BBB Assistance Percentages and Rest Time

lenn_funk 2015-09-21 12:20:04 UTC #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.

BCFlynn 2015-09-21 14:19:44 UTC #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.

Jim_Wendler 2015-09-21 14:30:32 UTC #3

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.

Sbender0711 2015-09-21 16:33:16 UTC #4

Where can we find diet BBB and forever BBB?

lenn_funk 2015-09-21 19:59:50 UTC #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.

Jim_Wendler 2015-09-23 17:15:35 UTC #6

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.