No time like the present to change the program, right?

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 15, week 2

• 3 reps – Deadlift (working max: 345#)
  • 1x5x140 (warmup)
  • 1x5x175
  • 1x3x210
  • 1x3x245 (work)
  • 1x3x280
  • 1x7x315
• Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
  • 3 x 12/12/10 x 95
• Asst. #2A – Pullthroughs
  • 3 x 15 x 60/80/100
• Asst. #2B – Pulldown Abs (kneeling)
  • 3 x 15 x 120

Here’s the deal.

Deadlifting is very taxing on the central nervous system. You find lots of solid people recommending to NOT train the deadlift too much by doing deadlifts itself… it’ll just kill you. And so well, while I adore deadlifting, I realize right now that what I need isn’t deadlifting as much as I need to strengthen my hams and glutes. And so, I am going to shift and try to get that worked more heavily. So deadlift days will add specific assistance work targeting glutes and hams, and squat days, I might try lightening the assistance weights even more and squatting even deeper to really hit the posterior chain. There’s no question I have that as a weak point now — it’s evident in both my deadlift and my squat, so I need to work on it.

Thing is, what assistance work to do? There’s a lot of recommendations, and I’m just going to try things until I “find my Kroc Row” (if you’ve read Wendler’s books, you know what I’m referring to).

Good Mornings seem like a good way to start but… I’ve lost a lot of hamstring flexibility. I need to remedy that. Thus what I did today felt like it was hitting my lower back more because there was too much rounding. Still tho, the key seems to be to hit the glutes by squeezing the hell out of your ass cheeks to make them contract and be the muscle that does the work.

And I must say… pullthroughs are one of the most obscene looking exercises. 🙂 I got some well-deserved razzing. and boy, if I don’t feel stupid doing them. Plus I have no idea how much weight to use yet… I climbed up and up as you can see and still didn’t quite feel it. The trick tho is that I have to use a low pulley and so I gain some mechanical advantage, so the weight number is a bit deceiving.

But by the end of things, I think my glutes were a little more worked… so that’s acceptable. I just have to find out where I need to go, how many sets, how many reps, how many exercises, and just keep going. If these don’t work well… I might consider poor-man’s glute-ham raises (tho they aren’t as good as proper ones, but I lack such a bench), maybe Dimel Deadlifts, maybe stiff-legged deadlifts. We’ll see.