Just finished another 5/3/1 cycle yesterday. Since I’ll be fighting again soon, I decided not to include Squats and Deadlifts – I just tend to put on too much mass when doing these. Instead, my lifting sessions revolve around the olympic lifts: the snatch and the clean & jerk. Additionally, I do bench presses and weighted pull-ups. Hence, I cover all of the following functional movement patterns:
- Vertical Push: Jerk
- Vertical Pull: Pull-Ups
- Horizontal Push: Bench Press
- Horizontal Pull: None, although some coaches classify the deadlift as such. Hence, it’s safe to say that the clean serves this purpose just as well.
- Knee-centered Stand-Up: Overhead lunge following the jerk
- Hip-centered Stad-Up (aka hinge): Both the clean and the snatch
- Anti-Flex, Anti-Rotation, Anti-whatever: Putting a big weight overhead and keeping it there
Snatches and pull-ups make up workout A, while bench pressing and the c&j form workout B. During the workout, I’m alternating between the olympic lifts and the grinds. As a general rule, however, the o-lifts always come before the grinds. So, for example, I’d do the following:
- Snatch, 75% 1RM, 5 Reps
- Pull-Up, 75% 1RM, 5 Reps
- Snatch, 85% 1RM, 3 Reps
- Pull-Up, 85% 1RM, 3 Reps
- Snatch, 95% 1RM, AMRAP
- Pull-Up, 95% 1RM, AMRAP
In between sets, I’m taking as much time as I feel like. I used to be rather strict about timing in the past, but now I consider it a rather autoregulatory thing. Well, autoregulatory or not, I feel that the grinds did suffer from their placement after the extremely CNS-intense O-lifts. As a matter of fact, this feeling is well backed by my training log, which is presented below:
| Snatch | Clean&Jerk | Pull-Up | Bench Press | Exercise 1 | Snatch | |||||||
| Test Result | 55 | 75 | 120 | 100 | Exercise 2 | Clean & Jerk | ||||||
| 95,00% | 52,25 | 71,25 | 114 | 95 | Exercise 3 | Pull-Up | ||||||
| 90,00% | 49,5 | 67,5 | 108 | 90 | Exercise 4 | Bench Press | ||||||
| 85,00% | 46,75 | 63,75 | 102 | 85 | ||||||||
| 80,00% | 44 | 60 | 96 | 80 | Odd Sessions: | Snatch | Pull-Up | |||||
| 75,00% | 41,25 | 56,25 | 90 | 75 | Even Sessions: | Clean & Jerk | Bench Press | |||||
| 70,00% | 38,5 | 52,5 | 84 | 70 | ||||||||
| 65,00% | 35,75 | 48,75 | 78 | 65 | ||||||||
| Session | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | ||||||
| Date | 30.08.12 | 03.09.12 | 06.09.12 | 08.09.12 | ||||||||
| EXR 1 | Snatch | C&J | Snatch | C&J | Snatch | C&J | ||||||
| Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | |
| Set 1 | 35 | 5 | 50 | 5 | 37,5 | 3 | 52,5 | 3 | 40 | 5 | 55 | 5 |
| Set 2 | 42,5 | 5 | 57,5 | 5 | 45 | 3 | 60 | 3 | 52,5 | 3 | 65 | 3 |
| Set 3 | 47,5 | 5 | 65 | 3 | 50 | 4 | 67 | 5 | 52,5 | 5 | 70 | 5 |
| EXR 2 | Pull-Up | Bench Press | Pull-Up | Bench Press | Pull-Up | Bench Press | ||||||
| Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | Weight | Reps | |
| Set 1 | 80 | 5 | 65 | 5 | 84 | 3 | 70 | 3 | 90 | 5 | 75 | 5 |
| Set 2 | 90 | 5 | 75 | 5 | 95 | 3 | 80 | 3 | 102,5 | 3 | 85 | 3 |
| Set 3 | 102,5 | 5 | 85 | 5 | 107,5 | 3 | 90 | 3 | 115 | x | 95 | 1 |
| Snatch | Pull-Up | |||||||||||
| Session | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 5 | ||||||
| H1RM | 55,17 | 54,55 | 59 | 115,32 | 113,83 | 118,29 | ||||||
| Test Result | 55 | 55 | 55 | 120 | 120 | 120 | ||||||
| Estimated strength increase (%) | 0,3090909091 | -0,8181818182 | 7,2727272727 | -3,9 | -5,1416666667 | -1,425 | ||||||
| Clean & Jerk | Bench Press | |||||||||||
| Session | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 6 | ||||||
| H1RM | 68,83 | 75,95 | 78,76 | 95,63 | 95,3 | 95 | ||||||
| Test Result | 75 | 75 | 75 | 100 | 100 | 100 | ||||||
| Estimated strength increase (%) | -8,2266666667 | 1,2666666667 | 5,0133333333 | -4,37 | -4,7 | -5 | ||||||
H1RM stands for „hypothetical 1 RM“ and refers to 1 RM estimations made with [this app]. So, to sum the above up:
- Snatch +7,3% (55kg -> 59kg)
- Clean & Jerk +5% (75kg -> 79kg)
- Pull-Up -1,4% (120kg -> 118kg, including bodyweight)
- Bench Press -5% (100kg -> 95%)
Since the O-lifts are imho more important than the grinds (especially for fighters), I call that an OK month. Not perfect, but by all means ok. There’ll be no regeneration week for me – tuesday, I’ll jump right into the next cycle. Although Wendler proposes adding 5kg to the big lifts at the beginning of each new cycle, I feel that this is too much for the O-lifts. Hence, I’ll only increase them by 2.5kg each.
What are your thoughts on O-lifts for martial artists? Just feel free to post your point of view to the comments section below. Looking forward to reading them.
So long,
take care
The Performance Engineer 