I do wendler 531 with boring but big. I think I need more recovery time and so I’m thinking of doing an upper lower 3 times a week on mon we’d and fri. Is it ok for hypertrophic and strength instead of upper off lower off and so on. I can’t do full body cos I’m almost exhausted just for the upper lower. What are your thoughts ?
pretty sure it says in the book you can do three days a week, it will just take longer to do a cycle. Your doing full body accessories also so not really neglecting a group.
Sounds like you need to improve your conditioning (assuming you’re following the program and not doing something insane - eg living on a bowl of fries a day).
Not everything can be a strength but you can still have no (glaring) weaknesses!
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I can’t figure out your training schedule but if you can’t recover from BBB, I would suggest FSL work. During this time, work on your work capacity via assistance work.
I usually do upper1/off/lower1/off/upper2/off/lower2/off/upper1 and so on. Im now thinking of doing upper 1/off/ lower 1/ off/ upper 2/ off/off (weekends) and start with lower 2 the next week.
For boring but big i actually do between 60-70% of the training max.
And thank you for the reply !
it basically becomes a 4 week cycle right? But what about the whole train a muscle every 2-3 days thing, will i be losing gains out on the table ?
Your still training other groups frequently if your doing push, pull & single leg/abs as accessories.
If your having trouble with BBB this is probably why. Are you able to complete all the reps without any being a real grind? I would start at 40% and work your way up to 60%.
Is your TM set to 85%? If you doing BBB @ 70% with a 90% TM it would be no wonder you are have trouble recovering. Even moving to a 3 day a week format wouldn’t help you that much if your TM and relative volume are too high.
If you can’t squat and bench in the same day my guess is your very out of shape, or (as stated before) your TM is too high. Can you perform 3-5 good reps at any of your TM’s? If not you need to set them properly.
Keep in many beginner programs have you squatting pushing and pulling in the same session a few times a week.
Yeah my training max is at 90%. I reckon I should lower my BBB sets down to 50% or even 40% as you said and give it a shot. But I have a doubt, for hypertrophy each set has to be between 60%-80% isn’t it ? So the 90% is taken as the training max I.e 100% then a 60% is actually a 45%? So wouldn’t I be leaving gains on the table ?
Your worried about leaving gains on the table, yet from what I have read you it seems to have yet to build your work capacity to the point where you can recover from BBB or even run a full body program. Start light and work on building a base and fundamentals before worrying about optimizing your volume to maximize gains. Even the more advanced lifters have to do this before approaching peak strength levels.
Boring But Big can be set anywhere from 40-75% (75% would be on your last week of doing BBB @ FSL) of your TM. 75% of a TM set to 85% would be 62.5% of your Esimated 1RM. But in any case you have to be able to complete and recover from the workout. Start light and build a base. I (and many others) have used BBB to add mass using 40-60%.
cool man thanks !