5/3/1 for Football: Jim Wendler/Angry Coach Interview
By
Rachel Cassano
RC: What is the official name of the book?
Jim:
5/3/1 for Football: The Physical Development of a Hostile
Team
RC: I see you keep getting lots of questions about when it’s due
out. Do you have a final date?
Jim: The e-book just went up for sale today on the Web site. You can
get it
here. The book will be for sale in about two weeks.
RC: Why did you decide to write it?
Angry Coach: I went through a lot of incarnations as a high school
football coach. I went from not knowing what I was doing and having my guys
train like I used to, to having them do straight powerlifting workouts, to
overcomplicating everything with my interpretation of “science.” When I
implemented 5/3/1, it worked incredibly well, and it just made sense. Jim has a
very good football background, and I trusted his ability to get people stronger,
so we gave it a shot. I edited the original manual, so I think we may have been
the first high school team to even use it. Long story short, we wrote this book
because of our ability to collaborate. Working together just really made sense.
Jim: The Angry Coach and I talked about this for a long time. His kids
started to use it and it worked. Then we started talking more about the program
and our experience as high school and college athletes. Most guys get thrust
into the strength coach role because they like it or they’re the youngest guy
around. They have to go through a lot of info – what’s real and what’s not. I’m
not saying that we are the “be all, end all” – although I’d like to think we
are. We’re just two reliable sources I feel like strength coaches can trust.
RC: How long was it in the works?
Jim: About 9 months. But there’s a lot more real world knowledge we
already had as coaches and athletes that we used.
Angry Coach: I started using 5/3/1 with our team without telling Jim
about it. I didn’t ask him how I could do it. I just installed it first, and it
ran itself. This manual needed to be written, and I’ve been thinking about it
for well over a year now.
RC: You both played football. Tell me about your experience and
would you have wanted a program like this when you were in high school?
Jim: No.
RC: Jim, what are you saying?
Jim: The reason why I said that is because in high school I was
already programming my own stuff. I’ve been writing programs since I was 13 or
14 for high school athletes and having a 5/3/1 program would’ve hindered my
progress. It’s kind of a catch-22. If this information existed back then, I
wouldn’t be the person I was today.
Angry Coach: That’s true. As Jim said at one of the Boston seminars at
Murph’s gym, the best thing about how things were when we were coming up was
that the internet didn’t exist. We had to go into a weight room and think. I
didn’t have a strength coach in high school. All I had was some weights at
school and in my basement, and I had to figure out how to turn that equation
into a football career.
Jim: I never wanted anyone to just hand me a program. I was too
stubborn and still am. If you told me what to do, I’d do the exact opposite
anyway.
RC: Without giving away too much information, what should readers
expect to find?
Jim: The book basically takes you through off-season and in-season
stuff from strength training, conditioning, jumps, throws, warm-ups and speed
work, to specific position drills for off-season.
Angry Coach: The book takes a lot of the body of knowledge people may
already have, but the program arranges it for them. It tells you what to do, but
then explains why you’d do it. There’s also a whole section on how to set up
weight rooms, what you need, what you can substitute, and lots of tips and
tricks on how to save money. There’s also a specifically ordered warm-up my
program has been using for years that takes exactly 20 minutes.
RC: What do you hope individuals do with the information they find
in your book? What’s your goal for writing it?
Jim: I’d like it to be implemented as-is and developed, so they have a
winning and strong football team. I’d like to see others branch off and make it
their own – just not go too crazy with it. I wrote this to inspire people, which
is essentially what Dave has done with me. He gave me hints and structure for
training information over the years, but then let me run loose with it.
Angry Coach: I feel the same way about pointing people in the right
direction, like Jim and some other people have done with me. I’m fortunate
enough to work at a school that produces some high-end talent, but other coaches
may not, so I’d like them to work this program for a while and learn how to make
those kinds of modifications on their own. I want coaches to watch, observe and
then be able to modify it to suit their own purposes. What is that old saying?
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you
feed him for a lifetime.”
RC: How many pages is it?
Jim: Over 160.
RC: How did you decide to work together?
Jim: When you sit down to write something with someone, you should
already have a clear vision of what you want. I wouldn’t have written the book
with him if we didn’t know each other very well. The Angry Coach is the best
writer I’ve ever seen – dude knows how to write. If you ever need anything
written, get in touch with this guy. He’s worth about a hundred times what
you’ll pay him.
Angry Coach: This program is no mystery to me because I’ve been
implementing it for a couple of years now. However, Jim added another dimension
by saying things I never thought about. As an example, there’s a part in the
section about weight room equipment where Jim taught me a shitload of things I
didn’t know, and wish I’d spoken to him about before we purchased equipment for
our own program. I remembered that this is what he does for a living – he talks
to coaches from all over the country, high school, college and pro, about what
they need. We both have a football background and think similarly. We have the
same background – and there was nothing we disagreed about. It was more adding
and augmenting than disagreeing.
RC: You relate this book to high school football a great deal. Can
football players at other levels use it as well?
Jim: It’s geared towards high school football. But, there’s no reason
why you couldn’t use it with a collegiate football team. The game is still the
same – the field has 100 yards and goalposts. Most coaches at the college level
have their own program, but there’s no reason why a college football coach
couldn’t use 5/3/1 for Football. Even if they do stick with what they
know, they can still get ideas from this book. This is more for the high school
coach who wants something down on paper – which will help them out greatly from
a time perspective.
Angry Coach: Individual players can follow it as well. If you’re a
football player and you want to know how to train, this is also designed for
you, no matter what level you’re on.
Jim: That’s very true. I’m smart – but not the smartest. This book
isn’t written in a foreign language. Any high school kid who can read will
understand it. The language in this manual isn’t a bunch of science that people
won’t understand. It’s written so you can actually take it into the weight room
and follow it.
Angry Coach: I want to second the notion that players on any level
can use this. I know what we said earlier about figuring things out, but I’m
telling you that I wish I had this program in college, I really do.
Jim: I believe
5/3/1 for Football: the Physical Development of a
Hostile Team is 1,000 times better than anything else you’ll find out
there.
