We're going to cover the simplest strength training program ever and we're going to start right now. Okay. So, one of the big factors around training athletes to make it to two different Olympics or three in some cases to make it to the NFL to, you know, be one of the best performers in the entire world is that we've got to understand simplicity. Okay? We have to understand simple things like progressive overload, exercise selection, and that's one of the big factors around this strength training program is that we can see immediately based off of how simple this is to execute that if we pick a specific lift and let's say there's three or four lifts each week, we're going to progress down with a rep scheme and then on the last week we might have a D lo and then we can rinse, wash, and repeat. And the beauty of something so simple is that it makes it very very easy to see where there's success in specific lifts, where there might not be success in specific lifts. And it makes it a lot easier to dial in specific accessories and other moving parts that we need to factor in if we're working on speed, if we're working on a specific sporting task, anything along those lines. So the big factor that I want to do is I want to go into 531 created by Jim Wendler. Okay, so this is a program and what's pretty crazy cool for me is that I've been around long enough as a strength coach that I was around when 531 first came out. I was like the first wave probably of people who would have tried this in the gym. And now that I've been, you know, now that I'm fat and old and been around for a long time, I'm actually able to see when athletes come into Garage Strength and are 531ers. Like they tend to have specific qualities about them. Uh they're interested in training progressions. Uh they're interested in progressive overload and they have a decent understanding of what it means to develop over a long time frame. And I think that's like the first big aspect around 531 is that you recognize that you can just get little steps every single week, every single program. You might have a 5 lb gain for, you know, two to 3 weeks and then all of a sudden 50 weeks later, you're still in this 531 system and you've made some really good freaking progress. And that's one of the best parts around 531. So now with that being said, I can also see when athletes come in who are 531 athletes and they get murdered by volume, okay? They get absolutely slaughtered. They struggle a little bit with things uh applying exercises that aren't powerlifting based. So, if we even bring in like a hang clean or something like that or a power clean or a one box clean or a power snatch or two box snatch or anything along those lines, things tend to be uh a little bit more complex for them to adapt to and it then delays things a little bit right off the bat. So, let's try to get through a simple explanation. Okay? Then let's look at a couple uh a couple ideas or actually think through what are some positives, great positives, what are some negatives that might occur from this and then what can we do moving forward. Now the first big thing I'll bring up is like exercise selection, okay? Or maybe splits. Let's go splits. So if we're looking at training on a week, okay, let's say that you're training four days a week, okay? So each day you're going to select a primary exercise. Okay. So, let's say day one is an upper body day and we're going to pick uh military press. Okay. Day two um is a leg day. We're going to pick deadlift. Then we have the day off, right? We have a rest day. Day three uh we're going to pick it's another upper body day. So, let's pick bench press, right? Uh and then day four, the next thing that we can do is we can pick back squat. Okay. So, we have four days that we have set up. Let's say it's a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. So day one, day two, Wednesday is our day off. Day three, day four is Friday. Okay, so we've got those set up. Now we have the exercises laid out. Okay, so we have military press is on day one. So the big thing here that we'll end up seeing is that if you decide to run this to to go forward with this, that's your main lift for the day. So on week one, you're going to do three sets of five. And this is the basic most rudimentary system that I think we can go with. The most basic rudimentary system of 531 is that week one you're going to do three sets of five military press. You're going to go through your warm-up. Then you're going to hit military press for three sets of five. The next thing that you would do is then you would select your your accessories. Okay? So you have your accessories based off of um you know you could have theoretically uh a supporting lift for the other day. So you have a bench press on the other day. So let's say you're going to do dumbbell bench and then some back work. Something like that. Right now on the deadlift when we get to day two you're going to do three sets of five. Okay. On day three you get the bench press. Three sets of five working sets. Day four back squat. Three sets of five. Okay. Now in the simplest form so I'm thinking about a kid. let's who's in 10th grade or 11th grade and this kid's in 10th or 11th grade is that they might not have the best idea of where to start but they know they've got to get three sets of five and they know that they can execute those and at the bare minimum they will push and successfully get three sets of five done and if we understand the concepts one around progressive overload but two around mechanical tension they're going to get stronger right so then when we come back to this. If we go back to day one, on week two, we would do three sets of three, okay? On military press, on deadlift, we'll do three sets of three. On bench press, we'll do three sets of three. On back squat, we'll do three sets of three. Then on week three, we're going to get into we're going to go let's say a set of five, a set of three, and then we'll do one set of one. And we're going to sort of push ourselves on that single. Okay? And so that's like that that third week. And then that fourth week, we're going to really back off on intensity and we're going to try to de lo most of the volume. And we're going to go through that week. Let's say you do three sets of five and maybe half the accessory reps. But that's like the simplest way to look at 531. Okay, that doesn't even lay out looking at choosing specific percentages or anything along those lines. So, that's a really easy way to go through uh and pick the exercises, the split for the week, and then the rep scheme. Now, if we look at percentages, okay, so let's go a little bit deeper and look at the percentages. If we would start, let's say week one, we go like 65 to 70% on that first set of five, you know, 75 uh% to 80% on the second set of five and then 85% maybe even higher for a set of five on that third set for week one. So remember, we're doing three sets of five and we're going to try and push that five rep max. And this is where uh your your five rep max would be what we're trying to really build from and push here. And now some people will say, and I forget if Jim would actually do this himself or not, u but some people might say try to use like a projected uh like let's say you have a a max of 405, use like 80 or use 90% of that 405. So, if I do the math as quickly as I possibly can, let's say that that puts us at like, oh jeez, I don't know, like 355, 360. And that's what we're going to be basing our our 90 our max off of. And then we're going to go 85% of that for the sets of five. Okay? That's going to be the number that we use for the training weight training weight calculations. You would have your max, then you take 90% of your max, and then that's what you're rolling with. And that's what we do for that first week. That's the sets the sets of five. The triples we would go I would like to push these a little bit where it'd be like 75 to 85 to 90% for each subsequent set. Okay. And then during week three we could go a 75% set of five. 85 to 90% triple and then a 95 plus on the single. And then on week four we would back off and say let's lower the intensity down to like 60 65 70 for the three sets of five. And that's basically where we're chilling. So, one of the things when we're using those percentages, it helps you stay a little bit less aggressive. Your working sets are are smaller, meaning there's less working sets. Uh it makes it like a plug-andplay type system. Um you you end up finding maxes uh for multiple different lifts, which it can be fun. Uh you use singles then on week three to push a little bit more. And I think if you're setting up your accessories well, um when you set up those accessories well, you can then push with a little bit more volume after that. And so that's where we can get into some of the simple uh some of the simple accessory work is that oftent times uh they would talk about boring but big. Um you know, five sets of 10 on the same exercise after you do all of your prescribed working sets. This is like just getting a big a big freaking pump, doing some some easy work, getting more mechanical tension and working through that. Um, and some of the other big factors is that some people might even go in and say, "Okay, on my assistance exercises, I'm doing all body weight exercises." So, let's say you do push-ups and reclining rows and um, yeah, I don't know, freaking pull-ups, whatever that might be. Clap push-ups, dips, whatever. Handstand push-ups. That's all of your stuff for your accessories. Some people might say, "I'm not doing anything." Uh, I know that there's even I put in my notes here that some people will say the the triumvirate. So, you have three exercises and there's going to be the one main exercise. So, a back squat and then there's going to be two accessories and that's it. So, it's three exercises, nothing else. And so really what we're we're looking at is basically following through with a set system that is very very simple. Okay. And executing it over and over and over again. So this leads to following the right system and or following a system that can be very helpful and minimal amounts of brain activity goes into building this out. Cue the modem call. And when you do this substantially over a long period of time, you can start to tinker with it a little bit here and there and make good adjustments. Now, one of the things that we'll do inside of our strength training app uh peak strength is we will take some principles of 531. So, what we like to do is maybe we will have let's say a wave like a 753 753 and a wave and we try to progress that week to week. So, if you're inside of peak strength, you might see that consistent uh succession over week over week. You might even see in our accessories where we'll do heavier or higher rep drop sets. That's a really consistent theme. We like to use hypertrophy based training. Even in our powerlifting programs, we'll build our powerlifting strength as high as possible, but then on our accessories, we like to do high volume. So, if you need a strength training program, you're looking for a template that's good to follow, you're looking for a system that's going to basically spoon feed you exactly what you need to do, click the link down below in the description. You can click on that link. It'll take you to peak strength.app. You can also go to the Apple iOS store, the Google Play Store. You can download Peak Strength. You can get into Peak Strength today and start to play around with this type of training system. But we inside Peak Strength use a lot more volume. And that's the next thing I want to get into is that when we're looking at 531, I even want to bring up Wendler would talk a lot about like running hills, pulling sleds, doing some substantial cardio work like that. And so I remember when Wendler first came out on uh T- Nation, I want to say he would he started to write quite a bit with Dave Tate and and was working with Dave Tate at the time. I remember being like this dude is absolutely huge and he got pretty freaking popular um on T- Nation with his writing and I think with seminars as well and it ended up being like this dude's got the biggest traps, the biggest neck I have ever seen. And when you're looking at even modifications to let's say for football, you see some of the work that he'll even put out there where he'll say, "Okay, let's say on Monday you do back squat 531. On Tuesday you do bench 531. On Thursday instead of deadlifts 531, you do cleans, okay? And then on Friday that's when you do your your military press, but then you're doing neck work. You're doing sprints and neck work as your accessory." So I think that that's where the unique aspect of 531 comes into play is that the exercise selection is fundamental. Okay. When we're looking at foundational movements, we know that a back squat, a bench press, a deadlift, a clean, um let's say a front squat. I know that. But even in in this case, military presses can be replaced by dips. These are foundational movements that carry over to other exercises really, really well. And as much as I am anti- deadlift for a lot of people, at the end of the day, deadlift is a great exercise and will help you get just stupid strong. So, if we're looking at that and we're saying, "Okay, we've got fundamental lifts." That's a huge victory for 531. The next thing is the simplicity. If you're training a large group, it gets to be a bit overwhelming when you're dealing with a lot of kids in the gym and you don't manage your stress that well. 531 is phenomenal. It's perfect. It's like, yo, everybody, we're doing this exercise. This group's doing this exercise. This group's doing this one as the main lift. It's three sets of five week. These are the percentages that we're using. This is the max that you're basing it off of. You got the chart up on the wall like the classic uh strength coach uh percentagebased chart and you can just roll with it. And then the next week's three triples and the next week's 531 and then you got your D lo week. And then on the accessories you can if you're working with the football team, let's say for a certain time frame you're doing sled pulls or sled sprints, for a certain time frame you're doing more jumps and plyometrics. And then for another block you're doing more of your neck work, your trap work. Maybe you're more out of season. And so it becomes very very very a very easy to apply. Now if we're looking at fundamental lifts key component behind 531 we're looking at progressive overload very very simple in in the way this is set up. Some of the biggest shortcomings that I think of 531 is that there's not a lot of volume. And I know everybody always says this is not a lot of volume, but at the end of the day, there's not a lot of volume. You know, we've got uh high school kids that want to come in and for them to stay focused, I like having them do six, seven, eight sets of exercises. Yesterday, we actually had our testing week and and even during testing week, uh George Parkinson is a freshman, 15-year-old kid. Uh just got offered by Syracuse, offered by Penn State, offered by Maryland D1. He's going to be a power five guy, power four guy. We single leg squatted 165 for a triple on each. Now, this is our max out week, but even just building up to that, we did five, six sets. And I think that that's like the one big aspect that I've noticed uh on downfalls of the 531ers is that they get slaughtered. So, it's not that the the program sucks because there's not enough volume. It's that the athletes that tend to shift to a new program or to a new training system literally just get murdered for like two to three months. They struggle to make these quick adaptations. At least the lower level athletes do. With that being said, the best part about 531ers is that when we're looking at this, it is the absolute greatest thing. If you've got athletes in year 02, three, okay, you got athletes that they got to learn the fundamental lifts. Perfect. They've got to learn what to expect when they come into the gym. Perfect. They've got to understand long-term progress. Perfect. They've got to understand put some weight on the bar each set. Great. They've got to understand testing. You know, hit a heavy single and use that as a gauge for the next program. Another add-on. And that's where I think this system shines the most is literally the first two to three years. And then I also think uh older age group, my age group, uh ends up being another fantastic timeline of where you'll see great success. Now, I think that when you see kids come in and they follow through with their percentage and they start to have this gauge, I think that's fantastic. The problem is you'll have certain types of kids that I would say a type one tend to fall into this like they want everything prescribed as clearly as possible ahead of time so they can mentally prepare and they want to get dialed in for that training session and if you notice that they're grooving things a little bit more and you want to give them a couple more sets and you want to push things a little bit heavier, they tend to sort of freak out. They're like, "Well, I don't know. I thought we already did our three sets or three working sets." It's like, "Yeah, but dude, you're feeling let's let's go another three sets. Let's keep pushing. Let's see how hard we get." Well, I don't know. That might make me tired for next week's sets. It's like, push it and freaking see what the adaptation timeline is. So, I think that that's like one of the the big downfalls. Now the other big downfall that I also have noticed is that often times although the fundamental lifts are frequently built in there uh I think the the problem I have with the maybe too much ambiguity around accessories. I want accessory work like yo we're doing four or five sets of 17 reps. We're doing 25 reps. We're doing drop sets here. We're doing we're pushing things like okay we're going to do a military press here. I want you to do more trap work, lower trap work. I want you to do more lower lat work and we're going to do high reps, three sets of 30. I think that's like some of the big stuff that I would try to just recognize long term is that if we're getting a kid into strength and conditioning, I think there's a couple things there that we could tweak. I also would tweak the fact that I think kids when they first get in get a lot stronger just doing sets of eight, sets of 10, sets of 12. So I like to push a little bit higher rep range for younger kids when they first start coming in. And the next big concept is that I like to build a system around weightlifting movements. So if I have a snatch and a clean as my fundamentals, I would want to have a snatch and a clean and then a strength movement. Okay? and then maybe bring in the hypertrophy. And that immediately increases the total volume. Uh but it still is something that we can follow through with on a simple template. Let's say you do, you know, four sets of four snatches on the minute at 60% of whatever your best, you know, I don't know, clean is. And you just get that work done. You feel it out and you do it. And then you follow possibly the 531 concept with the powerlifting, with the strength movements, and then you get into the accessories. So I think that those are some of the underarching um not failures just that shortcomings of the system. What I think I've learned from it the most is that at an early age when I started to play around with this is that it helped me think about how I would set up progressions week to week program to program. how I would set up exercise progressions week to week program to program load uh intensity um you know the volume whether or not we need a D load every fourth week I don't really use that I like to go up basically now I'm I'm under the assumption for myself based off of what we do here at Garage like every 12 to 16 weeks to be totally open uh with everybody out there but it helped me set up that the basic things were what's the fundamental movement Okay. What's the progression? What's the progression of the rep schemes? What's the progression of intensity on the bar? Okay. And when are we going to plan in some type of big lift? And really, that's what I like to build off of. And then when I start to, you know, back in the day, there was Teen Nation forums and stuff that you could go on. I would go on these forums and talk about things and and challenge and question uh specific areas. And some of the big aspects early on, the discussions around how much hypertrophy work, how many accessories should we be doing, what should you do if you're in the weightlifting realm, those are some of the best discussions in my memory that like actually sparked and led me to really focus on what we're doing in the garage strength system. And I think that that's like the overarching theme for me is that Jim Wler took all of these different concepts that are really really hard that get really layered and and complex. He stripped everything off and he's like, "Dude, get in the gym, do this exercise, do it for this for this week. Each week you've got a different layout and just attack it." And then it's enough volume that you it's a it's a it's enough volume to get a stimulus. It's enough volume that you can put a decent weight on the bar and and it's low enough volume that you're not going to feel like crap from it. And I think that that has a it's literally in my opinion probably the most sustainable system of training that you can possibly do. It's so sustainable that this is a system this simplicity that is 531 is like a layer or it's like the cousin like the distant cousin to what we do with our inseason training in peak strength. We have a little more invol little more volume and we roll a little bit more based off week to week with the schedule of our competing athletes, but it's pretty close to how 531 is layered and how 531 was developed. And that's where I really think we were so obsessed in the strength and conditioning world for years. What were the Soviets doing? What was what was conjugate? You know, what was triphasic? What were all these different systems doing? Which is fantastic. It's great. It's important to move the sport. But when 531 came out, I was like, really? Is that it? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Now, let's make now let's build back on top of that. It's like, let's strip everything down bare bare bones and then let's just build back on top with what we actually see as useful and as necessary. And so, that's the part that I love about it is that it's focus on increasing absolute strength. It's you can add in jumps and and you can play around with the weightlifting movements. So, I don't think sets of five is great, but you can play around with things along those lines. You can you can lengthen and and add in conditioning and do sprints and and stuff like that and don't and you don't feel banged up. And I think that that's the underlying best aspect around 531. And I recommend if somebody's out there questioning like just give it a whirl or of course head over to peakstrength.app the Google Play Store or the Apple iOS store. Download Peak Strength today. If you want another video similar to this, click on this card right here. Because remember, freaks, if you want to become a champion, you've always got to cultivate your power. Peace.