Just like to say I fully believe in the program (5/3/1 vanilla with BBB) and I have thoroughly enjoyed my first week… However, I’m burdened by the attitudes held by many people. Namely that I’m still a beginner and my lifts are rubbish and I could progress further with LP and make faster strength gains. Here are my 5RM’s (as in I actually hit these for at least 1 set - in the case of the DL anyway - for 5 reps) when I was still pursuing a LP program:
Squat: 95kg
Bench: 65kg
Deadlift: 140kg
Military Press: 51kg
In response to my log elsewhere, and taking a look at my numbers, an individual wrote:
[quote]"5/3/1 is okay for intermediates as well, the problem is you have the lifts of a complete beginner. If you haven’t been making progress with a more beginner oriented program, then you’re doing something wrong and more advanced periodization isn’t the answer. As a beginner, you should be experiencing linear, rapid gains until you are at an intermediate strength. Then you do something like 5/3/1 if strength is still your focus to overcome the inevitable stalls now that linear gains are no longer there.
Like so many before you, you’ve convinced yourself that you are special and can do a program that’s not optimal for you because you understand it better than others. It’s not true and it’s reflected in your progress.
Why not just do something like 3x5 or 5x5 with compounds lifts, adding in other muscle groups or rep schemes as you like. Not necessarily SL or SS, I think the latter is disproportionately focused on squats and discourages other good lifts early on. You could even do HST and get better hypertrophy/strength than this current programming, even if it’s not at the same pace as the starter programs.
Wendler also offers a beginner’s modification suited to a more linear and fullbody focus Official Website | Jim Wendler - Elite Powerlifter & Strength Coach but I’m going to presume he wrote that to put an end to all the ‘I haven’t been lifting as long as I should have but I still want to do your program’ posts.
If you consider 5lbs a month on upper body lifts as linear gains, then virtually everyone experiences linear gains. To me that sounds like stagnation with the occasional step, hardly resembling a line. Again, an absolute personal decision that no one can judge you for, but then it’s again wrong to say you were ‘close to exhausting your noob gains.’ You weren’t, you simply stalled."
[/quote]
How do I deal with stuff like this? I chose 5/3/1 because I’d been lifting the way other people wanted for close to a year and following 6 weeks of an LP “SS” style template I was simply grinding through workouts and feeling miserable, not to mention the complete absence of any hypertrophy gains.
I can understand the benefit of doing aggressive new 5RM per session LP with rank beginners (completely untrained) and getting them far along before switching to 5/3/1, but this simply wasn’t me. In the benefit of hindsight, had I known how LP programs actually work, I would have started with an empty bar and a caloric surplus and done it. This didn’t happen…
I guess I’m looking for some wisdom. I’m currently unhappy with how I look (~85kg on a good day at 6’1) and I’m bulking (4-4500 cals a day) whilst running (just completed my first week) 5/3/1 with BBB (which I’m loving thus far). I’d like to continue getting stronger, but the hypertrophy template options included with 5/3/1 are second to none.
Am I doing the right thing, what more could I do to convince myself of this, and how do I dissuade the doubt created by these “milk the LP” proponents?
Also, has anybody else found themselves in a similar situation to me? How did you deal with it and what kinds of progress have you made running 5/3/1?