FWIW Wendler recommends leaving a rep or two in the tank on the AMRAP sets and not killing yourself on the 5x10 sets. imo the 3 days a week w BBB option is indeed suboptimal for people with near novice level strength. And of course, if Yugo isn't eating at a surplus progress will be much harder (as he alluded to in the LC), even with the semi-veggie diet.

I gained 25lbs and did SS and my upper body lifts never really took off. If anything i think 531 even at maintenance or on a slight deficit is going faster. But i had hoped for more press/bench gains. smolov Jr is how to get volume imo and just take a bazooka to my presses.

Hmm, haven't updated my log in a week. Confirmed mad at my general state of strength ldo.

7/9

OHP, week 2, cycle 3 (118 target)

75x3
85x3
95x6 (110)

Meh. I went as hard as I could. Couldn't get #7 to even budge further than my chin.

52 pullups/chins/neutral grip
CGBP 80x10x5
BB bicep curls 45x10x5

G/f did (61 target):

37.5x3
43.5x3
50x5 (maybe 4, I forget - 56 est 1rm)

50 assisted pullups
CGBP 45x5x5
DB Bicep curls ?x10x5

7/10 log

1-1.5 hours of basketball drills. Seems my dribbling is getting better slowly.

7/13 log

DL week 2, cycle 3 (315 target)

197.5x3
227.5x3
255x10 (have a nice bruise my my side from the belt, but was able to keep it on for all 10) est 1rm 340

Happy about that. Utterly confused why my lower lifts can go up but my upper lifts simply cannot. Both SS and 5/3/1 aren't supposed to have these issues as far as I can research. Time for Smolov Jr next cycle imo.

Box squats for power 145x3x10 (box I'm using is either barely parallel or not quite parallel fwiw)
Pull-throughs - 102.5lbsx10x5
Ab wheel - bwx6x5

G/f did (174 target):

110x3
125x3
140x10 (187 est 1rm)

Box squats 65x3x10
Pull throughs 22.5x10x5
Planks 10lbs x 15sec x 4, 15lbs x 15sec x 1

7/14 log

Basketball drills outside after dribbling ~1 mile to a park and then back afterwards. Dribbling is harder outside imo. And my sweat creates puddles.

7/15 log

Bench, week 2, cycle 3 (180 target)

112.5x3
130x.3
145x7 (174 est 1rm) - man I really went as focused and hard as I felt I could. 8th rep didn't budge but just hovered.

DB bench 40x10x5
DB row 55x10x5
Ripplebro tricep extensions 25lbs+ez curl bar x 5-6x5

10 hill sprints

G/f did (85 target):

52.5x3
60x3
67.5x7 (81 est 1rm) - continues with a lot of variance in her bench. Her approach seems similar but every few sets she just performs better.

DB bench 10x10x5
DB row 15x10x5
ripplebro tricep extension ez curl bar x 6-8 x 5

10 hill sprints


Btw, I still am doing some SMR (at least 15 mins on lifting days) but not a ton. Just not logging it. Meh. I've lost a couple pounds it seems too from my slow cut. No idea what bodyfat % I am, but seems like I want to know now, lol.

Ok, so Smolov plan for next "cycle" I'm thinking of doing it for OHP and running LBBS 5/3/1 and DL 5/3/1 on two of the four lifting days. It seems this approach is somewhat commonly done and I found a spreadsheet for it (for bench but w/e I changed it).

My main question for OHP, is if I'm starting with *maybe* a 1rm of ~110lbs, should I really go up by 10lbs each week on Smolov Jr? I'm thinking 5lbs a week for me and 2.5lbs a week for my g/f (1rm of *maybe* 60lbs).

Does anyone who has tried Smolov Jr even read my log? Just to let you know what it would look like, here is the program (I also plan to do probably ~20 minutes of SMR every day just on my rotator cuffs and neck/pecs during this program fyi):

Week 1
6x6x70
7x5x75 (+lbbs)
8x4x80 (+DL)
10x3x85 (done day after last lift day - no day of rest in between)

Week 2
6x6x75
7x5x80 (+lbbs)
8x4x85 (+DL)
10x3x90 (done day after last lift day - no day of rest in between)

Week 3

6x6x80
7x5x85 (+lbbs)
8x4x90 (+DL)
10x3x95 (done day after last lift day - no day of rest in between)

Week 4
Deload (we will be on vacation this week anyway) - maybe test my 1rm with a day of rest after my last week 3 lifting day (right b4 we leave)

Any thoughts? I guess if I don't get any I'll repost in the beginner thread and intermediate thread)

Super standard to have subpar development on upper body lifts on SS. Can't say for 5/3/1, seems weird. Even if you've been dieting a bit your upper body lifts are weak enough that progress should be possible...but obv it doesn't help.

I'd just crosspost to the intermediate thread. No input on smolov.

This has seemed subpar for even SS though. But anyway smolov Jr time either way imo.

True enough, re: subpar. Think I ended up with 3x5x160 at the end of SS....at 210 lbs, lol.

So are you starting Smolov tomorrow?

Montecore - No, I'm going to finish this 3rd cycle of 5/3/1 and then start Smolov+5/3/1 instead of the 4th cycle.

So it probably makes more sense to say we're still going to do 5/3/1 kind of, but change our 4th cycle to be suuuuuper OHP volume heavy, with no additional assistance, and no benching (unless it makes sense to do some light benching as assistance I guess). And since Smolov Jr exists as a program already, instead of inventing OHP programming to increase volume, we're going with that.

I'm interested in what Busto advises. Afaik I think he may be the only one who has done Smolov Jr for OHP (did he do all 3 weeks though? seems like too long for him to follow 1 program idea) and/or how big of a deal slightly cutting will be while doing it (since he's constantly cutting and not even cutting slowly at that).

Smolov press sounds brutal, I can only imagine how much I would want to kill myself if I did it for bench (and I like benching). I would imagine you might wear out your lacrosse ball SMRing yourself for the three weeks you're on that program.

If it works is a Smolov bench up next after some semi-reasonable recovery period?

Especially brutal on a deficit! No words of advice, but I'm curious to see what the result will be

Montecore - Yeah, pretty much in my mind. Like, maybe cycle 5 will just be straight 5/3/1...then cycle 6 would be smolov bench potentially. Rinse/repeat if it works well? I dno. I'm a bit worried my g/f will have to completely bail on the program. Or (more likely ldo) I will end up crushing my shoulders to hell, have to quit, and her OHP will double while she talks about how she's sore every day (but injury-free).

The thing is, I don't think any of this type of stuff is really supposed to be for someone who is barely novice at OHP and Bench. Like, the guidelines for Smolov Jr are basically all for bench it seems, and ppl who have 200+ bench at least. I guess I could have done more research but there maybe aren't a whole lot of people in my position who do Smolov.

Not really sure what they do instead, keep weak benches/OHP? Quit?

Btw, I'm pretty sure the only reason my bench is "so far" ahead of my OHP is b/c it's the only lift I actually did before learning BB lifts. I did DB benching but kept messing up my neck/shoulders whenever I tried to move up...so I just never did.

Aidan - 5/3/1 on a slight deficit seems fine afaik so far. Maybe if I did 4 days a week it'd be different? Or didn't do a deload week? I dno, I'm quite happy with my DL progress so far and my squat progress seems fine too considering it's already my "best" lift. Tbh I think I maybe should be best at DLing, I just had to completely rebuild my form twice to learn how to tighten my back and not lift with my back parallel to the floor.

I don't think you necessarily have to do Smolov to improve your bench or press, maybe try more of a TM type routine for upper body lifts (i.e. some heavier accessory exercises) in order to help strengthen your upper body a bit more? I don't think light high rep DB benching is necessarily the cure for what ails your bench; the TM ebook has a number of good press-centric TM programs that might be worth trying.

As an aside, I recall you passing over TM for 5/3/1 but I don't recall exactly why. Did 5/3/1 just fit your eye better or something?

I know I have been jumping around, but just to sum up: I am in favor of you doing anything that gets you lifting heavier weights at a higher frequency.

IMO TM>smolov>5/3/1 for your upper body lifts right now.

What is the basis for your opinion that TM > smolov > 5/3/1 for upper body lifts? It seems like you're saying it completely subjectively, which is fine, but if there are compelling reasons for it, I'm not wedded to any specific approach. I realize I have to figure this stuff out for myself b/c what I've been doing isn't really working obv.

I went with 5/3/1 for mainly the following reasons (in order of how appealing they were to me):

- I was really mentally struggling with SS and the unrealistic expectations it set for me. I constantly felt like a huge failure b/c I couldn't move up in weight and often when I did, my form would go to **** or I'd fail a set accidentally and then have to drop back down to regroup. A lot of this was mental, but I think part of the reason it happened is that I never really kept gaining on SS like it lays out. My intention was to milk it for a long time b/c many posters seemed to say "I could have done SS for even longer". If I had to do it over again I would have done greyskull or w/e that other beginning option is just b/c SS didn't seem great for me.

- I could maintain 5/3/1 or modify it for years if I wanted to. I liked the idea of a long-term fundamental program I could just stick with and switch out accessory work. My understand of TM is it's recommended primarily as a stepping stone from SS to ???.

- B/c TM is recommended primarily as a stepping stone from SS, and I didn't really like SS programming. Churning out a 3rd rep, when it feels really really hard and you *have* to get 5 reps was just a huge mind**** for me. It was super hard to do those challenging reps. OTOH, doing a 5 rep set where I only *need* to get 1 rep is so much better. I still feel like a failure when I look at my lift totals and whatever, but when I get to a tough 3rd rep, I can keep going and if I don't hit the 8 reps I wanted ideally, no big deal as long as I could be improving month to month.

- I obtained an ebook copy of 5/3/1 first.

Also, just anecdotally but I really don't remember reading anything about TM that made it seem especially good for upper body lifts. What makes you think it's better than smolov or 5/3/1? Tbh the main drawbacks I heard about 5/3/1 were that my squat may not improve much, and that following some of the "suggested" (Wendler kind of suggests things he doesn't even really recommend imo) assistance should probably be ignored (leg press, leg extensions).

If it seemed to me that TM >> 5/3/1 for upper body lifts that would have been very compelling imo so if that was mentioned or I had read about that I really think I would have noticed.