Ok, so I’m switching over to a 5/3/1 program, and I’ve tried to digest all the information from Jim Wendler and a few others, tailored towards my own things.

I’m choosing a 3 day split, based around bench, deadlift, and squat. I have a previous neck injury that results in painful muscle spasms if I overtrain on any movements pushing or pulling above my head, so I don’t train OHP to failure. As a result, it seems like specifically treating OHP as its own primary lift isn’t something that I want to do, or need to do.

I’m setting my training max at my 5 rep max at each lift (180 lb bench, 335 lb squat, 385 lb deadlift). There are some formulas for estimating your 1 rep max from 5 reps, and Wendler recommends a training max set at 90% or 85% of the 1 rep max, and I think these two calculations seem to mostly cancel each other out (I’ve seen some say 4rm is a good number, but also some saying that it doesn’t hurt to go with a lower training max anyway).

So with accessories, I’m just going to do some pushing with my bench day (OHP, incline bench, push ups, dips), some pulling with my deadlift day (rows, pull ups, clean and jerks), and some leg stuff with my squat day (front squat, lunges, calf raises). Any issues I should be aware of on this approach? I’m open to other approaches, but can’t really do gym sessions longer than an hour, and going more than 3 times a week is gonna be difficult.

So here’s what I’m looking at, in terms of actual details:

Week 1: 5-rep sets of 65%/75%/85% (last set AMRAP)
Week 2: 3-rep sets of 70%/80%/90% (last set AMRAP)
Week 3: 5 x 75%, 3 x 85%, 1 x 95% (last set AMRAP)
Week 4: 5-rep sets of 40%/50%/60%

Then I increase my training max. I’ll be back here asking whether I should be doing more than the 10 lbs/5 lbs based on my actual performance on the AMRAP sets.

Anything else I should think about?