Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 is the most durable strength programme ever published, and its entire loading scheme is percentages of one honest number. This 5/3/1 Calculator takes your one-rep max, derives the training max, and prints every main set for all four weeks — waves, deload and plus sets — rounded to weights a real bar can be loaded to.
The System in One Pass: Training Max and the Four Weeks
Everything descends from the training max (TM): 90% of your true one-rep max. For a 300 lb squat or deadlift, TM = 270 lb, and every percentage below is taken from 270 — never from 300. The four-week wave then runs: Week 1 (5s): 65% × 5, 75% × 5, 85% × 5+ → 175, 205, 230 lb. Week 2 (3s): 70% × 3, 80% × 3, 90% × 3+ → 190, 215, 245 lb. Week 3 (5/3/1): 75% × 5, 85% × 3, 95% × 1+ → 205, 230, 255 lb. Week 4 (deload): 40% × 5, 50% × 5, 60% × 5 → 110, 135, 160 lb, no plus set. (All rounded to the nearest 5 lb, as the calculator does.) The “+” on each week’s final set is the programme’s heartbeat: an AMRAP set, stopped a rep or two short of failure, that lets the lifter outrun the spreadsheet on strong days while the percentages guarantee the floor on weak ones. Between cycles, the training max rises by fixed steps — 5 lb for upper-body lifts, 10 lb for lower-body — and the waves repeat against the new max: progression by calendar, not by mood. The 90% rule is the programme’s founding argument and the one lifters most often sabotage: the TM is deliberately submaximal so that every prescribed set is makeable on an ordinary day, bar speed stays honest, and the plus sets accumulate the volume that actually builds strength. An ego-fed max (a gym PR with form breakdown, or a number from three years ago) inflates every set in the table and converts a years-long progression into a six-week stall.
Assistance, Variants and the Long Game
The main work is the skeleton; what hangs on it made the programme famous for sustainability. The original template pairs each day with assistance work of the lifter’s choosing, and its best-known arrangement — Boring But Big — follows the main sets with 5 × 10 at about 50–60% of TM on the same lift (for our example, 5 × 10 at 135–160 lb), a volume block that builds the muscle the percentages then teach to be strong. Later variants formalize the ecosystem: First Set Last (repeat the first percentage as a back-off AMRAP or 3–5 × 5), Joker sets (cautious extra heavy singles after a flying plus set, never at the cost of the plan), 5s Progression (all sets × 5, no plus, for lifters whose recovery is the limiting factor), and leader/anchor cycle structures in the later books. Two operating disciplines survive every variant. Start too light is the programme’s literal first instruction: Wendler prescribes beginning with a TM you could own on a bad day, because the cycles compound and a year of unbroken +5/+10 steps is a mountain of progress, while a heroic first cycle is a wall. Stall honestly: when a plus set stops beating its target for two cycles, the TM resets to about 90% of its current value and the climb restarts from a running start — the programme’s built-in deload of the ego. This page computes the main stage of the theatre; the programme’s books deserve reading for the rest, and their author’s voice on the subject of patience is not mistakable for anyone else’s.
Estimating the Max You Have Not Tested
The calculator asks for a one-rep max, and most lifters should not go and truly test one on a whim — a hard set of 3–5 reps estimates it well through the standard Epley relation, 1RM ≈ weight × (1 + reps/30): a squat of 275 × 5 estimates (275 × 1.1667) ≈ 321, and taking 90% of that — a TM near 290, or rounded prudently to 285 — starts the programme on evidence rather than theatre. Two cautions ride along. The estimate’s error grows with the rep count (a set of 10 extrapolates a max far less faithfully than a set of 3), so estimate from your heaviest recent quality set. And after the first cycle, estimation retires: the programme’s own plus-set results and the fixed +5/+10 increments carry the TM forward, which is the deeper design — a strength programme that needs you to retest your max constantly has confused measurement with training. Track the plus sets across cycles and they become your progress ledger: the week-3 top set’s reps at rising weights is the trend line that matters, drawn by the work itself.
A Second Bar: The 185 lb Bench, and Warm-Ups
The same machinery at a different station, so the percentages become reflexes: a 185 lb bench press gives a training max of about 166 lb. Week 1 climbs roughly 110 × 5, 125 × 5, 140 × 5+; the heavy week 3 tops out at 75/85/95% — about 125, 140, 160 — and next cycle the whole table reprints 5 lb heavier. Nothing about the arithmetic flinched at the smaller numbers, which is the programme’s portability: one table-generator serves a 500 lb deadlift and a 95 lb press with equal indifference. Each session begins below the work sets with the standard warm-up ladder — about 40% × 5, 50% × 5, 60% × 3 of the training max — enough to rehearse the groove and arrive at the first work set warm without spending the plus set’s ammunition. Lifters keep the warm-ups identical for months on end so the work sets are the only variable: a ritual with a purpose, like everything else in this programme that looks like stubbornness from the outside. Write the cycle’s four weeks on the gym card the day the max is set; the card, not the morning’s feelings, is the coach you hired.
The Same Table in Kilos
Nothing in the programme is imperial but the paper it was first printed on, and the calculator’s kilogram mode (rounding to 2.5) shows the port: a 100 kg deadlift max yields a 90 kg training max, and week 1 prints about 57.5 × 5, 67.5 × 5, 77.5 × 5+ — the same wave wearing plates of a different denomination. Two kilo-specific notes: the +5/+10 lb cycle increments translate to +2.5 kg upper body, +5 kg lower body per cycle in the programme’s international practice, and fractional plates matter more at the light end — a bench TM of 60 kg asked for 5% jumps lives and dies by 1.25 kg plates existing in the gym bag. Mixed-unit gyms (kilo plates, pound dumbbells) are where arithmetic goes to be embarrassed; the programme’s defence is the same as ever: the card is written once, in one unit, from the calculator’s output, and the bar is loaded from the card.
Common Mistakes
Running the percentages off the true max instead of the 90% training max (the programme’s most fatal transcription error). Choosing a max from memory, ambition or a bounce-assisted gym PR. Skipping the deload week because the first cycle felt easy — the wave is the programme. Grinding plus sets to true failure weekly (they stop one or two reps short; failure is for testing day). Adding 10 lb to a bench cycle because the deadlift went well (upper +5, lower +10, no cross-subsidies). And abandoning the programme in week 5 for a new spreadsheet: 5/3/1 pays its documented returns across years of cycles, and its entire design assumes you will still be running it when the novelty is gone.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is a training max in 5/3/1?
90% of your true one-rep max. All programme percentages are taken from the training max, not the max itself — the deliberate undershoot is what makes every set makeable and the long progression possible. A 300 lb max means a 270 lb training max.
What are the 5/3/1 percentages?
Week 1: 65/75/85% × 5 (last set 5+). Week 2: 70/80/90% × 3 (3+). Week 3: 75/85/95% × 5/3/1+. Week 4 deload: 40/50/60% × 5. All of training max, rounded to a loadable weight — the calculator prints your full table.
How much do I add each cycle?
5 lb to the training max for upper-body lifts (bench, press) and 10 lb for lower-body lifts (squat, deadlift) per four-week cycle. If plus sets stall for two cycles, reset the training max to about 90% of itself and climb again.
What does the + mean on the last set?
As many reps as possible, stopping one or two short of failure. The plus set is the programme’s autoregulation: strong days outrun the sheet, tired days still bank the prescribed minimum.
I only know my 5-rep max. Can I still start?
Yes — estimate the 1RM with Epley (weight × (1 + reps/30)), then take 90% as your training max. Estimate from a recent hard set of 3–5 reps; high-rep extrapolations drift.
Is 5/3/1 good for beginners?
It works, though true novices often add weight faster on a linear programme for their first months. 5/3/1’s deliberate pace is its virtue for intermediates and its whole design life: years of small, compounding, always-makeable jumps.