5/3/1 Building the Monolith: The Complete Guide

Building the Monolith is the program lifters bring up when they want to talk about getting genuinely bigger on 5/3/1. Jim Wendler published it in 2015 as “Building the Monolith — 5/3/1 for Size,” and it has earned a reputation as one of the hardest blocks in the entire 5/3/1 catalog. It is short, it is high-volume, and it asks you to eat like you mean it.

This guide lays out the full program, who it’s for, and how to run it without burying yourself.

What Is Building the Monolith?

Building the Monolith (often shortened to BtM) is a finite, 6-week, 3-day-per-week size block built on the 5/3/1 framework. Unlike standard 5/3/1 — which you run indefinitely — BtM is a fixed cycle you run once, recover from, and then return to normal programming.

Three things define it:

• Squat and press are hammered. You train both multiple times per week with heavy 5×5 work, a 20-rep widowmaker, and high-volume pressing.
• Accessory volume is enormous. Think 100+ reps of chins, dips, and face pulls per session.
• It assumes you’ll eat. Wendler’s (only half-joking) diet note for the program is roughly 1.5 lb of ground beef and a dozen whole eggs a day. Without the food, the program doesn’t work.

Sessions run around 90 minutes. This is an advanced block — not a starting point.

Prerequisites: Can You Even Start?

Before you run BtM, Wendler sets a simple bar: you should be able to accumulate 50+ chin-ups and 50+ dips in a single session. The program calls for 100+ reps of each on some days, broken into as many sets as needed. If a single set of bodyweight chins is a struggle, build that base first.

You also need a real training max. For Building the Monolith specifically, Wendler recommends setting your TM at 85% of your true 1RM — lower than some lifters use — because the volume is so high that an aggressive TM will bury you by week two.

The Weekly Structure

The program rotates three workouts per week. The percentages below are of your training max and follow the standard implementation used by most 5/3/1 trackers; Wendler’s original article is deliberately loose on some accessory specifics, so treat rep targets as the intended dose, not gospel.

Day 1 — Squat & Press

• Squat: 5 @ 70%, 5 @ 80%, then 5×5 @ 90%
• Overhead Press: 5 @ 70%, 5 @ 80%, 5 @ 90%, then 1 set of 5+ @ 70% (push the reps)
• Chin-ups: 100 total reps
• Face Pulls: 100 total reps
• Dips: 100–200 total reps

Day 2 — Deadlift & Bench

• Deadlift: 5 @ 70%, 5 @ 80%, then 3×5 @ 90% (fewer top sets than squat — deadlift is more systemically taxing)
• Bench Press: 5 @ 70%, 5 @ 80%, then 5×5 @ 90%
• Dumbbell Rows: 5 sets of 10–20
• Biceps Curls: 100 total reps

Day 3 — Squat & Press (Widowmaker)

• Squat: 5 @ 70%, 5 @ 80%, 5 @ 90%, then a 20-rep widowmaker at a lighter load
• Overhead Press: 10×5 @ 70% (heavy pressing volume)
• Weighted Chin-ups: 5×5
• Face Pulls: 100 total reps
• Shrugs: 100 total reps

The widowmaker — a single set of 20 hard reps — is the signature finisher. It is as much a mental test as a physical one, and it’s where a lot of the program’s leg growth comes from.

The Mid-Cycle Bump

BtM runs as two three-week waves. After week 3, you nudge your training maxes up — roughly +2.5 to 5 lb on upper-body lifts and +5 to 10 lb on lower-body lifts — and repeat the structure for weeks 4 through 6. That’s the only progression built into the block. The work itself is what drives the adaptation.

Conditioning Is Not Optional

Wendler is explicit that conditioning is mandatory during Building the Monolith — typically 3–4 easy sessions a week (walking, sled work, prowler, bike). It sounds counterintuitive on a size program, but the conditioning is what lets you recover between brutal lifting days and actually use all the food you’re eating.

Who Should Run Building the Monolith?

BtM is a fit if you:

• Have run standard 5/3/1 for several cycles and have a solid base
• Can hit the chin-up and dip prerequisites
• Are willing and able to eat aggressively for six weeks
• Want a short, defined hypertrophy block rather than open-ended programming

It is not for beginners, anyone in a calorie deficit, or lifters who can’t recover from high volume. If that’s you, a gentler size approach like Boring But Big will serve you better. For the full menu of options, see our guide to 5/3/1 templates.

Running It Without a Spreadsheet

Building the Monolith involves a lot of moving numbers — multiple sets at multiple percentages across two waves, plus a mountain of accessory volume to track. Doing the plate math mid-session is exactly the kind of friction that makes people abandon a hard program.

Train531 calculates every working set from your training max, handles the mid-cycle TM bump automatically, and logs your accessory volume in a tap — so you can spend your 90 minutes lifting instead of recalculating. When you’re ready to run a serious block like this, the app keeps the bookkeeping out of your way.