I actually bought the 5/3/1 book & am hoping to move on to using it once my knee is fully recovered (I'm getting back into things decently well with my PT, but I got a series of injuries to my left leg, including a patellar fracture like 2 months ago that've made this year a wash in terms of progress).

The point here though is that the basics of how it works are not that complicated.

Step 1. Identify whatever the heaviest weight you can safely lift in your DL, Squat, Bench & OHP are, now lift that for as many reps as you can before failure.

Step 2. Use that to calculate your "actual" 1rm either using the formula in the book, or using an online calculator (StrengthLevel has a good one as I remember).

Step 3. Take 90% of that weight & using that as your "Training Maximum", proceed in a 4 week block following this basic protocol:

• WK1 5 reps @ 65%/ 5 reps @ 75%/ AMRAP @ 85%
• WK2 3 reps @ 75%/ 3 reps @ 85%/ AMRAP @ 90%
• WK3 1 rep @ 85%/ 1 rep @ 90%/ AMRAP @ 95%
• WK4 Is as I remember a deload week so you want to be more around 55-65%

Then you start over from step 1 & figure out a new "Training Maximum" based on what you did in WK3.

You only do 1 main lift on any given day & 2 accessories for that lift. You only train a given lift once per week. You do not do cardio.

Optional step 4 is eat until you are borderline obese. (this is not a joke)

The rest of the 50 pages are just optional variations on this basic block if you want to do more work than what is prescribed by the basic format.