Wendler 5/3/1 Program

Training Powerlifting
761

[quote]Jim Wendler wrote:
irishlifting wrote:
Question for any of the J’s, How long would you guys run the same accessory exercises for under the BBB protocol before changing?

You can do whatever you’d like with the accessory works as long as the basic protocols are being met. I no longer prescribe exercises to some of the kids that come in - just “bodyparts” and total reps.

Parts:

  • Low back/hamstrings
  • Pressing
  • Lats/Upper back
  • Legs

[/quote]

Thanks for the replies J’s I’ll mix it up this coming cycle

762

[quote]Jim Wendler wrote:
There are two bands that confused the hell out of me:

Killswitch Engage
All that Remains

If this is “heavy metal” then I don’t want any part of this bullshit. So if you listen to these bands, which quite possibly might be the worst things I have ever heard (much worse than pop music), this is the reason you missed the weights. Awful and embarrasing.
[/quote]

They’re calling metalcore heavy metal now?

Iron Maiden is heavy metal. Judas Priest is heavy metal.

That is not.

763

Jim, thanks for the reply. You too, coolnatedawg.

“THE WILL ALWAYS NEGATES DEFEAT”

This quote is written on my wall in my room and I have been looking at it for the last few weeks, but I didn’t commit myself to it. I’ve hit heavier singles before, and there is simply no excuse. In all honesty, all I needed to see was #3. Thanks for not just passing off some training suggestions. It’s the attitude thing that I think most people, myself included, need to work on. The training stuff will follow…

764

[quote]Jim Wendler wrote:
Migz wrote:
Jim - I submitted this to the Q&A but thought I’d ask here as well. Sorry if it’s annoying.

I have been running 5/3/1 since the end of last year and it has been working great, aside from this one recurring issue. In regards to my bench, I have been able to continuously hit rep PRs during the first two waves of every cycle, but once I get to week 3 with the 95% I continue to let myself down. For example, two cycles ago I hit 240x8 and then 255x5 in weeks one and two respectively, but then only manage 270x1 on week 3.

This past cycle, I hit 245x8, 260x5, and then missed 275 for even a single on week 3. The only possible answer I have is that I am not neurologically efficient with the heavier weights. Assistance is basic stuff, usually 3x10 close-grip bench, followed up by some heavy rows and maybe some blast strap push-ups to finish. Like I said, everything else is moving along fine. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

Idea #1 -

Week 1 - 3x5
Week 2 - 3x3
Week 3 - Deload
Week 4 - 5/3/1

Start again.

Idea #2 -

Week 1 - 3x3
Week 2 - 3x5 (no rep records set - just do what is asked in the workout
Week 3 - 5/3/1
Week 4 Deload

Idea #3 -

Man up and get your ass in gear. I would bet that if I held a gun to your head and threatned to put a live, hungry badger in your pants, you’d get 275. Sometimes you have to just suck it up and put your fucking balls on the chopping block. I had to do this exact same thing yesterday. My deadlift was sucking huge horse cock and it was pissing me off. But what pissed me off even more? The fact that I knew I needed to increase my effort but wasn’t doing it.

So I ended up deadlifting very close to an all time rep PR after sitting down with myself and having a discussion which set my head on straight.

Idea #4 -

Reset your maxes and keep working up again.

*****To be honest, the reason why you are missing 275 isn’t something fancy or neurological or CNS or whatever mumbo jumbo you want to throw around. Hundreds of thousands of people have done 275, so it’s not like you are any different. Start believing in yourself and start acting accordingly.

Idea #5 -

I caught some of the Revolver music awards. Apparently this is a heavy metal awards show. I am a huge lover of all things heavy and metal but apparently I am confused as to what is heavy metal these days. There are two bands that confused the hell out of me:

Killswitch Engage
All that Remains

If this is “heavy metal” then I don’t want any part of this bullshit. So if you listen to these bands, which quite possibly might be the worst things I have ever heard (much worse than pop music), this is the reason you missed the weights. Awful and embarrasing.
[/quote]

My training partner refers to everything that isn’t face purple turning, pass-out, puke weight smashing as “mumbo jumbo”. Hence, I lol’ed at your appropriate use of the term.

765

[quote]Migz wrote:
Jim, thanks for the reply. You too, coolnatedawg.

“THE WILL ALWAYS NEGATES DEFEAT”

This quote is written on my wall in my room and I have been looking at it for the last few weeks, but I didn’t commit myself to it. I’ve hit heavier singles before, and there is simply no excuse. In all honesty, all I needed to see was #3. Thanks for not just passing off some training suggestions. It’s the attitude thing that I think most people, myself included, need to work on. The training stuff will follow…[/quote]

Good to have you back on track.

766

[quote]GodOfSteele wrote:
DCR wrote:
GodOfSteele wrote:
Today was my first Workout with 5/3/1. And it was Rack Deads I performed. I am a bit surprised as i pulled the 85%er 11 times. I was like WTF? Sounds a bit noobish but is it okay or did I maybe start too light?

rack deads? so you didn’t buy the book then.

Why do you think that only because I performed Rack Deads I didn´t buy the book?
Anyway I answered the question myself.

[/quote]

Because in the book he says trap bar deadlift is the only substitute for normal deadlift.

767

But in the e-book,III,Jim said rack pulls are fine.

768

[quote]Doenitz79 wrote:

Because in the book he says trap bar deadlift is the only substitute for normal deadlift.

But in the e-book,III,Jim said rack pulls are fine.
[/quote]

The 5/3/1 program in the III book its deads as well (5/3/1 is variation X)
Rack pulls are for the other variations of 3 days a week (the ones that are not 5/3/1).

Wow im nit picking now. I am boring myself!

I could be very wrong though

769

Jim,
is it important to vary workload for Squat/Bench7Deadlift session to session?And for Assistance exercises?

770

[quote]pal60 wrote:
Jim,
is it important to vary workload for Squat/Bench7Deadlift session to session?And for Assistance exercises?
[/quote]

I’m not sure what you are asking here.

771

Jim,

When talking about good mornings in your book you compared the use of heavy weights and movement focus with the use of lighter weight and “muscle” emphasis. Do you think it’s a good idea to treat the majority of the assistance work on a “muscle” and not movement based approach?

That is to say, if I do GM’s or SLDL’s, should I concentrate real hard on form and ROM and not so much on just moving the weight any way I can??

Thanks again for all the patient replies in the thread!

772

pal60 wrote:
Jim,
is it important to vary workload for Squat/Bench7Deadlift session to session?And for Assistance exercises?

I’m not sure what you are asking here.

…
Which it must be the progression from week in week?More weigth or reps or sets or…?

773

In the Boring But Big accessory work, the agnostic lift for deads is Leg Lifts (pikes).

I know from past experience that I am not strong or flexible enough for these. I tend to get right above parallel before they become sloppy. Knees bent like crazy, more body english than necessary.

As a substitute I did some GHR Situps using my hip flexors to initiate the movement. I do want to be able to do leg raises tho. Any idea on progression?

774

[quote]coolnatedawg wrote:
In the Boring But Big accessory work, the agnostic lift for deads is Leg Lifts (pikes). [/quote]

Those damn leg lifts don’t believe in anything. They’re such bitches.

Sorry, couldn’t resist :slight_smile:

[quote]I know from past experience that I am not strong or flexible enough for these. I tend to get right above parallel before they become sloppy. Knees bent like crazy, more body english than necessary.

As a substitute I did some GHR Situps using my hip flexors to initiate the movement. I do want to be able to do leg raises tho. Any idea on progression?[/quote]

Hanging Leg Raises are awesome, I really like them - Hanging Leg Raise - YouTube

I prefer doing them with ab-slings tho because my shoulders tend to get pretty fcuked doing them like I did in the video.

The progression I used was knees to elbow, straight legs parallel to the ground, straight leg holds, then just manning up and going for full range reps, getting as many good ones as I could, cheating the rest up and then controlling them down.

Prior to doing them in the video above I hadn’t done thme in a good 6-9 months. I only tried them to see if I could. I was able to do them better than ever because I’d been pushing my ab work hard - pulldown abs and weighted decline sit ups!

775

[quote]Hanley wrote:
Jim,

When talking about good mornings in your book you compared the use of heavy weights and movement focus with the use of lighter weight and “muscle” emphasis. Do you think it’s a good idea to treat the majority of the assistance work on a “muscle” and not movement based approach?

That is to say, if I do GM’s or SLDL’s, should I concentrate real hard on form and ROM and not so much on just moving the weight any way I can??

Thanks again for all the patient replies in the thread![/quote]

Hanely - this is a good question and I’ll try to make this as simple and as brief as possible.

For most people (i.e. beginners and just above beginners) they don’t know their bodies well enough to distinguish between the two. For example, you have the people who claim their chest gets pumped up from doing lat pulldowns or whatever. Or who can’t isolate their lats during a row movement and take out their biceps.

For these people, I say just do the movement and the muscle will come. That’s is the nature of the EVOLUTION of the lifter. You must pay this price and there is no short cut or way around it.

So no one ask. Just do the fucking work.

For a more advanced lifter (the one that can flex any muscle on command without actually moving), it is easy to separate between muscle and movement. So for these people, I would have them dictate why they are doing a lift and let that determine how they should perform it.

it has been my experience that you need to treat much of the accessory work (for an advanced lifter) as a “muscle” - but must use enough weight to get some activation.

For everyone else - do the sets/reps and complete the set 1-3 reps short of failure.

776

[quote]Hanley wrote:

Hanging Leg Raises are awesome, I really like them - Hanging Leg Raise - YouTube

I prefer doing them with ab-slings tho because my shoulders tend to get pretty fcuked doing them like I did in the video.

The progression I used was knees to elbow, straight legs parallel to the ground, straight leg holds, then just manning up and going for full range reps, getting as many good ones as I could, cheating the rest up and then controlling them down.

Prior to doing them in the video above I hadn’t done thme in a good 6-9 months. I only tried them to see if I could. I was able to do them better than ever because I’d been pushing my ab work hard - pulldown abs and weighted decline sit ups!
[/quote]

so doing pull-down abs and decline sit-ups improved your leg raise ability … it seems like those are better ab strengthening exercises than the leg raise, no?

777

[quote]pal60 wrote:
pal60 wrote:
Jim,
is it important to vary workload for Squat/Bench7Deadlift session to session?And for Assistance exercises?

I’m not sure what you are asking here.

…
Which it must be the progression from week in week?More weigth or reps or sets or…?[/quote]

With the 5/3/1 program, the weights are always creeping up. Once they stall, you back off and creep up again.

Accessory work is whatever you want; you figure that out.

778

[quote]coolnatedawg wrote:
In the Boring But Big accessory work, the agnostic lift for deads is Leg Lifts (pikes).

I know from past experience that I am not strong or flexible enough for these. I tend to get right above parallel before they become sloppy. Knees bent like crazy, more body english than necessary.

As a substitute I did some GHR Situps using my hip flexors to initiate the movement. I do want to be able to do leg raises tho. Any idea on progression?[/quote]

Just do some kind of ab work - Hanging leg raises are simple and effective thus the reason why I picked them. Just do something.

779

[quote]Jim Wendler wrote:
Hanley wrote:
Jim,

When talking about good mornings in your book you compared the use of heavy weights and movement focus with the use of lighter weight and “muscle” emphasis. Do you think it’s a good idea to treat the majority of the assistance work on a “muscle” and not movement based approach?

That is to say, if I do GM’s or SLDL’s, should I concentrate real hard on form and ROM and not so much on just moving the weight any way I can??

Thanks again for all the patient replies in the thread!

Hanely - this is a good question and I’ll try to make this as simple and as brief as possible.

For most people (i.e. beginners and just above beginners) they don’t know their bodies well enough to distinguish between the two. For example, you have the people who claim their chest gets pumped up from doing lat pulldowns or whatever. Or who can’t isolate their lats during a row movement and take out their biceps.

For these people, I say just do the movement and the muscle will come. That’s is the nature of the EVOLUTION of the lifter. You must pay this price and there is no short cut or way around it.

So no one ask. Just do the fucking work.

For a more advanced lifter (the one that can flex any muscle on command without actually moving), it is easy to separate between muscle and movement. So for these people, I would have them dictate why they are doing a lift and let that determine how they should perform it.

it has been my experience that you need to treat much of the accessory work (for an advanced lifter) as a “muscle” - but must use enough weight to get some activation.

For everyone else - do the sets/reps and complete the set 1-3 reps short of failure.
[/quote]

Thanks Jim, that’s exactly the sort of response I was looking for.

You probabaly don’t need to read past here, but basically is this recommendation based off the fact the beginner lifter isn’t going to burn himself out as easily working multiple big movements in a session as opposed to muscles?

Any way to gauge this activation? Like my hamstrings are tender, after doing my assistance work yesterday (SLDL’s off a plate 5x10 and GM’s 3x15) but they’re not crippled, and should be fine by the time it comes to squat on Friday. Sound about right?

780

[quote]TheDudeAbides wrote:
Hanley wrote:

Hanging Leg Raises are awesome, I really like them - Hanging Leg Raise - YouTube

I prefer doing them with ab-slings tho because my shoulders tend to get pretty fcuked doing them like I did in the video.

The progression I used was knees to elbow, straight legs parallel to the ground, straight leg holds, then just manning up and going for full range reps, getting as many good ones as I could, cheating the rest up and then controlling them down.

Prior to doing them in the video above I hadn’t done thme in a good 6-9 months. I only tried them to see if I could. I was able to do them better than ever because I’d been pushing my ab work hard - pulldown abs and weighted decline sit ups!

so doing pull-down abs and decline sit-ups improved your leg raise ability … it seems like those are better ab strengthening exercises than the leg raise, no?[/quote]

That’s what I was getting at… the pulldown abs can be hard to make work tho. You really need to play about with them. Hanging leg raises are simple… make your fucking feet touch the bar. No room for screwing up there really!!