Wendler Cycle
bostonwolf
Posts: 3,038 Member
We are starting one this week after figuring out 5RM last week. Doing back squat, bench and deadlift. Should be fun and I'm interested to see if I can manage some gains out of it
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I had to look Wendler Cycle up. Our box has a Barbell Club that focuses on the lifting/strength training outside of the regular WOD. Our regular WODs have some strength or OLY component and I work in a 5x5 when I don’t feel the programming is giving me enough.
Do you have any specific goals for the cycle? I’ll be interested to see how it goes for you.0 -
Looks good - also interested to see how it goes x0
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We have a spreadsheet (on my home PC) that crunches the #s for us. We set a 5RM last week and entered that, so this week is in the 50-60% range and it ramps up a bit each week.
Tonight will be squats: 195x5, 225x5, 255x? (as many as you can get)
Tomorrow bench press: 150x5, 170x5, 195x?
Wednesday is Deadlifts: 195x5, 225x5, 255x?0 -
I've been doing Wendler since June and I'm still getting gains! I'm heading into the Bod Pod again in Feb, and while I'm only down about 8 pounds since May... I'm two sizes smaller... so I'm steadily building muscle. According to my last Bod Pod, I'm gaining about a pound of muscle a month... and my lifting has steadily gone through the roof! I'm a little tired of Wendler and want to do more cleans and snatches and stuff, but I can't argue with the numbers. I've gotten stronger... two years in to Crossfit and coming up on a year of Wendler... and I'm still getting higher numbers. Going to stick with it for now.0
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I attribute most of my progression over the last year to Wendler. Good mix with CF. I use the rep scheme on additional lifts: strict press & front squat as well.0
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We did a Wendler 5-3-1 - PB'ed all my lifts, most notably added 10kg to my deadlift. My CF total went from 185kg to 200kg0
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Last night was interesting. Relatively easy. Got to 8 reps at 255 pretty smoothly. Good depth, good power out of the bottom, etc. Got to the bottom on #9 and nothing. I sat there for a few seconds then just clenched every thing and stood it up and called it.
I'd like to use this to get my Total over 1000. I'm in the mid 900s now.0 -
kelly_e_montana wrote: »I attribute most of my progression over the last year to Wendler. Good mix with CF. I use the rep scheme on additional lifts: strict press & front squat as well.
Strict press must be tough. I just feel like when you hit the wall on strict press at a certain weight that's all she wrote.
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It's alright. Felt like it was the easiest one on 5-3-1 (we did strict press, deads and squats).
PBed my 1RM by a small amount after, which is quite a lot for a strict press0 -
Bench press and Deadlifts tonight
Bench will be 150x5, 170x5, 195 til failure
Deadlifts: 195x5, 225x5, 255 to failure.0 -
Wow! Good weights0
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As you guys know we rarely do bench press in Crossfit. I plugged in my numbers and was kind of wondering if I'd even get 5 reps at 195. Back I lifted regularly 225 was about my 1RM. I hit 11 and failed on 12. Deadlifts did 7 reps at 255 with good form.0
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(*)0
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If you hit 11, you need to re-adjust your numbers more aggressively on your next cycle. That's great!0
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bostonwolf wrote: »kelly_e_montana wrote: »I attribute most of my progression over the last year to Wendler. Good mix with CF. I use the rep scheme on additional lifts: strict press & front squat as well.
Strict press must be tough. I just feel like when you hit the wall on strict press at a certain weight that's all she wrote.
I do go up on strict press, but for example, I only added 10 lbs in a 3 month period. Incremental plates help. It's a tough lift to progress, for sure!
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I added 2.5kg to my strict press after the last Wendler. That's like 5lbs. Still, it all counts0
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kelly_e_montana wrote: »If you hit 11, you need to re-adjust your numbers more aggressively on your next cycle. That's great!
Definitely. I did not give myself enough credit when guestimating and went off my last 1RM which was about 235 or so.
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bostonwolf wrote: »As you guys know we rarely do bench press in Crossfit. I plugged in my numbers and was kind of wondering if I'd even get 5 reps at 195. Back I lifted regularly 225 was about my 1RM. I hit 11 and failed on 12. Deadlifts did 7 reps at 255 with good form.
I haven’t done much bench press since I started crossfit, but I guess all those push ups, wall balls, and burpees are helping me build some strength there. I did some bench pressing this week (after the coach didn’t show up for a drop in, I drove over to an Anytime Fitness to lift). I did 5 sets of 5 at my previous 1 rep max (about a year ago).
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Absolutely. But when I did more weightlifting I could tell you pretty exactly what my 5RM would be, etc. Before this I had no earthly idea.0
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kelly, what type of progression did you use for your strict press? I am mostly doing push press lately because I'm training for Strongman log press, but I feel like getting my strict press up will help the push press for sure. I hit 100 on press the first time I ever tested 1RM, and 105 a couple months later, but just trying to max out every couple months prob isn't a great training strategy :-P0
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This cycling seems good. I wonder if I could apply it to other areas of life...eg exam prep, sorting the house? Probably not work or toddler care!0
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I've been doing Wendler on my strict press once per week but we push press in CF regularly and I go to an oly class once per week and do some type of jerk variation. So I feel like I'm getting more volume and a little more diversity in overhead work. I don't really program the other things progressively myself (push press, jerks, HSPU's) because they sort of get thrown at me via CF and my barbell class. To give you an example, in November or December 2013, I was PUSH PRESSING 100#. I started doing strict press work on my own after that and now I am strict pressing 125. My understanding is that if you were efficient, you might be able to push press 30% more than your strict press. I'm not there with the efficiency and rack position to get that kind of translation to push press. However, it's super slow going to move the strict press up. Myself, with this one, I'd use incremental plates whenever they were available and/or maybe throw on an extra set or reps at the top end of my 3rd (95%) week after I burned out at my max rep set. I'm at the point now where I have to overload this lift to see progress.0
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Okay Wolf, how’s it going?0
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Pretty good. Last heavy day today, then a deload next week. We are going to do 3 cycles.0
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Good to hear.0
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Missed squats Monday because of the storm. Doing Bench and DL today, I might tack on Squats afterwards.0
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Beast!0
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I bought his 5-3-1 book and have been going through it. How is your program going?0
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Pretty good, and I haven't been super strict following it. For the next six months my bigger focus is going to be on fat loss but it was good to do a mini-bulking cycle before hand.0
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