It's been a full year of doing 5/3/1 straight so I thought I'd evaluate my progress.
This will be screwy since I'm comparing different rep ranges, as well as different bars lifts, but it should still illustrate change well enough.
August 2012
Press (Swiss bar): 160x10
Deadlift: 465x5
Bench press (Swiss bar): 265x6
Squat (SSB): 380x5
August 2013
Press: 225x4, 162x5x10 assistant work after
Deadlift: 525
Bench press: 310x4
Squat: 395x5
I've found that in general my straight bar pressing is 5 lbs higher than Swiss bar, so that can be taken into account.
My pressing has shot up while I've had to fight sharp regresses on the deadlift and contending with a 9-month quad injury that prevented me from free squatting. The deadlift was my own fault. I took the notion of infrequent pulling off the floor being a good idea and ran with it even though I'd been making progress week-to-week. Eventually I stopped box squatting, too, feeling demotivated on lower body lifts entirely. Just a few months ago I started at it again and learned how to have fun even if I'm not necessarily at my strongest in the gym - the consistency of which ended up making me my strongest ever, if only by a few pounds over last year.
