Wendler talks about this. First of all, you won’t always be able to get 10 reps on your last set. However you should be able to get the prescribed reps at least. Some days I don’t feel great and I only get the prescribed reps and don’t go for a PR.
Just keep grinding until you stall. Then refigure your training max and start over.
I’m actually in the middle of my 5th cycle now. i know not every day is going to be a good day but every week 1 is a challenge. before i decided to start the program i did hit a true 1rm about 2 weeks prior and i did take 10% plus an extra 5 pounds for good measure off.
i was competing in olifting and had no pressing so my pressing numbers are still pretty beginnerish. i think i’m going to give a no deload week a go and see how that goes. if it ends up to be to much i can switch back easily, i’m only 22 so i have plenty of time left and still in some good recovery years.
I’ve been doing 2 back to back upper body cycles without a deload and it seems okay so far. I mainly needed the deload for lower body so I spread that over 6 weeks now alternating Squat/DL weeks and deload 7th.
If you do the original program but skip deload think of the upper and lower lifts separately, just because your good on one you may be over doing it on the other. If I did 6 weeks straight of lower without deload I’d probably at least modify it where I’m not pushing it every week on Squat/DL.
i’m just going to give a no deload a go with the upper body or probably just the press itself, bc i spent the past 2 years olifting so my squat and dl are way ahead at both over 2.5x bodyweight but i can’t even press my bodyweight so i think my pressing does a lot less damage to my body that can be recovered from more quickly
I had the same issues with ‘feeling weaker’ after a deload week, which is what this guy is talking about, not being tired from pushing too hard, etc. He did his deload week, then came in, and the weight felt heavy… it seems natural to me that that’s how it goes, if you aren’t used to having longer rest periods between ‘real’ workouts. The suggestions about just skipping the deload unless you feel like you need it, are probably appropriate.
Lots of us folks aren’t used to ‘deloading’ at all. Lots of folks just change up the workout every month or two, not either take a week or two completely off, or just do warmup weights. Myself, when i started 5-3-1 last year it was the first program I had done where you were prescribed rest weeks every month. I have always just changed the routine for a couple or 3 weeks, then went back.
I am starting 5-3-1 again this sunday, and will probably do like you folks have suggested for the most part, and skip the deloads 'til i feel I need them.
[quote]boldar wrote:
on week 1 i’m struggling to get 5-7 reps, week 2 i’m usaly able to get a fairly good 6 then on week 3 i’m able to get at least 5. does anyone else have a similar problem or know a fix/cause or do you see no problem and think i should just stop worrying about it? [/quote]
I’m gonna agree with the other guys and say that your 1rms are probably not what you think they are. It also may be that you just suck at doing reps. What did your training look like before 5-3-1?
For me, 5-3-1 translated to 9-7-5 IF my 1rm’s were actually what I said they were. SO for me to bang out 10 reps on my “1+” week I’d have to lower my training max.
Remember even on the 1+ week, which is the 95% week it’s really only 85% of your real 1rm. ( 95% of 90%- the prescribed max on “wendler”… is 85%) one should typically be able to do around 5 reps with that weight.
And YES quit worying about this stuff…
my 2 cents.
I’ll throw this in my new 5/3/1 ebook… 5/3/1D: The no-deload manual. lol