5/3/1 and Saying Thanks

Just had to give props to Jim for all the time he spends on sharing his training principles with all of us.

One day pretty much out of the blue I decided that I wanted to seriously learn how to powerlift and stop just “working out” in the gym. A quick internet search brought me to the book 5/3/1 by some guy I’d never heard of. After buying and reading the book my strength skyrocketed just from learning how to actually lift and train.

I now have a veritable library of powerlifting literature and, having read through countless training philosophies, I’ve experimented with conjugated training, Smolov, Sheiko, linear peaking cycles, etc. After all that though I came to the conclusion that, for me, nothing actually worked better than 5/3/1. I’ve been back to good ol’ 5/3/1 for a few months now, and training is better than ever. Truly the simplest and most effective training program in my experience. I absolutely loved Beyond 5/3/1 as well.

Maybe some of you other guys have had similar experiences?

Also I apologize if this counts against your cred coming from a guy with a bicep selfie as his profile pic.

I experimented with smolov for bench and squat. Didn’t keep any of the gains I made. Tried a linear cycle after that and burned out. Went back to 531 and everything was fine. Just have a hormone issue right now thats keeping me from pushing too hard so just doing the prescribed reps. I’m itching to get back on the platform again!

I’ve used Madcow, the Texas Method, and a homemade barbell split. 5/3/1 is the best of all because it primarily allows you to autoregulate your training (as a recent university grad this was a saviour during finals) and you can customize it towards pretty well any fitness goal.

The core values of 5/3/1 are what really sets it apart. These have carried over to my work as a personal trainer and nutritionist. As much as I would like to just hand out 5/3/1 to people, they probably wouldn’t be too happy if I wasn’t creating some brand new, unheard of program for them. My programs just adhere to the 5/3/1 principles.

I’m loving 5/3/1.

Squats up from 285x3, to 300x5.

I actually started the program a few months into lifting (started Dec 2012) and ran 5/3/1 in Feb / March, for just 2 cycles. Then I got stupid and switched programs to the Juggernaut Method which was OK, but not as good as 5/3/1. After finishing the Juggernaut Method I got back on 5/3/1. I regret not being on my like 12th cycle or so of 5/3/1 now, which I could have been if I had just stuck to it. Gains would have been so much better. Oh well, I learned from the mistake, and am sticking to 5/3/1 for a few years now. So much wiggle room in the program to adjust and make progress.

Working on building a base of strength, and 5/3/1 fits the bill perfectly.

[quote]csulli wrote:
Just had to give props to Jim for all the time he spends on sharing his training principles with all of us.

One day pretty much out of the blue I decided that I wanted to seriously learn how to powerlift and stop just “working out” in the gym. A quick internet search brought me to the book 5/3/1 by some guy I’d never heard of. After buying and reading the book my strength skyrocketed just from learning how to actually lift and train.

I now have a veritable library of powerlifting literature and, having read through countless training philosophies, I’ve experimented with conjugated training, Smolov, Sheiko, linear peaking cycles, etc. After all that though I came to the conclusion that, for me, nothing actually worked better than 5/3/1. I’ve been back to good ol’ 5/3/1 for a few months now, and training is better than ever. Truly the simplest and most effective training program in my experience. I absolutely loved Beyond 5/3/1 as well.

Maybe some of you other guys have had similar experiences?

Also I apologize if this counts against your cred coming from a guy with a bicep selfie as his profile pic.[/quote]

My street cred will survive - thanks for the words.

I definitely feel the need to join in here.

Jim: A few weeks back I posted what I was doing and you confirmed I wasn’t focused on the right thing. You gave me a recommendation which really helped me reign myself back-in and re-focus my training. I’ve done just that and I’ve been hitting some nice PR’s in both reps and improvements in my 1RM on all my lifts. Your advice was perfect, so thanks. I’m sure everybody here appreciates you chiming in with your direct comments and verbally slapping us around a little.

[quote]csulli wrote:
Just had to give props to Jim for all the time he spends on sharing his training principles with all of us.

One day pretty much out of the blue I decided that I wanted to seriously learn how to powerlift and stop just “working out” in the gym. A quick internet search brought me to the book 5/3/1 by some guy I’d never heard of. After buying and reading the book my strength skyrocketed just from learning how to actually lift and train.

Also I apologize if this counts against your cred coming from a guy with a bicep selfie as his profile pic.[/quote]

This is exactly my story^^, I thought I was decently strong before finding out about 5/3/1 and T-Nation. Always thought I had a decent physique too. 4.5 months of 5/3/1 later and I’m 20lbs leaner and a hell of a lot stronger. Excited to try all the 5/3/1 variations to see where this sport takes me. I’ve gotten all my friends hooked on 5/3/1 too, they dont work out often, but I’ve been puttin em through 5/3/1 routines and theyre hooked on how strong theyre getting!