T Nation

BBB Assistance Percentages and Rest Time

Jim Wendler 5/3/1 Coaching
#1

I am interested in people’s thoughts regarding percentages and rest time for big but boring assistance (primarily on upper body).

I had been running @ .65 of my TM. What I have found is that I am resting more between sets and it had become a time suck on my workouts.

This weekend I lowered my TM , set the weights at .60 of my new TM and set a timer of 1:30 between sets and rattled through it.

Right now my goal is to regain weight I lost of over the summer playing on multiple soccer teams and having a little to much fun. Some strength losses to but I am confident that the strength will rebound with my weight and that my 5/3/1 reps are building that.

#2

50-60% is perfect. Remember, it’s assistance work you’ve already done the main lift. Just do the movement , get a pump and call it a day.

If you do 5 x 10 it should only take 17 minutes if you take 3 minutes rest.

#3

[quote]lenn_funk wrote:
I am interested in people’s thoughts regarding percentages and rest time for big but boring assistance (primarily on upper body).

I had been running @ .65 of my TM. What I have found is that I am resting more between sets and it had become a time suck on my workouts.

This weekend I lowered my TM , set the weights at .60 of my new TM and set a timer of 1:30 between sets and rattled through it.

Right now my goal is to regain weight I lost of over the summer playing on multiple soccer teams and having a little to much fun. Some strength losses to but I am confident that the strength will rebound with my weight and that my 5/3/1 reps are building that.

[/quote]

I love when people don’t follow the program. BBB is supposed to be around 50-60% of your TM. The only time this isn’t applicable is the BBB Challenge, Diet BBB and Forever BBB.

Please do the program as written by the dude who wrote the program.

#4

Where can we find diet BBB and forever BBB?

#5

Point taken Jim… Last spring I was doing BBB variation 2 (beyond 531 pg 20)… When I decided that I did better with consistent volume of 10 reps across all weeks I kept the percentage at 65% cause well you know ego and all that other shit.

#6

[quote]lenn_funk wrote:
Point taken Jim… Last spring I was doing BBB variation 2 (beyond 531 pg 20)… When I decided that I did better with consistent volume of 10 reps across all weeks I kept the percentage at 65% cause well you know ego and all that other shit.[/quote]

If you are just coming back from a layoff, the worst thing you can do is BBB. You need basic 5’s PRO with 5x5 FSL at 85% of your max. Do this for 2 cycles. This will help build your work capacity, build volume slowly and allow you to do the appropriate assistance work.