My Experience on the Wendler 531 Program

Every workout in the Wendler 5/3/1 program is centred around one core lift –
squat, bench press, deadlift or military press (standing shoulder press). 

I set up my Wendler 5/3/1 sessions by doing 3 sets of 5 repetitions (reps) in Week 1, 3x3 in Week 2 then 3x5,3,1 in the Week 3 followed by a complete deload in Week 4. The entire programme is based off of percentages which increase depending on the amount of expected repetitions. I have attached an image of how the program sets up percentages below:

 

Please note that the ‘%1RM’ remains the same regardless of the lift (squat, deadlift, bench press or military press)

I decided to complete the core lift as ‘Exercise 1’ in all of my workouts and supplemented this with 4 to 5 accessory movements for that body part. All of the accessory movements were completed with high reps to achieve muscular hypertrophy. See an example of what my accessory movements were for the deadlift workout below.

When you successfully complete a 4 week cycle you add either 2.5kg or 5kg to your core lift and re-calculate your percentages – 2.5kg for bench press and military press, 5kg for deadlift and squat. These small increases allow you to get stronger each month without making the lifts unrealistic. 

After persevering with the plan for around 6 months I made some impressive strength gains. My one rep max improvements on the four core lifts were as follows:

The Wendler 5/3/1 program allowed me to push through the lifting blocks that I had previously. I could never have imagined achieving a 70kg Military Press or a 180kg Deadlift but the small increments month on month allowed me to do so whilst maintaining good form. 

When I first started going to the gym my main goal was to achieve a 1 plate Military Press, 2 plate Bench Press, 3 plate Squat and 4 plate Deadlift and thanks to the Wendler 5/3/1 program this goal has been ticked off!