Continuing as I have in the past, below I present the results from the latest 5/3/1 strength program at 626.
Week 1 Max Lifts
| Bench Press | Back Squat | Shoulder Press | Deadlift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kris | 195 | 325 | 150 | 400 |
| Suzy | 125 | 230 | 88 | 273 |
| Alan | 215 | 265 | 135 | 300 |
| Patrick | 215 | 235 | 145 | 285 |
| Brooke | 120 | 150 | 78 | 205 |
| Jackie | 70 | 140 | 58 | 200 |
Week 6 Max Lifts
| Bench Press | Back Squat | Shoulder Press | Deadlift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kris | 215 | 335 | 170 | 420 |
| Suzy | 137 | 235 | 92 | 288 |
| Alan | 230 | 305 | 150 | 365 |
| Patrick | 225 | 245 | 145 | 300 |
| Brooke | 128 | 168 | 78 | 228 |
| Jackie | 78 | 163 | 63 | 208 |
Percentage Gains
| Bench Press | Back Squat | Shoulder Press | Deadlift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kris | 10 | 3 | 13 | 5 |
| Suzy | 10 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
| Alan | 7 | 15 | 11 | 22 |
| Patrick | 5 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| Brooke | 7 | 12 | 0 | 11 |
| Jackie | 11 | 16 | 9 | 4 |
Discussion
I’ve covered the structure of the program numerous times, which you can find here, so I’m going to leave that out this time and just provide a few highlights. The group increased their lifts by a combined 369 pounds, which worked out to an 8.02% increase. This gain is consistent with what has been achieved by the previous groups (8.8% by group 1 and 8.3% by group 2).
In this round I made two changes to the program. The first was to modify the supplemental work to better support the main lifts and the second was the increase the weights from the standard 5/3/1 percentages each weak if a lifter substantially overshot the expected value for number of reps performed during an AMRAP for a given movement. With these changes I was expecting a slight uptick in the overall percentage gain and was somewhat surprised to see a slightly lower number than in previous sessions.
Given that this particular 6 week sequence was coincident with the CrossFit Games Open, and most of the lifters participated in those brutal workouts, I’m going assume the group’s results were somewhat skewed and give the program changes I made a second chance. I currently have a new group in their second week of this program at 626. Once this group wraps up their cycle, I’ll reassess the changes I made. Stay tuned, I should be reporting on that group in a little over a month from now.
