If you want to take what you’re doing, and that you know works, and just incorporate more “sets close to failure”, why not just switch your FSL multiple sets to AMRAPs? That’s pretty true to 531, and gives you the result you want without a complete overhaul of a program you know works for you.
I can’t find it. I found something under the same name on EliteFTS but it’s written by Vincent Dizenzo. Is that the same program? Something like that would be fine, the volume per session is also within the range that Paul Carter (as well as Israetel and his friends) recommend. I don’t see why you can’t do 2 pressing days with around 10 sets for each, but that’s another story.
It looks fine.
If you are going to do Dizenzo’s program or the BB split from Wendler’s site or whatever, the only thing that I can say is that if it says “4x12” or whatever you would be best off not worrying about actually getting 12 reps on each set and if not pushing to failure then at the very least close to it, like 1-2 reps short. Stay in the range of 6-15 reps and you will be fine. Paul Carter says to push to failure (except squats and DLs because you will die), other people are saying 2-3 reps short is fine, I don’t know the right answer but one thing I am sure of is that if you are NOT at least 3-4 reps short of failure then that set is not going to do much in terms of hypertrophy. I have a tendency to push assistance exercises until form breakdown anyway, so Paul’s philosophy isn’t really a change from my regular approach.
Too many hard sets like that on squat and deadlift will just burn you out, plus deadlifts aren’t particularly good for hypertrophy anyway. Too high a cost for limited gain, better to do “easier” assistance exercises for extra volume.
If you want to do deadlifts for hypertrophy, the thing that will make the biggest difference is a controlled eccentric (lowering portion). Take 3 seconds to lower each rep, and you could even do them from a deficit since pulling from the floor is not full ROM for a lot of people. You could still do your top set in the normal fashion, but then do FSL (or lighter, maybe 70%) with a controlled eccentric. To make it even worse, do these without touching the floor on each rep, stop 1-2 inches from the floor and pause for a moment before coming back up. These will make your deadlifting muscles grow, and can help your technique too.
Sorry my bad. The title is “5/3/1 and bodybuilding.” First result on Google.
I just looked up the one you mentioned and it’s not the same one.
Yeah, that program looks fine. I think he saw Dizenzo’s program was getting some attention and decided to come up with his own, both were posted in 2017 but Dizenzo’s was in February and Wendler’s was in December. Both are good. Just remember this part:
Yeah I figured that part out. 12 is a guideline, there’s nothing magic with the numbers itself.
I think I’ll try out the one I laid out for a couple of cycles and see how it works. I have a membership on Wendler’s private forum so I’ll ask for input there. Although I have a feeling they will probably be against it. Last time I posted asking for advice I got a whole wave of “don’t fix what’s not broken” and Jim himself told me not to change anything.
Maybe ask what the guidelines are for selecting a weight for 4x12, how challenging should each set be? Wendler is not God, he’s just a coach, so you don’t need to follow every word if it doesn’t sound right to you.
This BBB talk got me thinking about a recent study. This study had people increase sets up to 32 sets a week, something like 10 sets per session for squats 3x/week, doing sets of 10 with 60%. They found that while their muscles grew, the actual myofibrils (the contractile part of the muscle fibre) shrank while the sarcoplasm (fluid surrounding the muscle fibre) is what increased. So basically high volume, low load, low effort sets will make your muscle swell with fluid but it will decrease your potential for strength and you aren’t actually building muscle tissue. Just something to consider.
And yes, the volume in that study was retarded.
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Do you read lyle mcdonald?
Not really, I have read some of his stuff but I don’t really follow him.
Lyle seems to be right about most things, but he is also a raving lunatic.
Yeah I was just wondering because the study you mentioned is probably the same he used in his recent article about sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
Anyway I’ll post the program I laid out in Wendler’s forums and see what they think.
In your opinion, it could be a good idea if I ran it for a while being that hypertrophy is my goal, right?
I should look into that. He had a debate with Mike Israetel not long ago about Schoenfeld’s retarded 45 set study (the same one Paul was talking about). Lyle is absolutely right, but the problem is that he comes across as crazy and Israetel is good at debating. You can be wrong and win an argument if you know how to argue, just look at what goes in in every courthouse in the world.
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Yeah, it’s fine. I don’t see how making the 4x12 (or whatever x whatever) easier is going to get you better results, it just goes against religious dogma.
I’m just taking a look at Lyle article now, Israetel and his friends are ridiculous.
“Let me note that the exercises were not done in sequence, that is all sets of squats in a row before moving onto bench press. Rather, one set of each exercise was done before moving to the next one after a rest (90-120 seconds if I recall) and the next one finally coming back around to the first exercise.
With 4 exercises and up to a 2′ rest interval between individual sets, this means a rest interval of 8-10′ between work sets. I have no clue why they choose this approach as it’s not representative of any training style I am aware of. Well certainly no training aimed at growth. If it’s anything, it’s a long rest interval sort of circuit training I suppose.”
This is complete nonsense, and that’s just one part of it. Ever since Paul started that thread I have lost a lot of respect for Israetel and those other clowns. I didn’t even know he was involved in this study until now.
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i’m kinda happy because over the last 3 years, since i started training, all i read was paul carter, ct, dan john, and lyle mcdonald. i read some stuff from waterbury too, and now jim wendler. i think i have been lucky to have found t nation early in my training career lol
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@T3hPwnisher i’m very curios to hear what you think about the discussion about volume and effort for muscle growth that’s been going on lately.
what do you think of this routine that i posted yesterday? i’m thinking of doing it for some time, with the goal being hypertrophy while the 5/3/1 part gets my lifts up too.
If the goal is hypertrophy, I wouldn’t be doing PR sets for the mainwork. Save the hypertrophy work for the supplemental stuff. Easiest paradigm that would fit with that would be 5s pro for mainwork and then a widowmaker for the supplemental work. This is, assuming, you’re trying to work within the 5/3/1 framework. There is also the 5/3/1 rest pause program, which I think would fit the bill.
yeah, i remember reading that on the book but somehow i kinda forgot about it. i’ll go read that
can i ask you what the reasoning behind that is? i have heard this a couple of times already, but really if we’re gonna count “hard sets to failure or close to it” as those inducing hypertrophy, wouldn’t a main work, pr set fit this description? to me it looks like it would be about the perfect situation: a big lift, weight increasing week to week, reps increasing, progressive overload, and going almost to failure with it.
especially considering i’m consistently in the 8-12 rep range with my pr’s.
In 5/3/1, you can’t push everything hard. It’s a balancing act. If mainwork is hard, supplemental work is easy, and vice versa. When you push that hard in the mainwork, you limit your ability to exert yourself in that supplemental work, and if you try to push both hard, you limit your ability to recover between sessions.
Remember that growth happens during recovery: NOT during training. 5/31/ is about training well so that you recover well and are big, strong and fast when it counts (gameday). This will mean not running yourself into the ground during training.
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okay i get your point.
i actually thought i was working around that by keeping the volume pretty low. as you can see, i’m doing few sets per workout, with most of those sets being really hard.
i just posted this on wendler’s private forum and got green lights from a couple experienced users. of course i respect your opinion just as much and realize that there are lots of ways to go about this and you are probably all right.
i think i could try and give this program a go for a while and see what happens?
btw, one guy on that forum also suggested i swap out the bench fsl 3x5 with one rest/pause set @ fsl, which sounds like a good idea to me. like paul carter suggests, a couple of all out sets per exercise, (that’d be the pr set and the r/p fsl set) on a handful of exercises (which in that workout would be the bench, the dips, and the triceps extension), aiming to beat performance week to week.
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In truth, I can’t evaluate a program unless I run it. All I’ve been suggesting is in terms of what is laid out in 5/3/1 Forever and in Jim’s other writings, as that’s what falls in line with the 5/3/1 philosophy. Once you start departing from the source material, you have to figure out what works for you.
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