There is evolution

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Press (working max: 150#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x3x105 (work)
  • 1x3x120
  • 1x6x135
• Assistance – Press
  • 5 x 10/10/10/8/7 x 90
• Assistance – Face Pulls
  • Superset with each Press set
  • 12 x 10 x 30
• Assistance – Lat Pulldowns
  • 3 x 12/12/10 x 110
• Assistance – Hang Cleans
  • Bar, just playing around

So anyways, I felt good about things. Just a really solid Press workout. Nothing much to say.

I am liking getting back to a proper Wendler approach, of doing a pulling set for every pressing set. Again, I am starting VERY light and trying to use a movement in the opposite plane to see if this makes for happier shoulders. So far so good. The face pulls were almost too light today… I didn’t really feel anything until towards the end, and then I did feel my traps peeding out while assistance pressing. So, all good I guess. But no question to up the weight there.

I also played around with hang cleans. Not full power cleans yet, just holding the empty bar, letting the bar hang down to my mid-thigh, then trying the movement out. This is how Rip starts off in the SS book, so I just played with it a bit. Most routines I see that incorporate power cleans are either full-body style things or tend to put cleans on squat or deadlift days. I think I’m going to try doing it on Press days and see how it does for me.

So my sessions will be something like:

• squat, pause squat, abs
• deadlift, deficit deadlifts, abs
• bench press, incline db press, superset all pressing with pull-ups, kroc-style rows maybe superset with dips
• press, more pressing, superset all pressing with face pulls or some sort of row, maybe some extra back work like lat pulldowns, then power cleans

So it puts more back work in due to the supersetting (like you should), but then simplifies things down to “3 movements” (main, 2 assistance) more or less, which gets back to simpler Wendler 5/3/1 approaches. I only added in a lot of that other stuff to make up for the lack of volume in some respects, but I think with what I’ll be doing here it’ll be more than enough once I find my groove and the right weights.