I’m debating between Full Body Four Days and Full Body 85%. They both look great, but I’m not sure which to do. Has anyone tried both? What do you think of each? Thanks.
I think your choice is going to depend on if you know whether your lifts are driven by working with your TM more frequently, or by higher intensity supplemental work. I feel like that is the major trade-off between them.
If you don’t really have an idea of what works well on each lift, flip a coin or just pick one. Judging by the amount of different ways you can set up each ones Leaders and Anchors, you could be stuck deciding for days.
Personally, I would go with Full Body Four Days since its got an Anchor already written for you.
Thank you for the insight. Your point about Full Body Four Days already having an anchor built in is a great point, although I was going to use its anchor anyways. I think I will do 5s Pro for my bench press and overhead press. Right now my bench press is making good progress and 5s Pro seems like its the right type of volume for continuing that progress. When I did the original 5/3/1 years ago, my squat and deadlift flew up so I will probably keep with that for the time being. My guess is that for the leader I don’t do the amraps, right? On the 5s week, I stop at 5, 3s week stop at 3, and 1s week stop at 1. Thank you!
If its Original 5/3/1 you do the PR sets. You would only do minimum reps if your not feeling up to doing more than the minimum. If your not going to do the PR sets I say just run 5’s Pro.
Remember that PR sets are not AMRAPS. AMRAP implies you doing as many as you can potentially to failure. PR set means you are simply trying to do more weight or reps at that weight than you did previously. As an example I am just finishing up Portals 5x5/3/1. The anchor I am following is to do a PR set at your Training Max. I had 440 on the bar and my previous best was 8. I hit it for 9 then shut it down for the day. I could have done more, but I know that I have more PR sets in the week and I will need my strength and energy for those as well. I also have two more weeks of PR attempts. Save a bit today so you have that much more to give tommorow.
Sorry if it seems that is a bit much, but I think it is an important part of the program.
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Sorry it took me so long to respond. Life has been busy lately. Anyways, I probably wasn’t very clear. I agree with you that you don’t need to go to literally failure on the + set. I did the same when I ran the original awhile ago. I just tried to get the PR and stop at that (unless part way through that set I was feeling really great and got 1 more in, but that was rare).
What I meant, but I guess was not clear about is whether you do a + with the leader or if its just stop at the minimum rep? For example, 5s week just stop at 5 even if you can do more and then for the anchor you do the + trying to get a PR. Or for the other template options on the last set do a +.
Also on the Full Body Four Days would doing deadlifts working up to your training max for 1-3 reps and the next day squatting with the original 5/3/1 except with an 85% TM be too much? I would like to squat 5/3/1 rather than 5s Pro because 5/3/1 was great for my squat, but after the heavy deadlifts the day before, i’m not sure if 5s Pro would be better. Thank you for the help.
That’s somewhat different. Full Body Four Days uses SSL and out of respect I don’t want to spell out the entire program, but there are differences on heavy days.
No one here can tell you how much training volume you can handle. You need to decide if the program is right for you.
Depends on what program you are running, Original 5/3/1 always has the PR sets. It doesnt have Leaders and Anchors necessarily.
Just run the program as written and see what happens. Or run something else.
I appreciate the feedback, although if you read the 5/3/1 Forever book, you will see that there are different options you can choose from for each lift in the Full Body Four Day routine. Read page 113 of 5/3/1 Forever to see what I am asking.
I have. It says Work up to TM for 1-3 reps or 5/3/1, 5’s Pro. That means you do your 5/3/1 percentages all for 5 reps. This would make sense, since in the Anchor it states the the following options for Strength work: 5/3/1, PR set or 5/3/1, PR set, Jokers or Work up to TM for PR.
Leaders generally do not have PR sets. They are more focused on higher volume of barbell work. Anchors are usually where you shoot for PR’s after having accumulated volume.
I was under the impression that you have 3 options. Either work up to TM or 5/3/1, 5s Pro. He uses a comma and says or so I assumed it was choose between working up to TM, original 5/3/1 without + sets and an 85% max rather than 90%, or 5s Pro. Thanks for the clarification. To clarify, he gives us 2 options. Work up to TM or using 5/3/1 percentages, do 5s Pro.