So I have been doing my current training program for several weeks and overall have felt like I have had some great workouts. Unfortunately, I have also noticed that my recovery is not up to par and I have been starting to have less energy/strength for my workouts.

Now this is not all from my program, I need to get to bed sooner and make sure to get good nutrition in my body. However, I believe the whole body workouts are not giving me enough time to recover, before blasting the muscles all over again.

So What to Do?

After much thought and looking into different training philosophies, I have decided to do a modified 5/3/1 program. I have heard a lot of great things about the 5/3/1 program and after reading the manual I knew with a few modifications for strongman, it should work great for my goals.

Here is what I came up with:

Day1 – Upper Body

1. Overhead press (5/3/1)
2. Shoulder or chest ex. – 3-5 sets x 10-20 reps (DB incline, Dips, DB bench, Incline press, etc..)
3. Lats or Upper Back ex. – 3-5 sets x 10-20 reps (DB rows, Chins, T-bar rows, Face pulls, etc..)
4. Triceps – 3-5 sets x 10-20 reps

Day 2 – Lower Body

1. Deadlift (5/3/1)
2. Squat or another DL variation: 3-5 sets x 10-20 reps
3. Hamstrings: 3-5 sets x 10-20 reps
4. Ab/core: 3-5 sets x 10-20 reps

Day 3 – Conditioning

This day is for building my conditioning and hitting any areas that I feel are lacking.

1. Dips or Upper back/shoulder ex: 3 sets x 10-20 reps
2. Conditioning circuit, Hill sprints, and/or Sled drag

Day 4 – Event Training

This day will hit the different strongman events. The events will be determined by what contest I am training for, as each contest has different events. The current contest will have Log clean & press, Deadlift, Keg carry, and Farmers walk. So since I am hitting overhead press and deadlift earlier in the week, I will  do:

1. Farmers carry
2. Keg carry circuit
3. Tire flip (for more power/leg work) or power cleans ( to help with log clean & press) – I don’t have a log yet or I would incorporate it here. Will drive to Bob’s at least a couple more times before contest to work with the log he has.

So that’s the program. The days could be changed around, I just put them in that order to match my schedule and what I think will give me the best recovery. I will most likely be training Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Since today is Wednesday, I did workout day 2 and loved it!

If you decide to give this program a try let me know, would love to hear you thoughts on it!

-Tim-