Yesterday I wrapped 5 cycles/4 months of 531 - Full Body. I'm going to go over the way I set it up, and then the progress #'s.
Here's a comparison of the textbook version of this variation and what I did:
3-Days
Wendler:
Regular Squat every session; one 531, two with lower %/reps
Me:
Regular Squat on 531 day, Pause Squats the other two with the lower %/reps. Pause Squats help me keep my form in check.
Wendler:
Military Press with 531 sets/reps on Press/Deadlift day
Me:
I used Klokov presses instead just because I wanted to give the movement a good try. Also, every 3rd or 4th session I would use Paul Carter's Strong-15 scheme to understand where my top end strength on the movement was in comparison to the high-reps I was getting on my 531 top set (it was always lower than projected).
Wendler:
Puts out a lot of DB/one-arm/one-leg movements as potential options for assistance
Me:
Everything was done with a barbell, or lifting my body off the floor (chins and dips)
Wendler:
One Squat, One Press, One Pull movement per session.
Me:
That plus a few cycles where I threw in ONE additional accessory movement per day targeted to bring up one certain muscle group per cycle. So I would settle on a muscle group, and add one movement to each lifting session for that area. I did this for two cycles with shoulders/traps, and one cycle with legs.
That's it. I consider that directly in-line with the principals of the program as laid out by Wendler. The only place one might quibble is with the additional movement added to bring up a muscle group, however I always had enough energy to get a quality work-out on all the lifts, and my numbers never seemed to suffer from the added work.
On to my progress:
There are a few ways to look at this, but I'm going to start with progress on the individual lifts. One note on this: I reset my max on everything after the first cycle because I was stalling really quickly following the 2-day program I'd been on for the summer, and that's why the initial weights don't seem far off from the final weights. I also started pausing all bench reps on my chest, and this further reduced my initial #'s. With that out of the way:
Squat -
Best lift first cycle: 225X4, projected 1RM 250
Best lift final cycle: 225X8, projected 1RM 280
30 lb. increase
Bench -
Best lift first cycle: 160X4 (touch-and-go), projected 1RM 180
Best lift final cycle: 165X6 (all paused on chest), projected 1RM 195
15 lb. increase PLUS added pause at bottom
Klokovs -
Best lift first cycle: 70X12, projected 1RM 95
Best lift final cycle: 85X11, projected 1RM 115
20 lb. increase
Deadlift -
Best lift first cycle: 295X1 (awful); projected 1RM 305 (previous best was 345)
Best lift last cycle: 290X8; projected 1RM 360
60 lb. increase
Something else I started tracking, and another way to look at progress, is that I logged my projected "total" for each week, and then my average total for each cycle. So for example, in week 1, I projected at 240, 175, 305 for a 720 total, I found that number for each week, and then took the average of all 3 weeks per cycle to get my average total for the cycle. Progress looks like this:
Cycle 1 -
720, 735, 720 for Average Total - 725
Cycle 5 -
780, 835, 820 for Average Total - 810
85 lb. increase
Looking at it this way results in a very conservative number by which to judge my current standing. Rather than just taking my best individual lifts across the whole program and saying my final total is maybe 835, I can safely say that my total is
at least 810.
So there are two different ways to look at my progress. I think the bottom line here is that progress was demonstrably made.
As to how I
feel about the training like this? I loved it. I really did. It was hard to talk myself into transitioning into something else. This type of full body layout using only a compound barbell or bodyweight movements is the kind of thing I've wanted to try since I started reading Chaos and Pain, and it really worked for me mentally. Also, I've long felt that in addition to the Big-3, my long-term staples would be standing OHP, BB Rows, Chins and Dips. This program allowed me to ONLY to do those things for a long time, and it was awesome. I expect I will return to this from now on for a significant portion of each year's training.
