The Best App for 5/3/1 Boring But Big: Run Wendler's Program Without a Spreadsheet

Why everyone runs 5/3/1 from a spreadsheet

Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 is percentage-based: every set in the 4-week cycle is a fixed percentage of your Training Max, which is itself 90% of your 1RM. That is real arithmetic - 12 main work sets, warm-ups at 40/50/60%, 5x10 Boring But Big sets at 50%, per lift, per week - so the community solved it the obvious way, and a dozen legendary spreadsheets have circulated for over a decade. They calculate correctly. The problems all start after the calculation.

Where the spreadsheet breaks down

• In-gym editing: a phone spreadsheet mid-squat means pinch-zooming cells with chalked thumbs, and one mistyped cell silently corrupts a formula for the rest of the cycle.
• AMRAP logging: the AMRAP set is the engine of 5/3/1 - your rep count should become an estimated 1RM and inform the next Training Max - but most sheets have nowhere to put it, let alone a history of it.
• TM resets: stall on one lift and you need to reset just that Training Max to 90% of its current value without disturbing the other three. In a formula grid, that is where copies break.
• Units and plate math: the sheet says 77.6 kg; your gym has 2.5 kg plates. Every single set needs mental rounding, doubled if you ever switch between kg and lbs.

What an app must do for 5/3/1 specifically

1. Calculate the Training Max from a true or estimated 1RM (the 90% rule).
2. Generate every warm-up, work and BBB set as the correct percentage of TM for the current week.
3. Log AMRAP reps and convert them to an estimated 1RM (weight x reps x 0.0333 + weight).
4. Apply cycle increments automatically: +2.5 kg to upper-body TMs, +5 kg to lower-body TMs.
5. Handle week 4 as a real deload - 40/50/60% for 5s, no AMRAP, no BBB work.
6. Round every prescribed weight to your plates' actual increments, in kg or lbs.

How Hardy handles each requirement

The 5/3/1 Boring But Big 4-day routine - press, deadlift, bench, squat, each with its 5x10 supplemental work - is free in Hardy's routine library. Set four Training Maxes once and the app prescribes every session of the cycle; if you want the full method beyond the base template, Wendler's 5/3/1 Forever and Beyond 5/3/1 books are the source.

Free web tools if you just want the math

Not ready for an app? Hardy's 1RM calculator turns any recent rep set into an estimated max - that is the number you take 90% of for your Training Max, as covered in how to calculate your training max. The plate calculator then tells you exactly which plates to load for any target weight. Both are free in the browser, no account needed.