[TheMilkMan]

As the title suggests, I'm switching my ideology from bodybuilding with a focus on strength to strictly strength. Here's my thinking... I've never met anyone who benches 400+ who was a small guy. They may not have been lean/ripped/etc but they didn't lack muscle mass. Given the right diet, cardio, and drugs they would look incredible, so why not train as they do.

I'm going to stick to Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 Training System for Raw Strength in hopes to be able to get myself as strong as possible. I'll lay out the foundation here:

There are 4 week cycles in which you blast for 3 weeks and deload for the 4th week. Wendler recommends that you train either 3 or 4 times a week and if you choose to train 3 days a week you will extend the training cycle to 5 weeks (4 blasting, 1 deload). For now I'm going to train 4 days a week, but something tells me I'll end up opting for 3 days a week. Time will tell.

There are 4 main lifts in this routine: Standing Military Press, Deadlift, Bench Press, Squat. Everything is based on percentages of a 1RM. In order to prevent stalling and overtraining, there is a real max and a training max. The training max is 90% of a real max and you base all of the percentages off of the training max. He also calls for Assistance Work, but I'm not going to go into detail with that as there is too much information and too many variables to consider.

Current Maxes
Standing Military Press: 195
Deadlift: 500
Bench Press: 335
Squat: 400

Training Maxes
Standing Military Press: 175
Deadlift: 450
Bench Press: 300
Squat: 360

All of the current maxes were found using this formula:
weight used x # of reps x .0333 + weight used = 1RM


All of the training maxes were found using:
current maxes x .9(90%) = training max

My new quote to live by: "I'm not in the weight room to jerk off to a bunch of different exercises and go nowhere. For more than 20 years, I've been walking into weight rooms, but I've never entered to train, exercise, work out or get a pump. I go into the weight room to get strong." - Jim Wendler

Goals: Strength
I'd like to be able to combine 1750lbs in the 4 major lifts, and 1500lbs in the Squat/Bench/Dead...
Standing Military Press: 250
Deadlift: 600
Bench Press: 375
Squat: 500

So here goes... Let me know if you have any questions along the way and please chime in if you'd like to know any specifics about my training. I'm not going to lay out the whole program here because I think Wendler deserves to get some praise for his knowledge... aka buy the ebook if you really want to know everything.