Free Programs and Spreadsheets
Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
Every 5/3/1 workout is built from three layers: the main work, the supplemental work, and the assistance work. Once you know what each one does, you can read any 5/3/1 template at a glance and build your own.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
A deload week is a planned easy week built into 5/3/1 to let you recover and come back fresh. You lift light, skip the AMRAP grind, and let fatigue drain off before the next block of hard training.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
Boring But Strong, or BBS, is a supplemental work scheme in 5/3/1. After your main work, you do 10 sets of 5 reps on the same lift using First Set Last percentages. It’s the heavier, lower-rep cousin of Boring But Big.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
The Bodyweight template is a 5/3/1 assistance option where every accessory movement is a bodyweight exercise. You run the main lift through 5/3/1, then build muscle and work capacity with chin-ups, dips, push-ups, and the like. No extra plates required.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
The Periodization Bible is a 5/3/1 assistance template Jim Wendler laid out in the original book, adapted from Dave Tate’s “Periodization Bible” article. You run your main lift through 5/3/1, then attack three assistance exercises for high reps to build muscle and work capacity.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
Spinal Tap is a high-frequency 5/3/1 variant where you compress all nine main-lift working sets of a normal three-week cycle into a single workout. Each week becomes its own mini cycle, so you raise the training max every week instead of every three.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
“I’m Not Doing Jack Shit” is Jim Wendler’s name for the most stripped-down 5/3/1 template there is. You walk in, train the day’s main lift through its 5/3/1 sets, and walk out. No assistance, no conditioning required, nothing else.
[Read more…]Power Muscle Burn is a 5-day powerbuilding split that trains each muscle group three ways in a single session. You open with heavy power sets in the 3 to 5 range, drop to moderate muscle sets of 6 to 12, then close with a high-rep burn set taken to about 40 reps. The split runs chest and triceps, back and traps, quads and calves, shoulders and biceps, then deadlift and hamstrings.
Powerbuilding means you chase strength and size in the same block instead of picking one. That’s the whole point of the Power, Muscle, Burn method from Steve Shaw of Muscle & Strength. The heavy work keeps you strong, the moderate work adds muscle, and the burn set squeezes out the last bit of growth. You run it when you want to get bigger and stronger at once without switching programs.
It’s a good fit for intermediate lifters who want both strength and size and can commit to five training days a week. You don’t need a max or any percentages to start. Skip it if you want a pure strength or pure hypertrophy focus, or if you can’t train five days a week.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
The 3/5/1 progression is a small reordering of the standard 5/3/1 cycle. Instead of opening with the 5s week, you start with the 3s week, then run the 5s week, then finish with the 5/3/1 week. Everything else about the program stays exactly the same.
[Read more…]This is an 8-week, 4-day hypertrophy program from Muscle & Strength built to add size. It runs a bro split: chest and side delts, upper back and rear delts, arms and abs, then legs. Most exercises are three sets in the 10 to 12 range, and the last set of the bigger lifts gets a high-intensity finisher like a rest-pause set, a drop set, or slow negatives.
It’s a high-intensity-technique mass block, the kind of bro-split hypertrophy plan you’ve seen built around training each set close to failure. The split sends plenty of volume at one or two muscle groups per day, and the finishing techniques squeeze a bit more out of the sets that matter. Pick weights that are hard for the listed reps, beat the log book week to week, and the size follows.
It’s for intermediate lifters chasing size who are willing to train each set hard, often to failure. You don’t need a max or any percentages here. Skip it if you want strength or percentage-based work, or if you’d rather run a full-body or push/pull/legs structure.
[Read more…]This is a 6-week log press peaking program from MST Systems, the UK strongman outfit run by coach Shane Jerman. You press the log twice a week, once explosive and once strict, and build toward a new max log by the end.
It’s a peaking block, not a beginner plan. You should already know your log press max and be comfortable cleaning and pressing a log.
We built it into a Lift Vault spreadsheet that fills in your Day 1 opening loads from your log max, so you enter one number and start training.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
The 7th Week Protocol is a special week from 5/3/1 Forever that you run after a training block. It comes in two versions: a deload to recover, or a Training Max Test to confirm your training max is still the right number before you push on.
[Read more…]Mountain Dog PPL is a push, pull, legs program you run every other day. You rotate three sessions, train a day, rest a day, then move to the next workout, and you keep that cycle going for four to six weeks. Each session is built around one big lift plus pump and heavy waves and a finisher, so push day leads with decline dumbbell press and leg day opens with leg curls before the spider bar squats.
The program comes from the late John Meadows, the bodybuilding coach behind Mountain Dog Training, and Muscle & Strength published it for free. It carries his style: heavy triples and back-off work paired with brutal pump sets and sets taken to failure. Think of it as a bodybuilding take on push, pull, legs that runs by feel instead of percentages, which is why people who want size and a hard pump run it.
It’s a good fit for intermediate and advanced lifters who recover well, since you can push it to four or five days a week by dropping the rest days. Skip it if you want percentage-based strength work, because there are no percentages here. And if you can’t handle high-failure volume like double drop sets and dips to failure, this one will bury you.
[Read more…]Nick Bare’s 16-week hybrid plan trains you to run and lift at the same time. Most days pair a morning run with an evening lifting session, so you end up with about five lifts and four runs a week, with Sunday off.
Bare Performance Nutrition put the whole thing out for free, one week at a time. We pulled all 16 weeks into a single spreadsheet so you can see the full plan and log it in one place.
It isn’t a beginner program. You should already be able to run five to seven miles easy and handle a barbell. If that’s you, it’s one of the most complete free hybrid plans you’ll find.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
AMRAP stands for “as many reps as possible.” In 5/3/1 it’s the final set of your main lift each day, the one marked with a “+” (5+, 3+, or 1+). Because you’re chasing a new rep record at that weight, it’s also called the PR set, and it’s the engine that drives the whole program.
[Read more…]The Brian DeGennaro 16-Week Olympic Weightlifting Program, also called his Team Program, is a long peaking block for the snatch and the clean and jerk. You train five days a week, Sunday through Thursday, across two phases that build strength first and then sharpen the lifts for a meet.
It’s an advanced, competitive program. It’s built for lifters who already compete or are training toward a meet, not for someone still learning the lifts.
DeGennaro shared this as a free program, but his original weightlifting-forum post is offline now, so the spreadsheet is the easiest way to run it. Enter your maxes and the loads fill in for every day across both phases.
[Read more…]The Mike Burgener 12-Week Olympic Weightlifting Program is a longer build from coach Mike Burgener, known to most lifters as Coach B. It runs four days a week for three months and works through the snatch, the clean and jerk, and heavy squatting, with the intensity climbing and the volume dropping as the weeks go on.
It fits lifters who want a full three-month run rather than a quick peak. If you want something shorter, Coach B’s 23-day Bulgarian cycle is the faster option, but this one gives you the time to sharpen the lifts week by week. Week 12 day 4 is the payoff, where you work up to heavy singles at 85, 90, then 95 percent, or you go compete.
We rebuilt the program as a clean Lift Vault spreadsheet. Enter your maxes once and every working weight for all 12 weeks fills in for you, so you can just train and log what you hit.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
The Triumvirate is the original assistance template from Jim Wendler’s first 5/3/1 book. The name refers to the three exercises you perform each training day: one main lift run through the standard 5/3/1 progression, plus two assistance exercises.
[Read more…]Please note: This is not official 5/3/1 advice and is not associated in any way with Jim Wendler. If you want official 5/3/1 advice, buy the book.
Jumps and throws are explosive movements, like box jumps and medicine ball throws, that Jim Wendler programs before your main work in 5/3/1. They train power and wake up your nervous system so you’re primed to lift.
[Read more…]The lateral raise is the go-to isolation exercise for the side delts, the muscle that gives your shoulders width and that capped, round look. It’s simple and it works, but it isn’t the only way to train the lateral head.
You might want an alternative because the dumbbells at your gym jump in weight too quickly, your shoulders get cranky from the strict dumbbell version, you’re training at home, or you just want a fresh stimulus. The good news is the side delt responds to a lot of different angles and tools.
Here are the 8 alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they load the side delt, how easy they are to progress, and what equipment they need. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.
[Read more…]