timhieuvetrello
New member
The response to my first thread about 5/3/1 for the over 30 crowd was tremendous. I want to continue with a number of follow-up threads covering different aspects of the program, and sharing the tips and tweaks I’ve used to fine tune the program for my over 30 needs. Some of these discussions will overlap because it’s hard to separate a lot of these things into discrete topics.
I’m aiming to post these threads once a week until I run out of ideas. Some of them will be long (like this one), and some will be a lot shorter. Again, I’m only speaking from my experience, and there are plenty of others on this board who have been running 5/3/1 for a long time. I hope they will continue to offer their perspectives on these threads.
Today I want to address something that came up on the first thread: the “+” sets. This is a good place to start because it’s such a big part of the program, and because I know from experience that the over 30 crowd must approach these sets with a great deal of discretion. If you’re a 20 year old on 5/3/1, you can perhaps afford to be a little cavalier and push those “+” sets as far as you can. But as I learned the hard way, there’s probably no easier way to ravage an over 30 body than by abusing the “+” sets.
++
If you missed it, last week I ended up in a little argument about what exactly Jim Wendler says about the “+” sets. Truth is Wendler has said a bunch of different things about the “+” sets and some of them seem (and maybe are) contradictory. Unless it’s a deload week, you’re always trying to exceed the minimum number of prescribed reps on the final work set. The first week you do 5 or more. The second week it’s 3 or more. For the third week, 1 or more. But how many more should you really do?
In the 5/3/1 book Wendler says “The last set of the day is all-out. You’ll be going for as many reps as possible.” If that’s all you read, then it sounds like he’s advising you to go to failure, and it’s plainly obvious to me that a whole lot of people stop reading right there. But that’s not what he intends to say, as he makes explicit in the very next sentence: “I hesitate to tell anyone to do anything to failure, because that's not what I'm after. I wouldn't prescribe this.” So how are you supposed to think about the “or more” part of the “+” sets?
I think the best answer is the one given in the book’s FAQ: leave at least half a rep, or even one full rep, in the tank. This is also the answer Wendler repeats elsewhere. Indeed, elsewhere he suggests leaving more than one rep in the tank. His website’s FAQ, for instance, suggests leaving “at least 1 full rep in the tank,” and also adds that “Jim always leaves 2-3.” That FAQ, in fact, even says that “many people would be best served if they did the last set for the set reps…or just a few over and call it a day.”
How do you know if you’ve got another rep (or two) in the tank? Some of that is just experience. After a while, you should develop a pretty good sense of your body and its limits. But I also think this is usually predictable, provided you pay close attention to your rep maxes.
If, for instance, I lifted 90 lbs for 8 reps in week 1, 95 lbs for 6 in week 2, then (using the Lander formula) my rep max for week 1 would be about 113 lbs, and 111 lbs for week 2. I also know, for upper body at least, the Lander formula has proven fairly accurate for me. So if I’m lifting 100 lbs in week 3, I should almost certainly get 4 reps (a rep max of 110), and I might even get 5 reps (a rep max of 114). I would also know that 6 reps (117 rep max), though not impossible, could prove a stretch.
If it were me, and it was a lousy day, I’d probably settle for 4. Sure I’d leave one or two in the tank, but 4 is still 400% of the minimum, which isn’t too shabby. If things went well, I’d be ecstatic at 5 because that would be a modest rep max. But if I hit 5, and started to wonder if I could do just one more, I hope I’d put my ego aside and walk away. Better to leave that last one in the tank.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the most critical part of the final set isn’t the “+” repetitions, but the prescribed minimum. Get the minimum, and you can rightfully progress. Get more than the minimum, and that’s just a bonus. It’s a great bonus, and one you definitely want to push for, but it’s not the absolutely essential part of that set. It’s not what really counts.
++
Leave something in the tank so that you can come back and lift another day. How’d I learn this lesson? Here’s the story of my deadlift. (‡)
When I started 5/3/1 deadlift was probably my very best lift. I’ve got long arms, and the movement came naturally to me. My weight had always gone up and up and up. I also discovered that I could deadlift at pretty high volumes. Even if I left a rep in the tank, I was still achieving rep maxes well above my tested true max. That was my undoing.
I always went to town on the deadlift “+” sets because I could go to town on them. I took that as a sign that everything was going great. And it was -- for five or six cycles. Then I’d completely fall apart. It wasn’t that I was approaching my true max. It was that, seemingly without warning, weights I’d lifted easily the previous cycle (or even the previous week) just wouldn’t budge, and it felt like every cell in my body was saying “hey, jerk, we’re not doing this crap anymore.” It wasn’t just a bad day. I was fried.
I tried all sorts of things. Instead of 10 lbs increments, I went with 5 lbs jumps. No change. I changed up the assistance work. Didn’t make a difference. The only thing I didn’t do was decrease the volume on the “+” sets. I kept pushing those, because my instinct was always to work harder. After the third time, I got it through my head that maybe, just maybe, the “+” sets were the problem. So I capped the reps on those sets.
Just because I could do more, didn’t mean I should do more. Sometimes I’ll do two additional reps. Usually I just do one. Some days I don’t do any extra reps at all. Today I regularly leave two or three reps in the tank. The result: I feel like I’m finally in control of my deadlift progress.
In retrospect, the problem and solution were glaringly obvious. I just couldn’t see it, because I was so caught up in destroying those “+” sets, and obliterating my old rep maxes. (‡‡) But I had it all backwards. The whole point of 5/3/1 is to progress from month to month, and year to year. If destroying the “+” sets actually ends up destroying you, then you’re not going to progress.
‡ Deadlift may not be the best example here, but it’s the only one I’ve personally got. A lot of people think high rep deadlifts are nutty. I’ve come around to that view myself.
‡‡ The really crazy thing was that I didn’t treat any of my other lifts like deadlift. For press, squat, and bench, I was always cautious and conservative in my “+” sets.
++
So those are my thoughts about the “+” sets, and the story of my horrible, not-to-be emulated, example. I’ve got some more to say about rep maxes, but that’s for another time.
For now, let’s leave it at this: You have to balance things right if you want to make progress in the weightroom, and if you’re over 30 you probably have to balance things just right. If you’re not careful, those “+” sets can be an almost irresistible temptation to screw up that balance. And for a long time on my deadlift, boy did I ever screw it up!
I’m aiming to post these threads once a week until I run out of ideas. Some of them will be long (like this one), and some will be a lot shorter. Again, I’m only speaking from my experience, and there are plenty of others on this board who have been running 5/3/1 for a long time. I hope they will continue to offer their perspectives on these threads.
Today I want to address something that came up on the first thread: the “+” sets. This is a good place to start because it’s such a big part of the program, and because I know from experience that the over 30 crowd must approach these sets with a great deal of discretion. If you’re a 20 year old on 5/3/1, you can perhaps afford to be a little cavalier and push those “+” sets as far as you can. But as I learned the hard way, there’s probably no easier way to ravage an over 30 body than by abusing the “+” sets.
++
If you missed it, last week I ended up in a little argument about what exactly Jim Wendler says about the “+” sets. Truth is Wendler has said a bunch of different things about the “+” sets and some of them seem (and maybe are) contradictory. Unless it’s a deload week, you’re always trying to exceed the minimum number of prescribed reps on the final work set. The first week you do 5 or more. The second week it’s 3 or more. For the third week, 1 or more. But how many more should you really do?
In the 5/3/1 book Wendler says “The last set of the day is all-out. You’ll be going for as many reps as possible.” If that’s all you read, then it sounds like he’s advising you to go to failure, and it’s plainly obvious to me that a whole lot of people stop reading right there. But that’s not what he intends to say, as he makes explicit in the very next sentence: “I hesitate to tell anyone to do anything to failure, because that's not what I'm after. I wouldn't prescribe this.” So how are you supposed to think about the “or more” part of the “+” sets?
I think the best answer is the one given in the book’s FAQ: leave at least half a rep, or even one full rep, in the tank. This is also the answer Wendler repeats elsewhere. Indeed, elsewhere he suggests leaving more than one rep in the tank. His website’s FAQ, for instance, suggests leaving “at least 1 full rep in the tank,” and also adds that “Jim always leaves 2-3.” That FAQ, in fact, even says that “many people would be best served if they did the last set for the set reps…or just a few over and call it a day.”
How do you know if you’ve got another rep (or two) in the tank? Some of that is just experience. After a while, you should develop a pretty good sense of your body and its limits. But I also think this is usually predictable, provided you pay close attention to your rep maxes.
If, for instance, I lifted 90 lbs for 8 reps in week 1, 95 lbs for 6 in week 2, then (using the Lander formula) my rep max for week 1 would be about 113 lbs, and 111 lbs for week 2. I also know, for upper body at least, the Lander formula has proven fairly accurate for me. So if I’m lifting 100 lbs in week 3, I should almost certainly get 4 reps (a rep max of 110), and I might even get 5 reps (a rep max of 114). I would also know that 6 reps (117 rep max), though not impossible, could prove a stretch.
If it were me, and it was a lousy day, I’d probably settle for 4. Sure I’d leave one or two in the tank, but 4 is still 400% of the minimum, which isn’t too shabby. If things went well, I’d be ecstatic at 5 because that would be a modest rep max. But if I hit 5, and started to wonder if I could do just one more, I hope I’d put my ego aside and walk away. Better to leave that last one in the tank.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the most critical part of the final set isn’t the “+” repetitions, but the prescribed minimum. Get the minimum, and you can rightfully progress. Get more than the minimum, and that’s just a bonus. It’s a great bonus, and one you definitely want to push for, but it’s not the absolutely essential part of that set. It’s not what really counts.
++
Leave something in the tank so that you can come back and lift another day. How’d I learn this lesson? Here’s the story of my deadlift. (‡)
When I started 5/3/1 deadlift was probably my very best lift. I’ve got long arms, and the movement came naturally to me. My weight had always gone up and up and up. I also discovered that I could deadlift at pretty high volumes. Even if I left a rep in the tank, I was still achieving rep maxes well above my tested true max. That was my undoing.
I always went to town on the deadlift “+” sets because I could go to town on them. I took that as a sign that everything was going great. And it was -- for five or six cycles. Then I’d completely fall apart. It wasn’t that I was approaching my true max. It was that, seemingly without warning, weights I’d lifted easily the previous cycle (or even the previous week) just wouldn’t budge, and it felt like every cell in my body was saying “hey, jerk, we’re not doing this crap anymore.” It wasn’t just a bad day. I was fried.
I tried all sorts of things. Instead of 10 lbs increments, I went with 5 lbs jumps. No change. I changed up the assistance work. Didn’t make a difference. The only thing I didn’t do was decrease the volume on the “+” sets. I kept pushing those, because my instinct was always to work harder. After the third time, I got it through my head that maybe, just maybe, the “+” sets were the problem. So I capped the reps on those sets.
Just because I could do more, didn’t mean I should do more. Sometimes I’ll do two additional reps. Usually I just do one. Some days I don’t do any extra reps at all. Today I regularly leave two or three reps in the tank. The result: I feel like I’m finally in control of my deadlift progress.
In retrospect, the problem and solution were glaringly obvious. I just couldn’t see it, because I was so caught up in destroying those “+” sets, and obliterating my old rep maxes. (‡‡) But I had it all backwards. The whole point of 5/3/1 is to progress from month to month, and year to year. If destroying the “+” sets actually ends up destroying you, then you’re not going to progress.
‡ Deadlift may not be the best example here, but it’s the only one I’ve personally got. A lot of people think high rep deadlifts are nutty. I’ve come around to that view myself.
‡‡ The really crazy thing was that I didn’t treat any of my other lifts like deadlift. For press, squat, and bench, I was always cautious and conservative in my “+” sets.
++
So those are my thoughts about the “+” sets, and the story of my horrible, not-to-be emulated, example. I’ve got some more to say about rep maxes, but that’s for another time.
For now, let’s leave it at this: You have to balance things right if you want to make progress in the weightroom, and if you’re over 30 you probably have to balance things just right. If you’re not careful, those “+” sets can be an almost irresistible temptation to screw up that balance. And for a long time on my deadlift, boy did I ever screw it up!