5/3/1 For Beginners-template is the best novice routine BY FAR

>Requires a 1RM
>Needlessly slow progress for beginner
>You can run it forever, great.

I like 531 for someone who has spent time on a 3x5 or 5x5 workout as long as they add a good set of accessories, but I dislike it for a new lifter.

>>42676259
>Requires a 1RM
Not really. Use the Starting Strength method of finding your first working weight and use this as training max (not real max). It'll be a tiny bit lighter than it should but it'll balance itself out after a cycle or two.

>Needlessly slow progress for beginner
Ït's weekly progression, not monthly progression like people think. You add weight once per month, yes, but you make strength progress every single week. Your + sets will increase A LOT. I mean, if you're going up to 15+ reps on the first week (which isn't unlikely for a novice) you cna just retest because now you are in a better position to do so compared to when you were a complete beginner, but there's nothing wrong with keep doing these high rep sets.

>>42676305
Having new and novice lifters doing sets of 15+ to make "strength" gains is a poor idea. New lifters form breaks down very fast, maybe not quite as fast as ripp suggest by going over 5 reps, but a new lifter should not be doing 12-15-20 rep sets on compounds lifts.

Therefore, setting rep 'PR' are not nearly as useful to them as increasing the direct weight on the bar. It is not until they have a foundation of strength do those rep PR start to mean something.

If your having them retest and restart every 2 weeks then are you really doing the program? Again, 531 is a great program and for general strength it is still one of my favorites for someone who has a foundation of strength. But novice lifters? Sorry, highly disagree.

can it be done 3x a week?

been doing madcow for a while and not making the progress I was hoping

>>42676460
>New lifters form breaks down very fast, maybe not quite as fast as ripp suggest by going over 5 reps, but a new lifter should not be doing 12-15-20 rep sets on compounds lifts.

You know what else kills form? Increasing weight every single session for months.

Almost everyone has shitty form from doing SS, because the form is always just "good enough" to increase weight and nothing more.

>If your having them retest and restart every 2 weeks then are you really doing the program?
Never said every 2 weeks. I just said it might happen after a while because of the minimal monthly increases on your W1 workouts.

>>42676157
good opening arguments
my retort is that this is not "by far" the best novice routine regardless if your goal is strength or size

>>42676537
are you plateauing, or is the program not moving as fast as you expected?

>>42676305
Nigga. Just because you can calculate a 1rm doesn't mean a month long lifter is going to be able to do that shit(85-95% workloads) with any regularity when thier tendons, joints, ligaments and CNS aren't developed to handle the load. There's more to training than just "muh muscles".

>>42676647
>Almost everyone has shitty form from doing SS, because the form is always just "good enough" to increase weight and nothing more.

Has nothing to do with SS. You can make this mistake doing PPL. Not reseting and deloading when form starts to breakdown is an error in training, not an error in programming.

>>42676647
I couldn't disagree more. As long as the reps are kept low, you should minimal breakdown in form doing reps of 5. Form may breakdown (slightly) as a person approaches the end of their novice strength gains but by that time a person should be proficient in the movement enough where any breakdown is minimal. A person doing reps of 12/15/20 as they get muscular fatigue their form will break down by rep 8 or 9 and then they will rep out another 5-6 reps with shit form and will lead to them building poor motor habits and lead to overall shit form.

So I just fundamentally think you are wrong on that point.

Following the basic tenants of 531 over a 6 week cycle (7th week deload) you would have went up 10 lbs on your upper body lifts and 20 lbs on your squat and deadlift. Let's assume you did double that, so 20 on your upper and 40 on your lower.

On any other linear strength program you would have added 45 lbs on your upper and 90 to your squat and deadlift over the same period. Its needlessly slow as novices are capable of making weight increases every week and don't need any special programming to do so.

531 is a program for people who have lifted for awhile. The progression scheme, calculations, amraps and all of those items are things that more seasoned lifters benefit from.

So let me ask, what makes you believe something like 531 is better then a simple linear progression like GSLP?