If you have a good mentor, I think westside definitely has its place, especially for the geared lifter. I am not sure how well the routine works for a novice honestly since speed work is probably not necessary at all. Louie would have a much better answer than I could provide as a substitute for DE Days. Westside works well, the results speak for themselves.
I also think Sheiko works well, but anyone that reads my logs knows I feel this way b/c I’ve had good results. I think the lack of progressive overload and focus on higher intensity lifting over longer periods w/o a decrease in volume works. Oly lifters do this and sheiko is honestly just a modified OLY lifting protocol, especially considering most of your work sets are in the 80% range so you can handle bigger weights longer. You simply don’t burn out as quickly on it. I also like the idea of training 2 competition lifts in one workout. With proper deloading, I’ve moved my squat up consistently from 440x1 in a metal suit to 573x1 in just single ply briefs. Basically, I hit triple body weight on squat w/o using a full suit with a chronic back injury. The routine really prepares your body for volume and intensity if you wanted to sum it up in one sentence. The Russians, Ukranians, and Wade Hooper really show what the routine can do for your lifting ability and meet preparedness.
There are others, but I haven’t used them. If you look at what many lifters use, its not like 531 at all, since some use loading like 5x5 or 8x3 early on, like Dave Ricks, and then move onto a progressive load / lower volume closer to the meet, a very American / Western philosophy of lifting.
531 was designed for the non-geared lifter who wants in and out of the gym quickly. This is what Wendler states. He even states in the pdf that he does not know how to apply the routine to a geared lifter, and doesn’t have much of an interest to. I think a geared lifter would need to change the routine to have both raw and equipped days, especially 1/2 way through a cycle leading up to a meet where more gear and less raw is the focus. At least, the lift would have to have a 2nd squat movement, possibly a second deadlift movement, even for bench imo. Military press doesn’t correlate very well to powerlifting and it could be cut out altogether. I guess you could use that day as a second bench day, but then you’re changing around the routine quite a bit. I also think the volume as a whole is fairly low and could stand to be increased dramatically. I think thats why I say its not the best.
531 just seems to be focused for people who want to get back into shape, specifically raw, and just get strong while being in the gym for an hour or less. Get in, get out. Nothing wrong with that, but I think Wendler’s goal is to more-so to provide an easy to do routine for anyone who just wants to get stonger while keeping things simple and specifically applying that to people who can only spend an hour in the gym per lifting session.
I’ll sum it up, lack of volume. The more you train lifts (now, I don’t say heavier, just more often) the more of a technician you’ll become and you’ll be back to really do well at a meet. Working up to 5+ reps at the end or 3+ doesn’t really seem to fit into a powerlifting philsophy as much as almost a BBing philosophy to just stimulate the muscle to near fatigue.
I am not anti-531, hell, I’m trying to apply the routine to myself b/c I have issues w/ deadlift volume, but for joe blow who wants to get into powerlifting, you have to dedicate more time to just practice the lifts and that requires more sets.