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5/3/1 2-Day Program for Golfing

Jim Wendler 5/3/1 Coaching
#1

Hi,

Golf season is approaching and I need recommendations on which 2 day program to run.

Over the winter I have run BBB leader, and FSL anchor, and after 10 weeks have since an 12.5% increase in lower body 1RM, 7.5% in Bench, and 5% in OHP, and I am really happy with this progress. I ran this 4 days a week.

Now the season is apporaching I’m dropping to 2 days a week and wondered the best 2 day program to run to maintain strength over the season.

I will be lifting 2 days, doing mobility/flexibility work every day and playing golf 2-3 days a week.

Should I run leader/anchor cycles still?

Any help would be appreciated.

#2

Your in-season program is 100% based on your off-season program - I cannot stress this enough. And your off-season program has to be based on getting your body ready to be able to play AND train in the in-season. In other words, and I say this to anyone who will listen - do you want to be stronger before the season or during/at the end of the season?

The answer is obvious - the latter. No one wants to be weaker when they are competing. So everything I do in the off-season is geared to making sure we are prepared for getting stronger in the in-season. It’s a revolutionary approach - you know, making sure you are strong when you most need it.

Anyway, during the in-season you have to look at the least you need to do for each lift to continue to get stronger. Everything must be taken into account; I don’t coach golfers so I wouldn’t know the first thing about any of this. However, I do know that we took out ANYTHING that disrupted our strength gains AND sapped our recovery. Thus we took out the barbell squat during the in-season.

We did not get weaker. And when we returned to the squat in late November, no one lost any strength. So our main lifts were the bench press and the trap bar deadlift.

The point is that you have to figure out which lifts you must do and which lifts you can eliminate; performance on the course is the name of the game.

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#3

Thanks Jim.

I’ve dropped to two sessions a week so I can keep the workouts intense, whilst still having time to play golf. I can keep the intensity of the sessions the same, just do them less frequently.

I plan on doing the following.

Day 1: 5/3/1+ Bench, 5/3/1+ Squat
Day 2: 5/3/1+ Deadlift, 5/3/1+ OHP.

My issue is with adding the supplemental and assistance. Will 5x5 or 5x10 be too much to recover from? I’ll have one day to recover from each session before playing golf.

The only other option I can think is.

Week 1: Bench 5/3/1+, Squat 5x10 then Deadlift 5/3/1+, OHP 5x10
Week 2. Squat 5/3/1+, Bench 5x10, then OHP 5/3/1+ and Deadlift 5x10

However I don’t know if training each move this infrequently will lead to strength loss?