doing a 5/3/1 4 day routine over 3 days..??

onepassionate1

New member
I'm reasonably confident with how to approach this but thought Id double check.

Take the 4 workouts (A,B,C & D) and now do A-C in the the first week and D becomes the first workout of week 2.

From here just keep progressing through the workouts in their sequence.

All it means is the cycle gets extended.

Have I missed anything or is this understanding correct ?
 
@onepassionate1 Wendler has added so many new concepts and iterations of his original 531 they resemble the original program in name only. I would recommend checking out his Beyond 531. Whenever I did a three day a week 531 program, it boiled down to some form of squat heavy/bench light, overhead press/deadlift, bench heavy squat light.
 
@onepassionate1 Just an FYI, in the first and second edition, he recommends either exactly what you are doing for a 3-day program, or alternatively a day where you do both an upper and lower body exercise. All the more intricate modifications came later.

The only real difference he mentions is that if you are using your formula, you may not need to do a full deload progression.
 
@onepassionate1 I have been doing it for about 6 moths or so, and it is pretty good. I needed a workout that was 3 days a week and would take less than an hour, and this was the best that fit the bill.

Progress on this plan is much slower than it was when I was on the 5/3/1 BBB 4 day plan.
 
@onepassionate1 Yes you can definitely do this! I've been doing this for a couple of months and my lifts are all going up while I'm dropping weight. My plan is to run two cycles like this (so that will take 8 weeks) and then do the deload week, 4 days in one week since the deload workouts are quick. I might even make deload a two day and just double up bench & squat and OHP & deadlift. Then I'll do the next two cycles back to back (8 weeks) and then do another deload, 4 days in one week.

Any brah telling you, "Nah don't do this you'll progress much faster if you blah blah blah" will be sitting in the same exact spot in a year while you'll be much stronger and more importantly probably injury-free.
 
@onepassionate1 I started with just sticking to 100g carbs/day, and ensuring I'm eating plenty of fat. But I don't do anything stupid like fat bombs which are LOADED with calories. I'm pretty militant with my Lose It app and I end up tracking calories, too. Rather than going crazy with calculating TDEE exactly (because online calculators are BS) I'm just aiming for 12x body weight in calories, and no more than 100g carbs/day. But again---fatty cuts of meat---brisket, pulled pork, chicken thighs. Not a bad way to live.

I'm attempting to stick with an objective goal, so my goal is simple: a 1RM squat that is 2x my bodyweight. I want to be strong but also relatively lean (I like medium tee shirts) and it seems that people that can squat 2x BW are usually pretty lean. My one metric is every time it's squat day, I weigh myself first thing on an empty stomach and then of course I double that number. That night after my workout I get my new 1RM (because with 5/3/1 every workout should give you a new 1RM, whether it's up or down) and I subtract the 1RM from the 2x my BW. THAT is my key performance indicator---how far I am from a 2x BW squat. That number should go down every week. Even if my 1RM is stagnant or even drops one week, if my bodyweight drops a lot that week my KPI will still decrease. I figure that I'll keep dropping weight until my 1RM stops increasing and then I'll attempt to eat more to get my 1RM to increase, with a weary eye on my bodyweight. I figure I'm at least six months away from my goal.
 
@jackwhite Nice...great explanation and insight in to your process.

I hold a similar goal. My lifts are terrible so am 5/3/1'ing it to bring them up.

A 2 x bodyweight squat is a goal here too (also would like to bench own bodyweight one day). I have probably started quite light with my TM but i figure eventually things will catch up and even themselves out.
 
@onepassionate1 At this point better to avoid injury---gains will come. The hardest thing is staying motivated. I suggest searching podcasts/for Jim Wendler, he always preaches slow and steady and he knows what he's taking about
 
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