If you haven't, well, now you have.
This is a strength program developed for people who want to get stronger. If that statement seems redundant, a quick glance through one of Wendler's books will tell you that this man is nothing if not direct. No frills, no "functional" training, no imbalance correction, and no equipment that comes in colors other than gray or black. He is a meathead worthy of the title, and while he doesn't go so far as to throw decades of lifting science out the window, he insists that the only measure that matters in the gym is the weight on the bar.
Though seven years of gym experience that encompass a Bachelor's degree in Kinesiology and two training certifications, I feel I am qualified to agree that, scientifically, you should indeed lift weights in an effort to get stronger. So, you know, he has science to back him up.
I haven't had a goal to train for since competing in my first -and only- bodybuilding competition back during my Sophomore year at the University of Kentucky, so my training has been without constant direction for some time now. Like many lifters, I'd go through spurts of different programs. I did Crossfit for a year, and when my elbows stopped working I get really into the corrective exercises of rehab and prehab (go figure), then I went back to bodybuilding for size, then I decided I should have a six-pack year round (HA.), then I got into Olympic lifting....
You can see where this is going. Month after month, year after year of looking the same and being slightly more improved at whatever I was doing at the time but no stronger in anything else.
The one thing that has steadily improved over my years of program hopping has been my deadlift, due entirely to my love affair with it. Seriously, I love me some deadlift. When my deadlift hit 450 for the first time, I entertained the notion of entering a powerlifting competition, momentarily forgetting that you also have to be good at the squat and bench press and also 450 is not that impressive. Maybe I just missed that competitive drive, or maybe I just really wanted to wear a singlet, but I now have my sights set on the Georgetown Classic as a raw full powerlifter in the 181 lb class.
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| Pictured: Style. |
5/3/1 is fairly simple. Your main lifts are the press, the deadlift, the bench press, and the squat. You work these lifts on separate days of the week using preset percentages based off of your training max. Your training max is defined by 90% of your best current one rep max in the gym.
Week one has you doing three sets of 5 reps at 65%, 75%, and 85% of your training max on your lift for that day.
Week two has you doing three sets of 3 reps at 70%, 80% and 90% of your training max.
Week three has you doing 5 reps at 75%, 3 reps at 85%, and 1 rep at 95%.
After this three week cycle, you add 5 lbs to your training max for your upper body lifts (the press and the bench press) and 10 lbs to your training max for your lower body lifts (your deadlift and squat).
There is a swarm of different variations and concepts, but that is the gist of the program. If you want more information, please support Jim buy actually buying the 5/3/1 training manual. His four basic principles, in particular, are fantastic, and I'd feel like I was blatantly stealing them by posting them here.
To gain some much-needed size (big muscles are strong muscles, after all), I decided to go with a hypertrophy variation of the 5/3/1 program called "Boring But Big".
In the past, "bulking" has usually consisted of me changing nothing about my training and just eating a lot. I get fat, then I hate feeling fat, than I diet off the fat and I'm back where I started with very little to show for it.
From the start, I had two advantages. The first was the 181 lb weight limit on my chosen class. I know that if I go over that limit and have to compete in the 198 lb class, I will be crushed, perhaps literally. The other is the nature of the program: high volume with slowly heavier weights.
I'm telling you all of this because I started it back in November, and it's been by far the most successful bulk I've ever done.
Disclaimer: I cheated. I didn't do the program 100% as written, because my ego thinks I know better than someone three times stronger and with decades more experience than me. My ego is dumb. Still, it sure did work.
The concept behind the program is simple. The 5/3/1 sets of the big lifts will keep you strong. To get big, though, you need lots of volume. This variation has you doing 5 sets of 10 reps of the bench press after your strength work on your press day (and vice versa) and 5 sets of 10 reps of the squat after your deadlifting strength sets (and vice versa. Yes, 5 sets of 10 deadlifts on your squat day. Yes it is awful.)
So where do you start on those five sets of ten? Easy: 50% of your training max.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS. When you load up the bar with essentially 45% of your one rep max, it seems like a joke, or at the very least a warm-up set before you put the real weight on. I'll admit that my first week had me doing 5 sets of 10 reps on the bench press with 105 lbs. You read that right: an aspiring powerlifter doing 105 lbs. Most beginners start with more than that. It was humiliating, and as I was doing it I hoped people though I was coming back from an injury of some sort, like maybe I had my arms recently re-attached after a horrible farming accident. The weight felt like nothing, even when trying to throw it at the ceiling, and even after all five sets.
The next day I was so sore I could barely move my hands closer together. 50 reps is a lot, even with a "light" weight. Start light and add 5 lbs per week to your press and bench press, and 10 lbs per week to your deadlift and squat for your 5x10 sets. Going up slowly and steadily like this means at the end of the program, your volume for your squat and deadlift go up by 4500 lbs (90 extra pounds over the course of 50 reps) and your upper body pressing volume goes up by 2250 lbs (45 extra pounds over the course of 50 reps). That's a big improvement.
The last thing I'll say regarding this bulking program: Eat. Eat like you're not afraid to gain weight. Weight gainers, whole milk, jars upon jars of peanut butter; any high-calorie food that isn't junk should be going down your gullet in sizable proportions.
The Program
This is a nine week program that has you working out 4 days per week. It is structured as follows:
(note, exercises and stretches under main lifts are meant to be done in a superset fashion, alternating between the two)
Monday:
-Press: 5/3/1 sets and reps
-Pulling exercise x 10 reps between sets (chins, rows, pullaparts, etc)
-Bench Press: 5 sets of 10 at 50% of TM (add 5 lbs next week)
-Chin ups or pulldowns: 5 sets of 10 with moderate load
-Optional 3 sets of ten for biceps, triceps, and upper back
Tuesday:
-Deadlift: 5/3/1 sets and reps
-Stretch hip flexors
-Squat: 5 sets of 10 reps at 50% of TM (add 10 lbs next week)
-Ab work, 5 sets of 10 reps
Thursday:
-Bench press: 5/3/1 sets and reps
-Wide grip pullups/pulldowns, x10
-Press: 5 sets of 10 reps at 50% of TM (add 5 lbs next week)
-Dumbbell row: 5 sets of 10 reps at moderate load
-Optional 3 sets of ten for biceps, triceps, and upper back
Friday
-Squat: 5/3/1 sets and reps
-Stretch hip flexors
-Deadlift: 5 sets of 10 reps at 50% of TM (add 10 lbs next week)
-Ab work: 5 sets of 10 reps, optional crying
There you have it. By the end of this program I was much bigger and much stronger, going from benching 105 for my volume work to benching 155 (if you can do simple addition, you may notice I got ambitious one week and added 10 lbs instead of five. Ego, again, gets in the way.) My chest is much bigger, my arms are bigger (even bigger than when I finished by direct arm training program a year ago), and my squat is much, much better. This isn't some theoretical concept of bulking here; I did this. This exact thing. And it worked. It worked so well, I've put several of my clients on a similar program.
If you do it right, it will work for you too.
