50 as in the Leader), after PR sets follow up with Jokers (1-2 sets of 1-3 reps, 5-10% increase, only on the weeks you do PR sets if you’re not doing them each week).
Everything else as usual, increase TM by usual amount after each Leader and Anchor cycle, deload between Leader and Anchor, TM test after Anchor

1 Like
6

Thank you, extremely helpful.