5/3/1 - your personal opinion on it (from experience)

[SteelBrotherhoD]

I dont like it for the main lifts, but I have found it useful to use as the progression for stuff that is accessory to me. At the moment, pull-ups and shoulder presses. The weights improve slow enough and the volume is low so this doesnt interfere badly with my main lifts, and its still solid enough that you are adding weight consistently and making progress.

[AnimalNation]

I think the main take away is that you will probably have to modify the **** out of it for it to be any worth to you.
It's always once I look at going back to, but each time I learn a little more about myself it gets modified.

[whitessp]

I liked it. I ran it when I first started lifting (after broing out with some friends for about 3 months before they all stopped going to the gym and I got addicted...basic 3x10 bodypart split stuff with more machines than compound movements), and IIRC my maxes starting were like 275sq, 155b, 315d, 135ohp and I wanna say when I stopped I had a 415sq, 255 paused bench, 500 deadlift, and a 170 or so OHP. I've found that the bench and OHP just don't seem to progress as fast for me doing that style of training as the squat and deadlift did. But the OHP I haven't been able to get to progress at all, I just suck at it in general. If I just skipped that and added a second bench day in to the program I feel like I'd probably have done a lot better.

I didn't follow the program 100% exactly, as every couple of months I would either test my maxes or just recalculate using a estimated 1RM based on one of the rep maxes that I hit on a 1's day. I enjoyed doing it though, and could see myself adding in some of the principals to my current training (mainly the AMRAP sets...those were great for building muscle, conditioning, and just overall mental strength. I don't have any of that for reps anymore lol).

I will say though, for powerlifting as a sport, the best results I've gotten so far have been from doing a Conjugate style of workouts. I put 200+lbs or so onto my total in a year by going to conjugate style of training. And as an intermediate and older lifter (not really old at 31...but not in my easily recoverable 20's) with terrible knees and arthritis, I think that's pretty good. Especially when I can see putting another 200lbs on in the next year or two if I can stay healthy.

[NattyAmerica]

I enjoyed it, ran it for a year. You do need to customize it a bit to make it better and to suit your needs, but I gained some good strength and size on it. I do agree that it does lack volume and I think the best way to run it would be to do 3 sets of the last set so 3x5, 3x3, 3x1 and then do an AMRAP on the last set.