I presently am training for a bench contest in April. I am on my 5th month of Wendler’s 531. I decided a month ago to not train legs until after this meet. I take my HRT of 100mg a week of test E and 50mg ED of Tren A. My numbers were going up good until latley. I feel extremely exhausted and I cannot seem to make the 3X3 day for the last couple weeks.
My workout is bench, dumbell bench and dumbell row day, rest a day then do overhead, dips and chinups. I rest a day and start over. Overtraining or more AAS?
Question should I wait the full 7 days between bench and overhead? Or should I up my Test and tren? (Diet is rock solid, but sleep is questionable due to tren insonomnia.)
MY Present weight 190 at 40 years old body fat 15%
Present lifts—
bench max 325lbs
dumbell press 100lbs 5X8
dumbell row 100lbs 5X12
Overhead max 185lbs
dips w/100lbs 5X6
chinups w/45lbs 5X5
I think you screwed yourself not training your lower body. Even bench only gains train lower body. You need the balance to keep the upper body gains going.
You have been doing the same 6 exercises, 3 days a week, for 5 months and cant figure out why your numbers won’t go up? And you dont train legs? Where did you come up with this?
Take all the gear in the universe and eat perfectly and it wont matter if your training is shit. Your training is shit, man. I hope to God that this is a joke.
OK, Outside of the excersises you picked I have no idea how this is 5/3/1. You stated you lift rest a day lift rest then start over, with no legs or Back (deadlifts,goodmornings) in there at all. That and your doing a Pressing movement right after a bench day.
WilD-IRON_GYM point taken. I had heard it was ok to take the bar off your once and a while. That was my thinking. I aquired a sharp hip pain after I stepped backward while deadlifting. It seems to be better now. I will start today again with the legs but I am going to go light. As I progressed through the Wendler program it got kinda brutal.
Storm the beach and four60. Yes I guess I am serious, but I am looking for advice. I read the T-Nation article on Wendlers 531 and have been following his excercises he recommended. I dont see whats wrong with training for bench by doing bench. The legs I stopped for fear of gaining more leg mass. I am at 190-192 and want to compete at 181. However wrong that is thats my rational, plus I have done 2 years of heavy squats and deads and figured a couple month break would be ok.
four60 I see the light and will start back at the bench monday and overhead thursday routine. That only gives me two days a week but maybe my numbers will start going up again. I will start light leg work again on tues and friday. I just want to put all I got into this bench work. Also (FLAME NOW) I have just been doing 3X5,3x3,531 with no light week. How important is the light week?
Now for VikingsAD28
You are a Viking fan… enough said. No I dont want to take more AAS. This is a steroid web site. If it hurts your feelings that people use maybe you should go to a natty web site. I am 40 years old with blood test proven low test. I feel great now but am run down from the workouts.
Understand what I’m saying is not a hit on you. Its me trying to answer your question with the information you gave.
You want to make gains by doing a modified 5/3/1 to fit 5x5 & 3x3 into one week. Now Juice or not. Your not going to get THE MOST out of a program by beating the crap out of your chest and shoulders. Hey I don’t know if your body is strong enough and well fed enough from your vitamins…You may still make gains. What I’m saying is you will not make the BEST gains this way.
Also if you want to do a meet RAW and use 5/3/1 as your program then you still want to understand that its a program that is designed to condition your body over a long period of time, so don’t try to crunch the weeks to make it go faster.
Now the meet is in April. You and YOU alone know how your body feels. Break down how many weeks you have left and work towards the day of the meet giving yourself at least a week between your last heavy Bench and the day of the meet.
I know how to loose weight for a fight. If you look at my bio. I have two national kickboxing titles. I dont think strengh is the same. Fighting is cardio and is alot different. I never tested my strength after a water cut. I plan on loosing water the way I have in the past, with distilled water and mass quanities starting 5 days out. I am 5’9". I could be less than 15% I have abs and upper obliques. Just being conservative. I think a 11lb cut is plenty for this. I wouldnt do it but the record is 325 in open class(181lbs) and I want to see if this old man can compete in open class.
I did legs today and “IT FELT AWSOME”! Went easy but nice and deep ATG squats. I am going have serios a$$ aches for the next few days. I bought the EBOOK today and learned alot more than what the article said on T-Nation. I hope I can figure out the excel sread sheet.