AM workout
Bench 5x200
BTN press 5x10x95
Fat grip barbell curls 20,15,15x45
Body weight tricep extension 3x15
My right Shoulder randomly felt very sore coming into this, almost like I had gotten a shot recently or something. But, back pain has been gone since later Wednesday so that’s good. It’s been a weird week with these random pains coming up. Anyways, bench moved fine today, but I’m sure would have been better with a normal feeling shoulder. Press was much easier than I expected, which is a good sign for my strength. Then a great pump from the arm work. It was a good day of training
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AM workout
Deadlift 5x295
Paused squat (with belt this time) 5x10x205
Pull-ups 6x6
Reverse hyper 2x12x70
Little less wrecked this week than last, but still worn out from the squats. Threw the belt on since my back bothered me this past week, so I might just keep that as a normal feature
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Hi just come across your workout Log and really like the look of how you set up your sessions.
Are you following a programme ? I saw that right at the beginning you logged 5/3/1 but by the looks it’s different now?
Could you shed some light on the programme you follow ? I’m trying to build my own using Squat,bench,Cleans, Deadlifts and pull-ups but struggling on how to programme it so any help would be greatly appreciated 
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Hey, so to give credit where it is due, I’m pretty much following something I saw @creative_name do about a year or so ago. I really liked the look of it then, & kind of butchered it for a little while, but then came back to it recently and gave it an honest effort & have found it very effective. But basically here is the breakdown for a week
Day 1: press 1x5
Bench 5x5 or 10 (more on this later)
Couple bodybuilding assistance
Day 2: squat 1x5
Deadlift 3x5/10
Assistance
Day 3: bench 1x5
Press 5x5/10
assistance
Day 4 deadlift 1x5
Squat 5x5/10
Assistance
1-2 other days a week I do a 15-20 minute airdyne
It’s a wave progression with a light/medium/heavy week. I started light & have progressed the top sets of 5 about 5lbs per cycle, sometimes 10 for lower body. Light week is about 10% lighter than the heavy week, & medium week about 5% lighter. I haven’t done exact %’s, but it might look like this
Week 1: 1x5x70%
Week 2: 1x5x75%
Week 3: 1x5x80%
Then reset heavier.
The 5x5’s that I was doing were at 90% of the weight for that weeks 1x5. However, this last cycle I just started doing 5x10 instead of 5x5, and did it with a variation that emphasizes greater ROM. For assistance, I’ve stuck with back work on lower body days (usually pull-ups and reverse hypers, sometimes rows) and mostly arms on upper body days, but with sometimes more variety.
I’ve benefitted the most from principals I’ve read from Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 forever, and Alex Bromley’s base strength book. If you do go the route of programming for yourself and are looking for other resources, those are some that I would think about looking into. Hope this helps and I’m happy to discuss if you have any questions or if anything didn’t make sense!
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Hi thanks for replying, do you think it would be possible to condense the work into 3 days and structure as like a full body, I am aiming to base mine around full body days due to work commitments etc so not always able to get to the gym as much as I want to.
I noticed further back you used to incorporate cleans, how come you stopped?
Would you be able to write me a couple of examples of training days I could use to base mine around and build from ?
I did a cycle of this with a 3x a week full body. I didn’t like it as much but I’m sure it can work. I did it with “focus” lifts on m&f, with secondary lifts Wednesday. So I did squat and bench Monday and Friday, with a volume and an intensity day for each, then just a “hypertrophy” style day for press and deadlift on Wednesday. Again, I preferred the twice a week frequency for all the lifts, but something like this can definitely work too.
So I lift at 0430 during the week, & have two kids, the oldest is two and the youngest is a month old. Cleaning heavy pretty much requires dropping from the top, and I’m not trying to wake them up haha. Also, I did a LOT of Olympic lifting about 6-8 years ago, and honesty just don’t have much of a fire to do them anymore. I lose interest in them quick now. I do still think they are great and would never try to steer someone away from them.
What I did for a cycle, that you may like is this:
Monday
Squat 5x5
Bench 1x5
Assistance
Wednesday
Deadlift 3x10
Press 3x10
Assistance
Friday
Squat 1x5
Bench 5x5
Assistance
Wave progression, maybe vary the sets and reps on the Wednesday workout each week. I think that would work pretty well. Let me know if that helps or any other questions!
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I also train at 5am and have a baby on the way which is why I’m trying to transition to this style of training now.
With your accessory lifts I see you do primarily back work and arms for upper body days has this worked well for you ? I think this will suit me as I’m very push dominant so extra back work will be good for me.
Nice, congrats!
Yeah, I feel like everything else gets hit pretty well from the main lifts, whereas those areas benefit from a little more direct focus. I would say it’s definitely a good route to go
AM workout
Press 5x150
Close grip bench 5x10x155
Incline curls 3x12x20
Pullover+ skullcrusher combo 10+3x75
Thinking ahead pretty far here, but next deload I think I’ll test an amrap on squat and bench again. It was week 10 of this program that I did 225x8 bench & 295x7 squat. I’m currently on week 19 (counting deloads), & next deload will be week 24. Would be a good time to check progress & see where I’ve gotten. But I also may be more “primed” for it after a cycle of 5x5’s as oppose to the 5x10 variations. Touching the heavier weights and more practice with it would bode well. So we’ll see. Would still be fun to go for. But, I’ve got a lot of time until then, so I’ll be patient and see closer to then what seems best
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It’s great to hear that you’re still getting some use out of it! I’ll probably end up coming back to something like that program at some point—my bench and squat were the strongest they’ve ever been after the first go.
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Thanks,
Yeah I agree plus none can have a back too big tbh
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AM workout
Squat 5x280
Deficit deadlift 3x10x205
Chin-ups accumulate 40 reps
Reverse hyper 2x12x70
Squats felt heavy today. Thinking the switch to 5x10 is the culprit, but I’ll probably still stick it out for this cycle at least. Deficit deads were great again. Wish I had been doing this movement for longer. Then got a really good pump on chins
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AM workout
Bench 5x215
BTN press 5x10x100
Bench curls 3x10x15
Body weight tricep extension 3x10
Bench felt heavy. Same as squats on Wednesday. Thinking on if I should stay the course on this program for the next 4 weeks, or make adjustments after this next heavy week. Think I have a plan that could help those two movements while maintaining my current hypertrophy/5x10 work, but not sure if it’s too early to pull the trigger
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AM workout
GPP day- accumulate the following totals
3 mile airdyne
55 push-ups
40 chin-ups
40 reverse hypers
Was not feeling great today. Might lift tomorrow, not sure. Still deciding on plans
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AM workout
Squat 4x6x235
Pin squat 6x 225,185,205
Deficit deadlifts 3x8x185
Reverse hyper 2x12x70
Deadbugs 2x5
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AM workout
Bench 3x6, 14x180
BTN press 12, 2x10x95
Bench curls 3x10x15
Body weight tricep extension 3x10
Reverse flies 3x12x5
Lots of back and forth on ideas the last two days, gonna try to sum it up efficiently here
•an intensity day & a hypertrophy day for each lift wasn’t working well without a day in the 4-6x4-6 range. That strength day, with a lot of sets, moderately heavy weight, and good bar speed makes the intensity day work, but intensity without that wasn’t working for me.
•so my idea yesterday was to do bullmastiff advanced from Alex bromley’s peak strength book. However, yesterday I quickly found out I wouldn’t be able to fit those workouts into a 40 minute window, and I liked lifting 4 days a week rather than 3.
•my first idea after that was take out one of the variations. Then I realized…that’s pretty much regular/intermediate bullmastiff with a few small differences, so today I just started regular bullmastiff. Will still count yesterday as day one, and probably make a ~20 lb jump for it next week.
•ran this program almost two years ago, and remember it getting me close too/at all time strength levels for myself, so hopefully I can surpass that on this run. Definitely starting off with better numbers than I did then, just gotta make sure I’m eating enough to support this. Will probably look back at what my final weights were for each cycle at some point, just to see something to baseline myself against.
•excited to run this. & I know just being fired up for a program has a positive effect, so I got that going for me.
•triceps are smoked from today.
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AM workout
Deadlift 3x6, 12x245
Pin squat 3x6x205
Pull-ups 3x10
Reverse hyper 3x10x70
Deadbugs 3x5
Used a belt on deads for the first time ever. Felt bad the first two sets, then a little less weird at the end. Intention is to give it an honest try for the next cycle or two. Filmed the pin squats to see if I was slightly above, at, or below parallel, but the angle was terrible so I’ll have to try again next week. Feels like I’m right at it, slightly above my normal depth of a pretty deep high bar squat. Was good to see on the video that I’m moving the bar very quick. Will need to progress the load on these, as they just feel way worse than they actually look, so I have more in me than I think
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AM workout
Press 3x6, 14x125
Paused CG bench 3x10x135
Bench curls 3x12x15
Body weight tricep extension 3x10
Reverse flies 3x10x10
Was up already this morning with the wife and baby, so I just went ahead and knocked this out, with the potential to sleep in until 0515 tomorrow instead of today. Could tell I’m only partially recovered from Monday, as press moved uncharacteristicly slow for the load, and triceps got blown up pretty fast. They are definitely getting hammered on this program, which is awesome. Looking back in the log, the first time I ran this program, week one of pressing was at this same weight, and I did 13 on the amrap, so I beat that by one today haha. I also weigh about 5lbs less than then, which is cool. Gonna make sure I don’t check that every week, but looking at the first week and my final numbers from that cycle as points of reference has been cool, and gives me something to try and surpass
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AM workout
Squat 3x6, 10x260
Deficit deadlifts 3x10x205
Chin-ups 1x20
15-20 min break doing stuff with family
Chin-ups 1x15
Reverse hyper 3x10x70
Deadbugs 3x5
Got started late this morning so had to stop for a bit when the kiddo got up, but then took about 5 minutes to knock out the rest
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