Today marks the 4th week of our Wendler strength program. It has been awesome to see so many people interested in dedicating specific time to their strength and making sure they get in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when we follow this for our strength work. Our 4th week is a de-load week, so rest easy, no maxing out reps this week. As I stated when we started this 3 weeks ago, we will be going through at least 3 cycles of this program, 12 weeks, and possibly 4 cycles so 16 weeks. Strength takes time to build, hence the term “old man strength,” it doesn’t come in just a few weeks, and by sticking to a program for and extended period of time, and hitting it hard we should see some gains from all of you in the 3 lifts we are attacking. Like with any strength program the key to success is consistency and actually hitting your lifts. From my experience with the Wendler Strength program that means having just the right weight, certainly not too much, and ideally not to little, but my advice for the Wendler program would always be to lean on the slightly lighter side.

As we approach week 5 of this cycle that means  we will be restarting our 4 week cycle back at 5 @ 60%, 5 @ 70%, and Max Reps @ 80%, except we will add some additional weight to each set. I see with a lot of strength programs, especially those with basic linear periodization, they prescribe a generic add 10lbs, or add 20lbs per cycle. This is just that, generic, and is not ideal for everybody. For someone who has a 400lb Back Squat adding 20lbs is completely different than someone who only has a 100lb Back Squat. Adding on a 5% increase for someone who has been lifting for 5 years versus someone who has been lifting for 3 months is also completely different, so come next week, you won’t all be adding the same weight, and it’s important to know where you fall and what you should add. It is of my opinion, that for the Wendler program it is better to be a little light and get a couple of extra reps, then too heavy and barely make your sets. Here are some general guidelines for you all for next week when we start our 2nd cycle of the Wendler strength program.

Easy Reps – Week 1, 80% @ 18+ reps, Week 2, 85% @ 12 + reps, Week 3, 90% @ 8 + reps

You’re either a beast at hitting sub maximal weights for reps, or your 1RM you’re using is a bit low. Nothing wrong with this at all, and you’re much better having your first cycle here then at the opposite end of the spectrum. If you found yourself in this area for one of the lifts add 5-10%, or somewhere around 10-20lbs, again remember this is relative. If you hit 20 reps @ 80% for Bench Press with 60lbs, adding 20lbs is likely a little ambitious as you’re increasing your overall weight by 33%, be smart with your additions. The load added should force you to get less reps, you shouldn’t be able to match these high rep sets again, you should be hitting 2-5 less reps on each week.

Medium Reps – Week 1, 80% @ 12 reps, Week 2, 85% @ 8 reps, Week 3, 90% @ 5 reps

This is likely about the ideal place to start, not too heavy, not too light, your banging out some solid reps, but they are definitely still heavy. You probably want to add somewhere between 2.5-7.5% of your 1RM, about 5-15lbs depending on the lift. Again someone who has a 500lb Deadlift, in this situation, it would be very reasonable to add 15-20lbs as it is a reasonable percentage of there 1RM. You want to add enough weight that when you go for your Max Reps again you might lose a couple.

Hard Reps – Week 1 80% @ 8 reps, Week 2, 85% @ 5 reps, Week 3, 90% @ 3 reps

This is definitely already heavy for you, you are likely fighting for every rep from the start, there aren’t any, that are even remotely easy. You want to be careful not too add too much, somewhere around 5-10lbs is what you are looking for here. Ideally if these are the reps you hit, you should be looking to add just enough weight where your reps stay the same. A good way to think about this program for longevity, is that you want to stay as far away from actually hitting 5, 3, or 1 rep on our Max Rep days, the longer you can stay above and outside that, the more success you’ll have with the program.

Too Heavy Reps: Week 1 80% @ 5-6 reps, Week 2, 85% @ 3-4 reps, Week 3, 90% @ 1-2 reps

Either you’re really not good at hitting sub maximal weights for reps, or your 1RM’s aren’t accurate. In this case I would not only not add any weight, but I would take the weight down. I would reset your weights with 90-95% of your 1RM that you used for the first cycle.

An important point to remember, is that whatever you add in terms of weight, you add across the board. If you are adding 10lbs to your Bench Press you add that for each week, your don’t add 10lbs for week 1, and then 5lbs on week 2 + 3 because it’s too much. Whatever you add needs to be a consistent load. In addition, you don’t need to add the same across movements, add what’s appropriate, you might add 20lbs for your Back Squat, 5lbs for your Bench Press, and 10lbs for you Deadlift. They don’t all need to be the same. I hope this gives you all a little insight into how you can get the most out of the program. Have fun, push hard, lift heavy.