Program Review: God is a Beast Template for 5/3/1

Erik
12 min readJan 31, 2019
This time, I took my own picture of weight on a barbell. Fancy. Chalk leftover from someone else.

It’s been a while because this is a long ass Template, but my year of 5/3/1 Forever kept chugging along, even if the blog posts didn’t. This is my fourth template from Forever, S.V.R. II was first, Black Army Jacket was second and Pervertor was the third.

With the red hot success I had with Black Army Jacket, I went to God is a Beast because it also employs a type of Spinal Tap sets. But God is a Beast is looooong, each leader is six weeks instead of the standard three, which also meant double the amount of 7th week protocol. The anchor is run for two cycles at minimum, rather than one cycle. If your enjoyment of 5/3/1 Forever comes from how varied it is, God is a Beast is not for you.

But numbers do talking better than anything else, here’s the 1RM movement:

Overhead Press (OHP): 160 lbs → 170 lbs

Back Squat: 395 lbs → 430 lbs

Bench: 265 lbs → 275 lbs

Deadlift: 450 lbs → 465 lbs

Bodyweight: 190 lbs → 189 lbs

Body fat: 17.4% → 16.1%

While there was some OK movement here, it’s important to note that this is over a much longer period of time than a typical 5/3/1 tempalte; God is a Beast is three times as long as a typical 5/3/1 Forever template.

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Erik

Hi. I make movies and lift weights. I write about the latter here.