Time Restraint 5x531

So I have found that at no point do I have an hour to train. I build houses for a living and am out the door at 530am and home at 7pm I sit and eat dinner with my wife and kids then go train. I set aside 25 minutes Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday to complete 5x531 every 3 minutes on the minute for 5 rounds. I use the close grip bench, power clean, push press, and squat super settled with dB row, chins and abs as per the day because I want to see what kind of Pendlay total I can achieve. Saturday is either good for me to train for 2 hours or not at all depending on life so I leave it as an accessory day to hit it if I can.

So my idea is to carry this over the winter into next year and I wanted to start with the high volume and slowly peaking. I have already started 5x531 at 70 percent training max for 5x10 rather then standard 5x5. the idea is to drop volume as I plateau at the specified rep range. now to many this might mean 5x10 to 5x8 to 5x5 and so on but with the limit on rest periods I was thinking more of
10,10,10,10,10,
10,8,8,8,8
10,8,6,6,6
10,8,6,4,4
10,8,6,4,2
8,6,4,3,2 and so on as inter set muscular fatigue may contribute to the plateau as much as diminishing strength gains in the specified range.

What are your thoughts or is this completely out to lunch. Thank you.

It’s not 5/3/1 and it’s your experiment. Only you know what’s best for you; try it and see how it goes, if it doesn’t work try something else. I would not do what you have written.

In the new 531 Forever book there is a program meant for 2 days a week with very limited time. I would look into that.

If volume is the goal you can still get more than that doing 5/3/1. I’m doing 5’s Pro FSL at the moment and if I was limited on time with your schedule I would probably do this, example bench press day.

Bench Press (40 reps not counting warmups)
5s Pro
5x5 FSL weight (could even do SSL or BBB or whatever)

Superset all that with Rows, either sets of 5 or sets of 10 (50-100 reps total)

1 lift every minute on the minute should bring all that to 20 minutes but probably more, if you have a few extra minutes do an AMRAP set on both lifts to finish it out.

Saturday for accessory sounds like a good idea too I would probably do the same thing.

I dont really understand why you would do 5x531 for sets of 10 at such a low TM rather than doing it for 5 reps at the correct training max.

Use supplementary lifts for volume - this is exactly what the Forever book says to do if you want more volume - it even gives you appropriate supplemental work.

There’s no need to find a new solution when one exists for you from the guy who wrote the book.

Jim has said on these forums you can use whichever rep range you choose as long as it suits your goals. I’m simply doing a long off peaking program using Jims heavy light medium approach starting with low intensity high volume and moving slowly throw lower volume high intensity based off self regulation. eventually I would be dropping my 5x531 sets and using FSL to keep sufficient volume in my training day. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions you have been helpful!

I know this is the 531 forum, and it can be done in the time you have, but if your goal is to build up the squat, clean, and push press, I would try a singles, doubles and triples program. Just do one or two exercises a day when you train and work in the 75-85 percent range. Add weight when you can and build slow. Look at @ActivitiesGuy log and apply it to your own training.

That’s personally what I would do, but each their own

Thanks for the info man. I love that guys Log seems reasonable to accomplish and from the looks of things he has been extremely successful in obtaining his goals. Thanks for the info.

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