5/3/1 with Army PT

Bigger Stronger Leaner Jim Wendler 5/3/1 Coaching
1

first off I am in the US Army (infantry) and we do PT every morning usually long distance runs or sprints with some body weight exercises. I would like to use the 3 day a week template w/ triumvirate assistance work and still be able to stay pretty fast on my feet. We run enough in the mornings for PT that I don’t think I will lose my cardio, but I just wanted some insight on this. thanks!

2

Start light. You’ll find AMRAP on the last set to be a great challenge regardless of the weight. Keep volume lower and recovery high since you’ll be doing military PT along with it. Make small changes over time. It pays off in the end.

3

I think I can give some pretty insight on this as I have been in the Army for the past twelve and am currently in Special Operations.

Personally I think you would be fine to use the three day or even the four template. I would recommend doing your squats and deadlift toward the end of the week just to save your lower back. for example-

Mon-
Tues- Bench
Wed-
Thur Press
Fri Squat
Sat
Sun Deadlift

This way your lower back and legs will be fine throughout the week. I also would recommend using bodyweight for a few cycles as assistance just because I kind of over did when first started using 5/3/1. I will say that I believe this is thee best program for us as it consistently build strength over time. You just have to play with the assistance to hit your individual goals

4

Definitely concur with MarneSoldier, and with focusing on triumvirate assistance work. Want to tack on that I got the best results (long term) when my assistance work focused on re-hab/prehab and posterior chain to balance all the running, push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups. My first few cycles I did normal assistance work, and my shoulders were so beat-up that I permanently popped my right clavicle out of place.

5

Best way to figure this is to ask the following questions and answer them:

  1. What is the PT I’d doing now and what is the effect on my body?
  2. What are my SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE goals in training?
  3. How many days/week can my body commit to in order to reach my specific performance goals?
  4. What parameters do I have set in my weight training that allows me to auto regulate if my PT changes?
  5. What dogma am I holding onto that will sabotage my goals?
  6. What indicators do I have in place that allow me assess my programming?

I don’t know how good of “shape” you are in, what your PT consists of, what your daily job consists of, what your diet is, etc. Without knowing any of this, of which only YOU know, it’s impossible to say “DO THIS.” However, the 6 questions above will help you decide what you can do and how to set up your training. 99% of people that are doing daily conditioning or are pushing their conditioning to high levels suffer from hanging onto so much training dogma that it always fucks up their goals.

6

I do 5/3/1, alternating between ‘Jack Shit’ and Triumvirate, then use the ‘conditioning’ of the PT session as the assistance, which normally looks something like doing the bodyweight template anyway.

Made good gains this way.