Achievement unlocked: 4 wheels (405#).

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

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 370#)
  • 1x5x150 (warmup)
  • 1x5x185
  • 1x3x225
  • 1x5x280 (work)
  • 1x3x320
  • 1x4x355
  • 1x1x375 (Joker Sets)
  • 1x1x395 (PR)
  • 1x1x405 (PR)
• Foam Rolling

Walked into the gym feeling fine. I gave myself permission to jack-shit it today, but figured if I felt good enough I would do the deficits because I actually like them and feel they are paying off. Today’s effort was validation.

I was only supposed to work up to 355. My 3rd rep started to break form, but I wanted a 4th so I went for it tho the form wasn’t hot. I wanted to do more and on a whim opted to try Joker Sets. I hadn’t given it a thought prior to that moment, but went for it.

In short, Joker Sets are doing your normal workup, including still pushing for reps on the last set. Then, you add 5-10% and keep going with the reps for that week (e.g. 5 reps on the 5 week, singles on 5/3/1 week, etc.). Add another 5-10%, and just keep going until you can’t make the reps, tho you need to stop just short of failure. There’s a little more to it than that, but that’s the gist. Wendler covers it in his “Beyond 5/3/1” book.

I opted for 20# jumps because that was about right, and easy enough to just throw a dime on each side of the bar and keep going for singles. 375 wasn’t too bad. My PR at the time was 380×3, so going to 395 felt good. Screw it… that close to 4 wheels? Let’s go for it.

Pulled it. And it was awesome. 🙂

I took a video and compared it to how I felt during the lift. No, the form was not textbook pretty. It’s not the form I’ve been focusing on to help bring up my weak points. But the form really wasn’t all that bad and would be a “good lift”. I can say without a doubt that I would not have done this before my reset. My form them was so bad this would have been a struggle and I am not sure I would have broken the floor. But all the work I’ve been doing for stricter form, keeping the back proper and making it more of a push with the legs than a pull with the back, the deficit deadlifts, and probably even the pause squats and ensuring I break depth on squats… I think it all added up and paid off.

So, hell yeah! 🙂

I actually realized I went from 395 to 405, when the jump should have been to 415, but I was really focused on the 4 wheels and felt that was good enough. I’d rather make 405 than miss 415 anyways.

I’m thrilled! I’m still floating on the high from the success.

That said, I am not going to adjust my weights to use 405 as my max and recalc my numbers. I know I got here because of the focus on form, so I’ll stick with the sub-max work and stricter form to bring things up. There’s no question that paid off, and frankly that’s more important to me than a 1RM. But, I’ll still be happy with the lifetime PR!