Things change. Life gets in the way. My knees are bad. I wish I had the time. It'll be my New Years’ resolution. I'm too old...we've all heard someone use these excuses when it comes to training. We scoff at these weak-minded people, but these people are the norm. And who can blame them?
The crap that is out there on the internet and the crap that many personal trainers are hawking is just that—crap. And don’t forget coaches, too. Many high school and college coaches don't have any idea how to make their athletes better at their given sports through strength training. So because our culture is full of misinformation, who can blame your average gym goers for getting nowhere? Why lift heavy?
Deadlifting and squatting are bad for you. Don’t touch your chest on the bench because it's bad for your shoulders. Because many of these myths have found their way into commercial gyms across the country, why are we surprised that people come up with excuses for why they don’t train hard any more or train at all? Seriously, who wants to train hard if you don’t get results? While I know that many of these things might never change completely, I choose instead to testify to all who will listen about my own personal success with 5/3/1.
I began 5/3/1 in August 2008, so I've had a little over four years of experience with the program. In those four years, I've learned a lot about myself and what works for me in regards to training. I most certainly don't claim to be an expert or an innovator. Obviously, I'm not an elite powerlifter either. But as my numbers clearly show, I've made great progress. I'm very proud of my accomplishments. I lift raw and I'm drug-free. More importantly, I'm still making progress, and I'm just days away from celebrating my fortieth birthday. Yeah, I'm playing the “age card” but just to demonstrate that getting stronger isn't just something you can do in your twenties or early thirties.
So anyway, here are my numbers from August 2008 to August 2012:
- Squat: 425 X 1 to 405 X 12 and 500 X 3
- Bench: 365 X 1 to 425 X 1 and 250 X 20
- Deadlift: 520 X 1 to 500 X 10
Again, I realize that I'm not setting any world records here, but I do believe that my progress is noteworthy. I don’t have the military press listed because I've spent the last two years using the barbell incline press as my substitute for the military press. Why? I began training in my basement and the ceiling is too low to do standing military presses, and I think seated military presses suck.
So why did I write this article? To complain about commercial gyms? Just to brag? Nope and nope. My main purpose for writing this article is to list what worked for me and list what didn't work for me. I haven't always been right, so I've also learned many hard lessons in my training. I wish to share those mistakes so that others can possibly learn from them.
First, I'll give an account of all the good things that I've learned in my 5/3/1 experience. These won't be earth shattering to many people, but I'm just reaffirming that these things worked for me. Keep in mind that I'm on the brink of turning forty years old. If you're much younger, I recommend 5/3/1 for football. Just follow it to the letter.
The best general decision I arrived at in my 5/3/1 experience is training three days a week. I was such a stubborn idiot about going from four days to three days a week. More is better, right? Well, about a year or so into 5/3/1, I switched to three days a week and everything got better. I got stronger. I felt better. I had more time to condition. I had more time for life. Less was actually better!
The next best discovery I had was to give up my Westside bias toward the idea of max effort training. I don't mean any disrespect here. I just believe that some of the principles don't fit well with 5/3/1. First along this line is the conjugation of exercises. At first, I switched from sumo to conventional deadlifts every four weeks and box squats to free squats. I subbed in things like the floor press and the cage static press for the bench press. Although I liked the variety, my progress was very slow. However, as soon as I switched to sticking with the basics—free squats, conventional deadlifts, and bench presses—my progress skyrocketed.
Next is the bias toward reps in the one- to five-rep range. Personally, I discovered that I make better progress with reps in the five- to fifteen-rep range more than the one- to five-rep range. Every time I go back and review time periods in my logs when I was setting personal record after personal record, my final sets were done for higher reps than one to five.
Finally, the whole “bands and chains thing” was as tough as Copenhagen to quit. Every once in a while I get the urge to do a few sets of banded squats or bench with the chains as an accessory lift. Sometimes I give in and sometimes I don’t. But regardless, it's never a staple in my training anymore. It's more like an occasional walk down memory lane.
Just the other day, I was rereading The Tao of B by Glenn Buechlein, and I came across his “Keepers and Throwbacks” section of exercises. I'll copy his format and list my own keepers and throwbacks. The “keepers” are up first.
I'll lump all the best bodyweight exercises together and make them my number one keeper. Pull-ups/chin-ups, dips, glute ham raises, and push-ups have been a constant part of my training. Every time I start rededicating myself to improving one of these exercises, my big lifts go up. It's easy to get bored with these, so I've found that alternating between weighted and bodyweight-only days of these have helped me to break up the monotony.
My next keeper is the 'boring but big' concept. Any time a major lift of mine needs a jump start, I go to 'boring but big' for ten weeks. It always seems to get me over the hump. Personally, I've had the best success with the 'boring but big' bench and deadlift. My favorite squat keeper is the 3 X 3 of three point, three-second pause squats, as recommended by Joe DeFranco. I've never had an accessory lift that raised a main lift as quickly as these babies do.
Finally, my other “keepers” are the same as everyone else’s—weighted abdominal work, safety squat bar good mornings, Kroc rows, lunges, hanging leg raises, and chest-supported rows. One keeper and time-saver that I developed on my own (I'm sure other people have figured this one out, too) is shrugs after every deadlift set. It's so easy to just bang out some shrugs while the bar is in your hands and almost foolish not to shrug every set. My normal goal is 50–150 total shrugs on every deadlift day.
My last keeper is more than a lift or an exercise. It's conditioning. In my opinion, conditioning is a must for everyone. Elite powerlifters know they need it. Athletes know they need it. Ironically, there are many average gym goers who will devote ninety minutes a week to biceps but don't have any time for conditioning. I agree with Jim Wendler that the Prowler® and hill sprints are the best two forms of conditioning, but I also think that there are some other things worth doing as well. Tire flips, sled drags, interval sprints, boot camp-type classes, and shorter distance runs (one to three miles) are all keepers for me. During the last four years, I've had peaks and valleys with conditioning, but if my conditioning was poor, so was my progress with the weights. Every time I tried to focus on just getting big and strong, and neglected conditioning, it didn’t work. In my opinion, conditioning needs to be a keeper for everyone for life.
On a side note, buying my own Prowler™ was one of the best investments I have ever made. Shortly after buying my own, I went to a local gym that didn't have one and offered to do a free class one Saturday in the parking lot. Many gym goers hated it, but a handful at least developed the “love/hate” thing many of us have with the Prowler®. Long story short, the gym owner hired me to teach “Prowler® class” twice a week. It's very cool to get paid to push the Prowler® and watch others puke pushing it.
I'll use some humility now and talk about all the dumb stuff and the mistakes I've logged over the last four years. I've already mentioned the switching of major exercises every four weeks—dumb. I've already mentioned training four days a week. For me at least, this was dumb. However, since three days a week was so much better than four days a week, I figured why not just lift twice a week? Unfortunately, I went too far with my best idea and eventually switched to training two days a week. This didn't work. I also know why it didn’t work. I tried to do too much on those days and not enough of the same things week to week. For example, I squatted 5/3/1, did 'boring but big' squats, and did abs and glute ham raises on a Friday. The following Friday I deadlifted, did 5 X 10 safety squat bar good mornings, and did abs and reverse hypers. I was so stinking sore after those days that it was ruining my quality of life. Conversely, my bench and military days were very similar—5/3/1 lift, pull-ups, dips, and neck work. I made progress with my upper body but not my lower body during that horrible fall of 2010. Around Christmas 2010, I went back to three times a week and everything got better again.
I would be arrogant if I didn't mention the mistakes I made of starting too heavy, going for rep maxes too often, and trying to do too much volume too soon. But it seems that most people’s 5/3/1 path always leads them to these unfortunate stops along the way. Yet, these steps backward almost seem to be unavoidable and part of the process. I'll cite one specific example that illustrates all three of these mistakes simultaneously:
In October 2011, I strained my left delt/pec tie-in while benching. I was getting my required reps easily but decided that I wanted to go for a big PR because it was 315 pounds (three plates per side). Despite feeling a little beat up, I went for it and injured myself. I went light for about four weeks after that, deloading and just doing required reps with a very slow, controlled tempo. Well, wouldn’t you know, I had an old friend stop by for bench day and I “went for it” again and really strained the injury. Dumb! I decided to be “smart.” I deloaded and reset my training max all the way down to about 60–65 percent of my max. This meant really light weights for a while. But after doing the light weights for the required reps for only four weeks, I wanted to “go for it” again. For most of the winter and well into the spring, it was great. I was setting rep records every time I benched. These records were in the twelve- to 22-reps range, but I felt great. In fact, I felt so great that I added 'boring but big' bench presses to the workout. I loved it. But then very suddenly, I got weaker. Somewhere around April or May 2012, my reps records stopped, and I wasn’t even close. I went backward and my shoulders were killing me. Dumb! Since then, I've moved my grip in, lowered the volume of lifts, and emphasized a lot of triceps work. I only go for rep records maybe one out of five bench days and my strength is coming back. Live and learn.
Earlier in this article, I mentioned the idea of lifts that were “keepers.” This paragraph will be devoted to the idea of “throwbacks” or lifts that I feel don't give me much benefit personally. Number one on this list for me has to be partial range movements. Board presses, rack lockouts, rack pulls, and other movements like these all have their place in training, just not in my training. I only end up getting injured.
Number two throwback is any heavy arm work. I only get injured doing heavy nose-busters or barbell curls. Conversely, high rep dumbbell triceps extensions, triceps push-downs, and high rep hammer curls or EZ-bar curls have done wonders for my size, strength, and elbow health.
My final throwback might offend some people, but it's your social life. I'm not trying to be anti-night life, anti-drinking, anti-fun, preachy or judgmental, but what I can tell you from experience is that I dramatically cleaned up in this area, and I made more progress than any other time in my life. I'm not against “having a few” once in a while, but staying up late and/or getting blasted on a regular basis is definitely a throwback for me. Please don’t take my throwbacks too seriously though. If you're the board press master or love getting drunk every night, by all means continue what you do and have fun. I just wanted to mention what I've learned as it relates to 5/3/1.
In conclusion, I must say that through the good times and the bad, 5/3/1 has been by my side for the last four years like a companion. No matter what life has thrown at me, the program has had the simplicity and flexibility to adapt and overcome any obstacle. With nothing but positives to list, I recommend 5/3/1 to anyone looking to get in better shape, get stronger, get bigger, be a better athlete, or just enjoy themselves in the weight room. This program has truly changed my life for the better. God willing, I hope to be eighty years old someday and still pushing the Prowler® and talking about rep maxes with my training partners!
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