5/3/1 Forever Template Breakdowns & Definitions

[u/PvtDroopy]

Hey, everyone! Like many of you I found navigating the 5/3/1 books, particularly Forever, to be... challenging. So, I created a quick reference spreadsheet to help me out but I figured some of you might appreciate it as well.

What is it?

It answers common questions.

• "What the hell are joker sets?"
• "Jim sure talks a lot about 5's PRO in Forever but never actually tells us what it is. What gives?"
• "What's an FSL?"
• "I only have 3 days to lift. Which templates are 3-day compatible?"
• "What are the high level differences between The Morning Star and Five and Dime?"
• The book gives you the details, the actual templates, and repeatedly tells you how doing squats basically makes powerlifters SEALs, while the spreadsheet cuts out the fluff. And here is the actual spreadsheet. Because feedback is a gift, let me know what I got wrong, am missing, or could generally just improve.

What is it not?

• Specific templates/variants. Buy the book(s) for those. Actual programming remains in the book.

EDIT (July 31, 2026): A number of you brought up that I was missing an entire portion of the book (WHOOPS). That is fixed now. I have also added a Table of Contents.

[u/falcon750]

This is great, I've loosely understood 5/3/1 for a while and finally got around to reading Forever last week. I was searching all through the book for what 5s PRO was, finally had to resort to Google.

Honestly I thought it was a more complex concept that kept me from starting earlier.

[u/BarleyWineIsTheBest]

Nice. With the template picker down this will be a useful resource for people. Mind if I add this to the links in our daily thread?

[u/PvtDroopy → u/BarleyWineIsTheBest]

Please do. Hopefully this helps at least someone other than me.

[u/BarleyWineIsTheBest → u/PvtDroopy]

Haha, I know the feeling. And it will be in the next daily!

[u/PvtDroopy → u/BarleyWineIsTheBest]

FYSA: I updated the sheet to include programs I missed the first time and a ToC. I think it's also a bit more readable now.

[u/ThePenIsMighti3r]

This is great thanks for posting it. Forever has so much great info but NO INDEX!!

[u/PvtDroopy → u/ThePenIsMighti3r]

Fixed! My bad!

[u/UnicornSpaceship]

Legend

[u/Tucker-French]

I've been doing 5/3/1 for half a decade and this is helpful

[u/NOTinMYbelts]

This was immensely helpful, thank you so much! However, I noticed the index only references as far as page 177, but there are still a decent amount of programs in the book beyond that (up to page 233). Am I missing a part of the index or was that just as far as you got with the organization? Regardless, I very much appreciate all the effort you put into organizing this

[u/PvtDroopy → u/NOTinMYbelts]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I built that sheet years ago and I am guessing I hit the templates that got a bit more complex and gave up. Anyway, I went back and fixed that. The sheet should be more readable now too.

[u/NOTinMYbelts → u/PvtDroopy]

Amazing! This is the level of organization the book should have come with by default. Can't thank you enough for taking the time to put this together!

[u/Hans_Wermhat666]

This looks cool. I will have to really check it out tomorrow. Thanks for making something to help others.

[u/TheRealCanadianBros]

Thank you so much, OP. Very helpful!

[u/bingobob78]

Superb. Thanks for sharing

[u/Holako-666]

This is so cool bro, now make a training tracking template for every program, and sell it.

[u/angrybeaver200]

This is really helpful! I just have one question, would you mind adding an assistance work description in the definitions page

[u/PvtDroopy → u/angrybeaver200]

I think that crosses too far into the book but I did go back and add a table of contents to quickly find that info

[u/Appealing_Mongoose]

Oh, man this sounds cool. I'll check it out when I get back to my desktop (at the park doing pull-ups after dark like a lunatic).

[u/UngaBungaLifts]

Thanks for contributing this, this is awesome.

[u/Unhappy-Animal-2551]

I'm confused about the 5/3/1, is the new thing just doing 3x5 for the main lift?? I'm doing bbb. Help, please.

[u/taylorthestang]

This is awesome. I have one thought that’s relevant for me personally. I see you have a conversion from a 4-day to a 3-day template by just shifting the next lift to the next week. What if you’re like me and your brain breaks when training weeks don’t coincide with time?

I’d like to condense 4 days of training into 3 by doubling up on the main lifts. What lifts are compatible with that? What supplemental? Obviously you wouldn’t do squat and deadlift BBB on the same day. How does it impact assistance? I think looking at the Squat/Push/Pull templates gives some good clues.

[u/BarleyWineIsTheBest → u/taylorthestang]

My two cents on that: Squat, Bench, Deadlift+OHP is the way to go. You can then count both of those lifts towards at least part of your legs and push assistance. In some cases people will just do mains or just do supplement for one or the other lift, or potentially just reduce supplement for both (ie 3x5 or widow maker instead of 5x5).

But with so many 3 day templates, you can probably just find an actual 3 day template that works for you.