Bury me with my name in an unmarked grave — another casualty to the vanity of history
This is a retrospective on doing a year of different templates from 5/3/1 Forever, Jim Wendler’s most recent tweaking to his super popular strength training program. I have been doing 5/3/1, in some form, for two years now. I have program lifting for three and a half years. That’s not long at all. So, this is not the opinion of an expert, merely the experience of an average man that finds time in his schedule to lift four times a week.
But what speaks louder than numbers? Not much to most folks, so here they are:
Overhead Press (OHP): 155 lbs → 170 lbs
Back Squat: 395 lbs → 430 lbs
Bench: 240 lbs → 275 lbs
Deadlift: 435 lbs → 465 lbs
Bodyweight: 184 lbs → 189 lbs
Body fat: 16.7% → 16.1%
When I started out this year, I mentioned it to a fellow lifter and he said that anyone that did a year of 5/3/1 Forever would “be a strong son of a bitch” at the end of it all. I’m sure a lot of lifters would say these numbers are not very strong, but Symmetric Strength rates me as “proficient” in all lifts except squat, which I am…
