Help me pick asssistance exercises for 5/3/1

sharky86

Hey Folks,

I am looking for a bit of advise.
I have been doing the stronglifts program for 1 year not and my current max on squats is 177.50kg x 3 reps. For my goals this is strong enough for me. I have bled this program dry as I have no way of recovering from this work in time for my next attempt.

As my body fat is around 19% - 20% I would like to start a new program which would allow for a cut as well.
I recently brought "Burn the Fat, Feed the muscle" and in the middle of trying to sort out my diet. I hope to have approx a 500 cal deficient from food and another 500 cal burned from exercise.

I will be doing cardio 4 - 5 morning a week, mix between 2 days running, 2 days cycling and 1 swimming day.

I also want to start the 5/3/1 program 4 evenings a week to try and maintain as much strength as possible but start to gain definition.

I need assistant with picking my assistance exercises.

Squat Day:
Squats as per 5/3/1
Step up's 5x15 reps
Hanging Leg Raises 5x15 reps

Press Day:
OHP as per 5/3/1
Dips 5x15 reps
Chins 5x10 reps

Deadlift Day:
Deadlift as per 5/3/1
Good Mornings 5x12 reps
Kneeling Squats/shrugs 5x12 reps
Hanging Leg Raises 5x15 reps

Bench Day:
Bench as per 5/3/1
Bench at 50% of Max 5x10 reps
BB Row 5x10 reps

Can someone offer some good advise on this program?

Thanks

d'Oracle

Your assistance looks a bit like its focused on putting on muscle. (i.e. the 5x10 rep ranges are for building muscle)

But your goals are to lose some fat.

One requires a calorie surplus, one a deficit.

There is nothing written in stone that says you have to do two assistance exercises.
If I was doing what your doing, (and I might be doing it some time) I'd do abs, bodyweight stuff and maybe some conditioning or complexes.

But just bear in mind that you don't need to do loads to keep strength.

sharky86

I was hoping that by keeping the reps in that range that it might assist me with not losing muscle while on a cut. Is there any truth in that statement?

Hanley

sharky86 wrote: »

I was hoping that by keeping the reps in that range that it might assist me with not losing muscle while on a cut. Is there any truth in that statement?

Nope. Intensity (ie a higher percentage of your 1rm) is more important. It's easier to recover from (you won't be as sore or stiff the next day) meaning you can train more frequently (cardio/whatever).

Mellor

sharky86 wrote: »

I recently brought "Burn the Fat, Feed the muscle" and in the middle of trying to sort out my diet. I hope to have approx a 500 cal deficient from food and another 500 cal burned from exercise

I'm not really sure what you are saying here. You don't have separate deficits from food and excercise.Your deficit is how much you eat below maintenance, nothing else. If you are eating 500 below maintenance, its 500 deficit.

But if you are saying that you are tryin to do an average of 500cals worth of excercise and eating 500cals less than sedentry needs. Then its a 1000 cal deficit, 1000 cals below maintenance.

Hanley

Mellor wrote: »

I'm not really sure what you are saying here. You don't have separate deficits from food and excercise.Your deficit is how much you eat below maintenance, nothing else. If you are eating 500 below maintenance, its 500 deficit.

But if you are saying that you are tryin to do an average of 500cals worth of excercise and eating 500cals less than sedentry needs. Then its a 1000 cal deficit, 1000 cals below maintenance.

His post was pretty simple. He wants to eat 500kcals under his sedentary/current activity levels, and do an additional 500kcals worth of exercise on top. Stop nitpicking.

d'Oracle

Even though I agree, I must point out that huge pile of ironing.

And also note that I am pointing this out.
Double Ironing.

Its like a hotel laundry in here.

Hanley

d'Oracle wrote: »

Even though I agree, I must point out that huge pile of ironing.

And also note that I am pointing this out.
Double Ironing.

Its like a hotel laundry in here.

Maybe I could just be surly, unhelpful and self depricating too, that way I'd save you the trouble of posting anything at all?!?

EDIT: I tend to nit-pick when people are wrong or arguing for the sake of arguing, not at unclear posts.

sharky86

So in a nut shell...reduce the volume and add more weight?
Any better exercises you can think of please let me know

d'Oracle

Surly?

Hanley

Sharky,

My fairly well known opinion of 5/3/1 at this stage is that it lacks sufficient volume in the 'core' lifts to maintain strength while dieting. So to that end my first assistance exercise (in place of step ups and benching 5x10) would be squats and benches with like 80-85% doing 3-8 sets of 3-5 reps.

Probably just do one more 'big' lift after that and knock it on the head. Something like a row on bench day, pull ups on DL day and midline stability/core on squat day.

I've never had to do it, so just theorising. One thing I have learned as I've moved away from lifting to BJJ is that it takes a lot less than you think to maintain muscle mass. That's why i'm suggesting a relatively low volume, but high intensity approach.

d'Oracle wrote: »

Surly?

Surely surly.

Mellor

Hanley wrote: »

His post was pretty simple. He wants to eat 500kcals under his sedentary/current activity levels, and do an additional 500kcals worth of exercise on top. Stop nitpicking.

And I explained that in my post.

But i wanted him to explain how he was calculating it. As its not uncommon for people to count exercise towards activity level and then add those calories burned to the deficit also

d'Oracle

Don't call me Shirly.