37yo lifter here. I switched to 531 last summer. One of my main motivations was to improve GPP for ice hockey. I play in a competitive adult league and in recent years was starting to feel my age. 531 had a huge impact for me, and I am feeling like a younger version of myself on the ice. I have really appreciated the different templates which have allowed me to scale volume as I need throughout the year.
For the last few months, my body has been feeling the cumulative toll of training and continued play. I assume minor injuries / tightness that I trained through have lead to some imbalances that are now expressing themselves as more limiting pain.
I was thinking of taking a month off of both sport and 531 and doing some less structured physical activity and a lot of mobility work. In my high school / college years, I always took a proper off-season. The Fall / Winter season pretty much rolls right into the Spring / Summer season in my current league, so I haven’t really had extended down time in a few years.
Part of me thinks this is the right thing to do. Part of me feels like I’ll just regress to where I was before. Have any other older lifters / athletes taken an intentional month off to reset?
I wouldn’t take a full month off myself, but I don’t see any harm in consolidation to the 2x per week 5/3/1 template at an offload week intensity for the entire month while you rehab.
For the past 3 years my training has gotten really shitty sometime during July/August and I’ve ended up inadvertantly taking a month off anyway, just because I feel so rough.
Last year, (the 2nd time this happened) I thought about scheduling a break for this year. Then when this summer rolled around I forgot about it. Somehow, I irritated my back in early July, and I’ve been “off” a month, limping around again. It’s pretty frustrating. Hopefully, I’ll remember to plan better next year.
If you’re serious about taking it easy, and you’re following 5/3/1, check out the 2x2x2 template. It’s got a little lifting so you don’t go too far backward in strength and mobility mixed with cardio so you don’t get super bored.
Not intentional, no. But I caught Covid in Italy after spending two weeks there. It was… rough. I spent about a week doing nothing and a week slowly easing back into walking a few thousand extra steps per day.
I’ve been back to training for about a week. My joints feel better, I’m down five pounds, look worse, and am relatively weak. The biggest difference, though, is my astonishing lack of endurance, probably due to the inactivity and covid.
Depending on your priorities, I’d think a structured 2-4 weeks off would be fine as long as you stay somewhat active and allow 6-8 weeks to return to your prelayoff form.
Have you been deloading regularly? I’ve just had a week off and feel great as a result. Not sure I’d recommend taking a month off. What template have you been running during your season? I used to play rugby and would do 2 5/3/1 workouts per week only
Maybe you don’t need a month off from both simultaneously? I know playing the same sport somewhat competitively year-round would break me down. Maybe it’s actually an opportunity to ramp up lifting/ conditioning/ whatever (or at least have the capacity to recover fully) while giving yourself an offseason. That’s what the offseason were for back in our playing days, so it might be a good mental boost too - get you back in that mindset.
Sounds similar. Strained back + bruised ribs has made for some poor training sessions the last few weeks. I haven’t heard of 2x2x2. I just skimmed 531 Forever and found Con Clavi Con Dio, which is based on it.
I ran 3 cycles of 2-days / week based on this article last winter, but eventually went back to some other templates that included more volume.
Thinking I might take a week off to let my torso recover and then give 2x2x2 a shot. Thanks for the recommendation.
I was de-loading but my last few cycles have taken me longer to get through, so I ended up doing what I planned to complete in 3 weeks in 4 weeks and skipped the de-load week.
Got a vacation coming up in a few weeks, so maybe I’ll use that to shut down for a week and then adjust my TM + template based on how I’m feeling (someone else suggested 2x2x2 which I hadn’t hear of before…thinking that could be good to get a few days with just conditioning or mobility during the week)
Dude, I gotta be honest, most of the time I mess up the comeback.
Usually I start with something I think is reasonable, like less weight and the half reps I was using when I stopped. And the majority of the time that’s too much, I get fucking blasted, and it takes me a week or 10 days to try again. Then I do even less, and from there it might take 6 more weeks to get back in the swing of things.
OK! Con Clavi Con Dio, a guy who posts here was succefully running That template. Not 2x2x2. Either way, I’m glad you found useful information. Sorry for the confusion!
I guess I don’t see the problem taking some time off IF someone’s able to ease back into things. Younger barley1, bro version, would never have been able to ease back into anything.
Last fall, I ended up taking a couple weeks off before beginning a new Thibs program, the kind with slow eccentrics, tempo lifting, pauses, and new movements. This helped. I was humbled at the weights I had to use the first week, but by weeks 8 or 9, it quickly turned into PR city.
I think the time off, not worrying about diet or steps contributed.
35 year old here using predominantly 531 Forever. Fairly seasoned strongman competitor and back has been giving me grief.
In a similar boat and decided to chase another goal for a while - I went with a conditioning goal. You can stay with 531, but really lower the training maxes (70-80%) and volume on main lifts (no rep PRs/5s pro), and supplemental lifts. Instead push assistance volume and/or conditioning.
Check out Wendler’s blog - his most recent approach touches on this well.
