I do wish 5/3/1 worked across the board for me. The frequency, duration, and set/rep schemes are right in line with what I like doing and what I can fit into my schedule.

So yeah I'm jelly of you guys that do like it.

ETA: It is probably in large my own fault for not liking it. I tolerated form issues in my squat for way too long because I was still making good progress, so now I don't really have a reliable default. And I've taken a lot of breaks from pressing because it bothers my shoulders more than bench does, so my form is probably comparatively crappy there too.

very easy to make squats your 2nd big exercise on DL day. Or run the full body template.

Tweaking is encouraged.

From an anecdotal point of view, regardless of program, working squats in the medium-high rep ranges is the balls.

still not sold on BBB for OHP. not sure if volume is the answer there. i tend to believe what make bench and OHP go up is just general upper body strength. if anyone knows the secret for OHP, I'm all ears...

"Huge reason" was probably overstating the case. Seeing as how I mostly had my ducks in a row (surplus, not missing workouts, sleep etc), I do think the 5/3/1 programming with leg presses, curls and squatting every 9-10 days only was most of the problem, yes.

I'll still try it again later this summer though, but with the adjustments you suggest. Which incidentally is exactly what Wendler's best-looking template in the 2nd edition is. Well, front squats...but still. I think maybe 5/3/1 squats with BBB squats + front squats on DL day sounds the best.

there's no rule it's gotta be front squats. if you want more time under the bar with back squats, throw in back squats on DL days.

box squats would work well too on DL days.

Yeah I'll see then. I'm doing HBBS so front squats are prob better for me than LBBSers, but doing regular BS is prob still preferable, at least to get my squat to non-embarrassing levels. Sorry for hijack HS.

Aren't regular BS better for weak-ass lifters than box squats?

RE: squatting on DL day....

I might do a BBB type squat before deadlifting. I was reading recently that training deadlift in an already partially fatigued state can help, because you always deadlift last in a meet anyway. The BBB squat shouldnt tire me out too much, it would be more like a recovery squat/warm up.

regular squats > box squats. if you want to get cute, you can pause squat, but just squat.

Wendler doesn't suggest those as defaults, at least in edition 1:

"Leg Press

I'm not a huge leg press fan, but I can see its value. It's not squatting...."

Doesn't seem like he is suggesting it as a default.

It's the default suggestion for perhaps the most popular assistance work version, the triumvirate.

Deadlifting after doing 5x10 squats doesn't sound like it's gunna happen...

I also think a lot of the 5/3/1 hate comes from people who just did it for a few months then gave up... I got around 6 months my first time and made ok progress.

Injuries permitting, I'm going to stick with it for a solid year this time and put this "5/3/1 sucks for squats" to rest for good.

5/3/1 doesn't seem to be designed to be a short-term or even medium-term program.

Yah. This is my point. No one on here has done 5/3/1 for more than a few cycles imo.

I don't quite get what you guys mean by that. It takes a very long time to get adapted to the brogram before gains are seen? In which case I say, wat?