Starting cycle 4 of the Wendler 5/3/1 program.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Press (working max: 140#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x55
  • 1x5x70
  • 1x3x85
  • 1x5x90 (work)
  • 1x5x105
  • 1x7x120
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 65
• Asst. #2 – Supinated, shoulder-width grip lat pulldowns
  • 5 x 10 x 120
• Metcon – sprints
  • 40 yards
  • walk twice
  • jog twice
  • 5 x 1 walk, 1 jog, 1 sprint
  • walk… I dunno… 100 yards, twice, cooldown

And so, starting cycle 4 on Wendler 5/3/1.

Pressing went nicely. Felt good. Weights are feeling heavier, but that’s ok…. just keep pressing! Went up only 5# but remember, last cycle I goofed and went up due to mis-reading my charts and so I’m just continuing up, so it’s a bit of a big jump, but I know I’ll be alright.

On the assistance pressing, a 5# jump but boy it felt harder. I normally take 1 min of rest between sets but I needed a little more here (90 to 120 seconds, never let myself do more than 2 minutes but mostly it was as “ok, do I feel rested enough?” feeling). So my goal during the cycle will be to get my rest periods down.

Pulldowns went well, feeling hard those last few reps of the last few sets. I have wondered if I might want to go up another 5# and let my rest periods here increase too. I’ve been (re)reading more Wendler stuff, including his 5/3/1 Powerlifting book and well… the reason I kept my rest periods during assistance work to 1 minute was to get and keep my heart rate up to add to conditioning. But, if I’m moving into doing prowler and sprints? Do I really want/need that? Better to perhaps lift a big heavier, a bit more intensive on the assistance work, go for 1-2 minutes of rest. Let it be a bit more for mass building, y’know?

Went outside and sprinted. I have those 40-50 yards measured off. I walked it twice, jogged it twice, then did 5 “reps” of walk it, then jog it, then sprint it. That felt enough for today. I also timed it. Now remember, when I jog and sprint I’m doing it with high knees, kinda like I’m tire running but moving forward faster than a tire run would allow. In timing it, it took about 30 seconds to walk it, 20-ish to jog, and 10 to sprint. Hrm. Not exactly the work intervals you want; HIIT wants about a 2:1 ratio of work to rest, but for now, this is alright to help my body adapt and get used to things. But still… I think that perhaps I’ll go with a Tabata format and measure of maybe 90 yards or so, figuring that 80 yards of that sort of sprinting would be about 20 seconds of work, and 10 yards of walking would be about 10 seconds or rest. So, 90 yards, I can go up and back at least 4 and up to 8 times. On Wednesday I may measure that out and see how it goes.

I also thought, again after reading more Wendler yesterday, that I might back off my squat numbers and repeat the same squat numbers from last cycle. Why? Because I’m adding in some intensive leg work and my body needs time to adapt… could take 3-4 weeks for my body to get there, and my squat will suffer for it. But like Wendler says, it’s about long term goals, years, not weeks or even months. You’ll never get weaker by going lighter. I’ll see how I feel tho come next week since the first squat won’t be for another week.