 Lifting should be fun and if it isn't you should change something Hey, everyone Dylan Schumacher citadel defense and we are back with another edition of tactical book review And today's book is 5 3 1 by Jim Wendler Sorry if I put your name there buddy The simplest and most effective training system for raw Strength so I got this book because I've been a part of the starting strength cult for multiple years now And works through their novice program tried some of their intermediate stuff tried some own Modifications of my own whatever in there and you know have gotten a lot stronger because of that And I was just in the mood for something else. I didn't want to have to think through it I wanted some other intermediate program. I stumbled upon this online Tried it out. I'm in the middle of my first cycle right now And then I just recently got the book to make sure you know I'm doing it correctly So that's kind of where I'm at with this right now and so far I really enjoy it One of the things I will say about this book is that it is incredibly easy to read It's an incredibly simple easy book to read if you've read starting strength by mark riptoe You know, you got moment arms and movement angles and all the math and like there's I think there's 90 pages On the squat in that book like 90 pages full 9 by 11 or 8 and a half by 11 pages You know with double column print, you know single space like it's some dense reading This is not that a lot of this book looks like this I read this whole thing in about two hours. Maybe give or take Incredibly easy read. So if you're not in the mood for all the detailed nerdy reading This is your book. One other thing I like about the book and about the program in general is it's incredibly Flexible for example in starting strength if you've read that Mark is very specific about doing chin-ups not pull-ups not anything else chin-ups exactly like this with your hand space so far and such And such and so forth and in this book. He's like do chins. He's like pull-ups chin-ups lap pull-downs You know, whatever it doesn't matter. Just do that and it's incredibly Flexible in that sense So if you've been lifting for a while and you're looking for a new program to kind of shake things up that you think will Be fun and effective. I would recommend this book to you Incredibly easy read if you're not a reader This is definitely a book for you because it like I said, it's extremely accessible and easy You're not going to be suffering through details of math like you will in starting strength One of the other things I appreciate is that he's kind of cavalier about the little details, right? He's just like look you need to lift hard You need to do conditioning like run hills push the prowler use a weighted vest burpees whatever you need to do something there You need to eat right and you need to like do that consistently over the long haul some marathon not a sprint That's something he talks about a lot And I just appreciate his cavalier attitude of not getting caught up in the little itty nitty gritty details and just saying look do Stuff and do it consistently and that's what matters his cavalier attitude. Honestly, it's just it's fun It's a little infectious. Maybe that's just because I like that kind of thing But I think it's fun and it makes it a fun read So again would recommend it because of that flexibility The the book like I said is an easy read in the program itself is very workable And and you can make minor adaptations to kind of do what you want Do you want to do your back squats for your assistance work or front squats? Do you want to mix and match deadlifts and alternate your assistance work on your main lift days and whatever again? It's all in the book super easy super helpful some other good things I got out of here are he Emphasizes stretching a bit, which I think is helpful especially, you know If you're over 30 we all need to be stretching more That's just gonna help with your mobility and general minute man readiness stuff The other thing I also appreciate is actually his thoughts on diet He only has like two or three pages on diet But he's got some neat little tricks and tips in there that I thought were just helpful Whether you're trying to bulk up and get huge like a freight train or you're trying to you know Lean down a little bit. He offers some good helpful tips in there that I'm probably gonna implement my life overall I think this is an incredibly helpful little book I would recommend it to you and like I said if you're just have been training for a while And you just want a different program to kind of shake things up so that lifting would be fun again I would suggest this book honestly It's helped me and maybe it's just you know because it's a new program It's a new shiny thing and that's why it's fun, but I tend to think it's because of the program itself It's super easy I have a spreadsheet that I worked out to help follow this program I'll link that down below and I'll put a link for this book down below and I would recommend that you pick up the 531 book Like I said if you're looking for a new intermediate lifting program to help you out You could even really use it as a beginner honestly But I think this is primarily benefits the intermediate people and if you're doing that and and you're in that phase And you just want something you want lifting to be fun again Pick this up. He gets all the major points on conditioning strength training diet eating and like I said It's a super easy maybe hundred page read. I don't know how many words are on here, but probably less than 10,000 I mean incredibly easy, so I hope that's helpful. I hope this helps you be a more prepared Minuteman person do brave deeds and endure