Nice progress man. I don’t know if you bought Wendler’s 5/3/1 manual or not, but in there he says to reset a lift once you can no longer get the prescribed number of reps on it. Like recalculate your 1RM, take 90% of that, and start over.
also what accessory are you doing?
In three months my deadlift went from 425 to 505. I was pleased.
I’ll just copy/paste a post from my website/workout journal:
[quote]So I have been doing a 5/3/1 workout for 14 months or so now. In that time, I have:
â?¢Improved my squat by approximately 100 pounds. My first 5/3/1 workout was 285Ã?6. My top working set yesterday was 380Ã?5.
â?¢Yesterday, I crushed a 405 lb. squat after my top working set. In fact, I had at least 1 more rep in me at that weight.
â?¢Improved my deadlift from a 5/3/1 max of 280Ã?5 (a 326 1RM), to 345Ã?8 (436 1RM)
â?¢This week, I was able to pull 410Ã?2 after that max 5/3/1 set.
My Good mornings (post squat workout) are up to about 265, and my RDLs (post DL workout), are up to 300.
Now, my upper body lifts arenâ??t great, despite my best efforts:
â?¢My Military press was a paltry 105Ã?7, and last week I was able to knock out 150Ã?5. A 1RM increase of about 50 pounds.
â?¢My bench press has improved from 235Ã?7 (Hammer Strength flat bench) to 235Ã?2 (freeweight bench). While the 1RM didnâ??t increase, I did transition only 2 or 3 months ago from what is essentially an assisted bench press, to freeweight presses.
Iâ??m concentrating on my accessory work on my upper body right now. My lifts arenâ??t super great, so I am working on making my base stronger. I am still doing my BBB routine for military press and bench press. I do it at roughly 50%.[/quote]
My deadlifts have continued to progress, as has my bench, MP, and squat, since the time I wrote this post a month ago. I basically added 10 pounds per cycle to my squat and deadlift, and 5 pounds per cycle to my military press. My bench totals have always risen as well, whether on the Hammer machine or the free bench.
So far I’ve done 4 cycles:
Bench is up from 295/1 to 315/2 (I haven’t done another 1RM test yet)
Squat is up from 295/1 to 355/1
Deadlift from 365/1 to 435/1
Press is up from 185/1 to 165/9 (Haven’t done a 1RM test again yet)
As of right now on my fifth cycle. in competition about 4 cycles in my numbers went up 90 pounds
Been on the program since October 1, 2010, and on most of my lifts I have not progressed past my previous maxes just yet. A few more months though and I should. When I started my max squat was 275x3, and when that weight appears at the heaviest week of my 5/3/1 will be the end of March sometime, so Jim’s right about it going slow. I don’t mind though, I’m gaining strength in other ways, such as higher reps and such.
Almost done with cycle 3…weights going up nicely…and feel like this is a program you could do for a long long time while keeping injuries and overtraining at bay.
Started doing 5/3/1 after finishing rehab and I’m in the deload week of cycle 3 now.
Haven’t tested my maxes yet, just kept adding some weight each new cycle.
Squat: +60
Deadlift: +100
BP: +30
MP: +20
The second cycle I just completely disregarded the instructions for increasing the weights and ended up adding 25 for the squat and DL and 10 for BP and MP. The increase in weights doesn’t say it all though, the number of reps you will be doing on that last set will increase even as the weight goes up.
I’ve just finished my 3rd cycle of 5/3/1.
Weight in kg, estimated 1RM in brackets
MP: 32.5 x 12 (45) to 40 x 9 (52).
DL: 115 x 6 (138) to 147.5 x 8 (187). I think about 30kg of this is from switching from double overhand grip to a one under/one over grip.
BP: 70 x 8 (89) to 82.5 x 4 (93).
Squat: 117 x 11 (160) to 132 x 10 (176).
I’m pretty happy with the results. I’ve been trying to work on my bench technique so I think all the tinkering and thinking about what I’m doing has slowed the possible gains there.
I totaled 1422 raw in July of 2010. From then until December, I ran 5/3/1. In December I totaled 1438. Not a huge increase, but I’ve been powerlifting for 10 years, so I’ll take it.
I will say that in my opinion for purely strength gain, take whatever you max for hill sprints are and do half of them after each session and then use the boring but big template. For RAW lifters any time you can work accessory work with the same lift as your main lift your main lift will go up.
I’ve maxed out on all my core lifts this week, and my gains from early August till now are as followed:
Bench- 215x1 to 245x1
Squat- 285x1 to 335x1
Deadlift- 415x1 to 455x1 (probably could have hit higher weights, but didnt wanna be a douche to people waiting for me to finish)
OHP- 140x1 to 170x1
I have not gained much weight, staying around the 165-170lbs range
I ran it for 8 cycles and got negligible gains: deadlift 30lb, bench 15lb, squat 20lb, 65lb total
Then I ran actual powerlifting routines: sheiko, korte, smolov jr bench and smolov squats.
I ran all those routines in 8 months (same amount of time I spent on 5/3/1) I gained: deadlift 90lb, bench 35lb, squat 100lb, 225lb total (3x the gains I got on 5/3/1).
Note that I’m still a noob when it comes to lifting (405/245/455 @ 205lbs), but I think the progress of 5/3/1 is too slow, or maybe I did some mistakes while running it, I don’t know.
[quote]CyberDen wrote:
I ran it for 8 cycles and got negligible gains: deadlift 30lb, bench 15lb, squat 20lb, 65lb total
Then I ran actual powerlifting routines: sheiko, korte, smolov jr bench and smolov squats.
I ran all those routines in 8 months (same amount of time I spent on 5/3/1) I gained: deadlift 90lb, bench 35lb, squat 100lb, 225lb total (3x the gains I got on 5/3/1).
Note that I’m still a noob when it comes to lifting (405/245/455 @ 205lbs), but I think the progress of 5/3/1 is too slow, or maybe I did some mistakes while running it, I don’t know.[/quote]
Id say its too slow for the level you were at. 5lbs a month is great but when you are new to powerlifting, you are able to do more linear progression. Usually weekly.