Confused about 3 vs 6 week cycles

[CD51]

Wendler stresses that the main lifts need to be your focus. Accessory and supplemental work, if it detracts from progressing on the main lifts, should be dropped. 5/3/1 in its multiple variations also has specific recommendations regarding conditioning. If your conditioning load is high relative to what is recommended you need to make adjustments to allow for recovery.
TB’s six week progression is one option. The same applies to anything (work demands, insufficient sleep, age...) impedes recovery. You need to make adjustments, what those are is the question. TB’s progression structure and templates answer that question.

[Maxrip13]

How in the world does this go against the principles of the book? Forcing progression every three weeks is a legitimate option.

Interesting about 531. 531 worked well for me initially (years ago- almost anything works for a beginner), and then I started regressing. The only thing that slowed it down was doing a lot of accessory lifting, which ended up having a really negative impact on my conditioning.

Apologies, I don't remember reading anything about a 3 week progression option in the books. Yeah I was tempted to run 5/3/1 instead of TB however I'm currently really enjoying running TB Fighter + Bangkok but using 531's progression until I start stalling. 531 looked good but the volume of accessories put me off alongside a large conditioning load (I'm currently running Green).

If you are doing 5/3/1s progression then you are doing 5/3/1 not TB fighter.
5/3/1 involves rep maxes and TB fighter is a percentage based sets across program.

Both are great programs so nil issues, but just make sure you know what you are doing.

[eXpo]

How in the world does this go against the principles of the book? Forcing progression every three weeks is a legitimate option.

Interesting about 531. 531 worked well for me initially (years ago- almost anything works for a beginner), and then I started regressing. The only thing that slowed it down was doing a lot of accessory lifting, which ended up having a really negative impact on my conditioning.

Apologies, I don't remember reading anything about a 3 week progression option in the books. Yeah I was tempted to run 5/3/1 instead of TB however I'm currently really enjoying running TB Fighter + Bangkok but using 531's progression until I start stalling. 531 looked good but the volume of accessories put me off alongside a large conditioning load (I'm currently running Green).

If you are doing 5/3/1s progression then you are doing 5/3/1 not TB fighter.
5/3/1 involves rep maxes and TB fighter is a percentage based sets across program.

Both are great programs so nil issues, but just make sure you know what you are doing.

I don't really wanna argue about what classifies as what. I run TB Fighter using TB's percentages and rep schemes however I force progression after 3 weeks instead of 6 (which is the same as 5/3/1). It's working so far so it's all good and I also use a TM.

[Maxrip13]

Apologies, I don't remember reading anything about a 3 week progression option in the books. Yeah I was tempted to run 5/3/1 instead of TB however I'm currently really enjoying running TB Fighter + Bangkok but using 531's progression until I start stalling. 531 looked good but the volume of accessories put me off alongside a large conditioning load (I'm currently running Green).

If you are doing 5/3/1s progression then you are doing 5/3/1 not TB fighter.
5/3/1 involves rep maxes and TB fighter is a percentage based sets across program.

Both are great programs so nil issues, but just make sure you know what you are doing.

I don't really wanna argue about what classifies as what. I run TB Fighter using TB's percentages and rep schemes however I force progression after 3 weeks instead of 6 (which is the same as 5/3/1). It's working so far so it's all good and I also use a TM.

Yeah sweet that is just TB fighter. I thought you were saying you were using the rep maxes from 5/3/1 with TB fighter.
If you can progress after 3 weeks go for it, but it won't be sustainable.

Enjoy mate.

[BlackPyjamas]

I did read the book cover to cover -- got the TB 1 and 2 kindle package deal and have read both, but admittedly it has been awhile and maybe it is time for a refresher.

Totally understand that Starting Strength and linear progression is completely different than frequent sub maximal loading. Just trying to understand (from an efficiency standpoint) the physio benefit of keeping your maxes the same for 6 weeks vs 3 weeks.

Ah ok. This sounds like a very different question then the way it comes off in your original post. Essentially it just depends on where you are with the weights at the end of your cycle. A longer cycle ensures that you own the weight. If you're barely making the reps or you're making superhuman efforts to finish your workout then you need to stay with that load for a longer period of time until it feels almost easy. When it feels relatively easy or comfortable, your strength has increased. Then add weight and force progression. At points in your training life you might reach that feeling in 3 weeks, 6 weeks, a few months or even a year if you're advanced. If you own the weight at 3wks, then progress at the 3 week point.

Think about KB's comparison to manual labour in one of the books and how long it takes before a difficult hands-on job starts feeling easy. That's the potential problem with linear progression, there's a tendency to add weight too quickly before you've owned the load, so you're just running faster towards that wall or plateau.