First of all Happy New Year! I hope all of you reading this work hard and make good progress this year.
My progress this year has been great on the Bench Press lately I seem to PR every workout the Bench Press has always been the most difficult of the big 3 for me to progress on the other day I benched 100 kilos for 15 reps last christmas I benched 100 kilos for 10 reps so my 10 rep max has become a 15 rep max over the course of a year not to shabby.
The 3 things I feel that have really helped my bench press go up are
Higher Reps 10-15
Reverse Grip Bench Presses on the Smith Machine
And improved technique / form
Now my Squat and Deadlift are a different story over a year ago in october and november
I Deadlifted
- 186.5 kilos for 10
- 198 kilos for 8
- 209 kilos for 5
And Squatted
- 144 kilos for 9
- 153 kilos for 7
- 161.5 kilos for 5
Recently I have Deadlifted
- 174 kilos for 9
- 184 kilos for 8
- 195 kilos for 5
And Squatted
- 146 kilos for 8
- 151 kilos for 7
- 160 kilos for 5
My Squat is slightly behind from just over a year ago while my Deadlift has fallen way behind! and the Deadlift has always been my best lift.
I feel that my form and technique needs some serious attention on both the Squat and Deadlift also when I was using Lift Run Bang Base Building (which is an excellent method) I trained beltless and when I went back to the belt I was all out of sync with it the belt felt awkward, uncomfortable and sort of threw out my form, where as before I had using the belt down to a fine tee.
So the logical solution is to Squat and Deadlift with the belt more I want to stick with 5/3/1 because it works well for me.
There are a couple of full body 5/3/1 programs in Beyond 5/3/1 and another one Jim Wendler posted on T Nation.
The 5/3/1 program I have put together for myself is sort of a mix of the Full Body Boring from the book and the T Nation program.
3 days of Squatting and Deadlifting with 2 days of Benching and 1 day includes the Military Press (which also has been going well lately)
Also an assistance day has been added to do my back and abs with Reverse Grip Smith Bench Presses which have tremendously helped with my pressing.
Heres the program I will be following for a while.
5/3/1 Fullbody Ironhut Style
Day 1
Squat 5/3/1
Bench Press 3×10 40% 50% 60%
Deadlift 65%x3 75%3 85%x3
Day 2
Squat 65% x5 75% x5 85% x5
Bench Press 5/3/1
Deadlift 3×10 40% 50% 60%
Day 3
Squat 3 x10 40% 50% 60%
Press 5/3/1
Deadlift 5/3/1
Day 4 Assistance
Reverse Grip Smith Bench Press 3 x10
Chins 5x Various Grips AMAP
T Bar Row 3 3×15
Hyper Extension 3 x AMAP
Abs