I had great results listening to Mr. Wendler and reading his books. It was not easy to stay on track the whole time and made a lot of mistakes along the way. But I learned a lot about training since then. I begon training after years of martial arts training. I got bored by it an needed a new challenge. After I got into strenght training a fell in love with it. It changed my life in al lot of good ways.
The results of 4 years of 5/3/1:
Squat 465
Frontsquat 355
Benchpress 335
Deadlift 535
Strict press 200
@ 165 - 5’8’’
Decent numbers in my opinion.I went up 40 pounds since the start. And along the way I got shredded @ around 165. I felt that is my ideal weight. Not very big but athletic build. Easy to keep this weight and easy to get stronger and to do other activities.
So thank you Jim for the work you put in the strenght game and to spread some education.
Since I have plans to get back into martial arts and become competitive again. A would appriciate some suggestions/insights for my plan. I would probably run your template from the article (Passing the lifting torch) with the Vikingday if I can manage it. And gradually insert more martial arts training (Bjj, judo, grappling) and some conditioning. Also some low impact aerobic work. Maybe ditching deadlifts for powercleans?
Warm up
Dynamic: throws & jumps
Strenght work: squat/benchpress and powerclean/press?
Assistance: lots of horizontal and vertical pulling
Supplemental: neck work, lots of core work, grip, low impact prehab shit, …
Conditioning: Sled work, sledge hammer swings, hill sprints,…
Mobility …
Probably I am doing one powerlifting meet a year just for fun and then I wil use something like S.S.S with some tweaks for a cycle or 2 without detoriating to much from main training. Just reducing martial training frequency/intensity.
So thanks again and greets from Europe.
English is not my best language so I hope it is readable.