In summary, if you have been working out for 6 months to a year, and want to take things to the next level, understanding basic programming is what you need to learn over the next 5 years. And as we’ve already established that the original 5/3/1 program is light on volume if anything, the deloads are even more wasteful. Jim Wendler’s Beyond 5/3/1 program appeared for the first time in his new book Beyond 5/3/1: Simple Training for Extraordinary Results . Once you hit a wall with stronglifts, starting strength or any other beginners routine 5/3/1 is a solid next step.

Wendler’s 5/3/1 Boring But Big (BBB) program is renowned for both its brutal simplicity and serious results. In reading this book and checking his forums it's clear what kind of questions he gets all the time.This does however make it a little hard for people new to the world of 5/3/1 to get started, because there’s a bunch of new language to learn, and that language doesn’t always match up with the regular established language used within sports science. While you can sometimes funnel life’s stress into your training in a positive way, it will inevitably catch up to your performance. Personal favourites were Big But Boring (doing a further 10 sets of 10 of your main lift, with just 60 seconds rest is an ass-kicker) and the Trimuverate, which involves doing just three big compound exercises per session.

It focused my mind on the work sets, made programming and hitting important numbers much easier, and meant I didn’t feel bad about cutting and running if I needed a short session. What was amazing was the gains made by cons from following routines day in day out and on limited access to foods.Another common remedy is to run the “Boring But Big” variation (spreadsheet included here), which contains a significant number of back off sets for extra volume. To help make it as easy as possible, he provides countless assistance work templates – ranging from extra heavy work for powerlifters to body-torching high volume work for bodybuilders. I've been doing the base program for years with different assistance programs and just feel like it's time for a change.