5/3/1 Percentages: The Complete Reference Chart

Every weight in 5/3/1 is a percentage of your training max (TM) — not your true one-rep max. This page is the quick reference: all the percentages, in one place, for the main work and the common supplemental templates. Bookmark it.

To turn these percentages into actual barbell weights, drop your TM into the 5/3/1 calculator.

Main Work: The Three-Week Wave

This is the core of the program. Three weeks, three working sets each, with the last set of every week being an AMRAP ("+") set.

Week	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3 (AMRAP)
Week 1	65% × 5	75% × 5	85% × 5+
Week 2	70% × 3	80% × 3	90% × 3+
Week 3	75% × 5	85% × 3	95% × 1+

After the three weeks, add 5 lb to upper-body TMs and 10 lb to lower-body TMs and repeat.

Warm-Up Sets

Wendler’s standard warm-up ramp, also a percentage of your TM:

Set	Percentage	Reps
1	40%	5
2	50%	5
3	60%	3

Deload Week

The traditional optional deload (originally run as a fourth week) keeps the bar moving without taxing recovery:

Set	Percentage	Reps
1	40%	5
2	50%	5
3	60%	5

In 5/3/1 Forever, this fixed deload is replaced by the more flexible 7th Week Protocol, which can be a deload, a training-max test, or a PR attempt.

5’s PRO

A common variation — and the engine of Forever’s Leader cycles — is 5’s PRO: do 5 reps on all three main sets instead of the prescribed 5/3/1 reps, with no AMRAP set. Same percentages, capped reps:

Week	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3
Week 1	65% × 5	75% × 5	85% × 5
Week 2	70% × 5	80% × 5	90% × 5
Week 3	75% × 5	85% × 5	95% × 5

Supplemental Template Percentages

Supplemental work comes after your main sets and is also calculated from your TM. The three most common templates:

Template	What it is	Percentage of TM
Boring But Big (BBB)	5 sets of 10 on the main lift	50–60% (start at 50%)
First Set Last (FSL)	Extra sets at week’s first working %	= Set 1 (65% / 70% / 75%)
Second Set Last (SSL)	Extra sets at week’s second working %	= Set 2 (75% / 80% / 85%)

Because FSL and SSL track the week’s working percentages, they shift each week along with the main-work wave. BBB stays fixed at your chosen supplemental percentage.

Why It’s All Based on the Training Max

If these percentages feel conservative, that’s intentional. Your training max is set at 85–90% of your true 1RM, so a “95%” week-three top set is really about 81–86% of what you could actually lift. That gap is what lets you push the AMRAP set, keep your form clean, and progress for months without grinding.

Get the training max wrong and every percentage on this page is wrong with it. Start with the training max guide if you haven’t set yours yet.

From Percentages to a Workout

Percentages are the easy part — the friction is converting four lifts across three weekly schemes into real plate loads, every session, and remembering to bump your maxes each cycle. The 5/3/1 calculator handles the math for one cycle; Train531 handles it forever — generating each workout from your TM, tracking your AMRAP reps, and updating your maxes automatically so you never recalculate a percentage again.