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I've heard of people doing that. Not sure I really believe the science part. I can see it helping though. I feel like it's one of those things that works for some people but doesn't work for everyone. Try it out and see how it works for you.
Quick breakdown on the 5/3/1 for those of you who were wondering. Basically, the program is Jim Wendler's baby: http://www.jimwendler.com/. If you're really interested cop the e-book - there's a lot of inspirational information in there.
The biggest appeal of the program is its simplicity. There's 4 days a week - each day consists of a major compound lift plus whatever assistance work you want to do. For reference, the compounds we're talking about are bench press, squat, standing overhead press (barbell), and deadlifts.
The program works in cycles consisting of 3 or 4 weeks depending on if you want to use the last week as a deload week or not.
The first week your work sets are as follows: 5 reps at 65% of your training max, 5 reps at 75%, and 5+ at 85%.
Second week, you do 3 reps at 70%, 3 reps at 80%, and 3+ at 90%. Final week you do 5 reps at 75%, 3 reps at 85%, and 1+ reps at 95%.
Then assuming you get your reps that week, you bump up your training max by 5 or 10 lbs.
Your training max is 90% of your real max (either an actual 1RM or a calculated 1RM), so the max weight you'll hit in training is around 85% of your "real" max. By training light, you'll be able to keep making progress rather than stalling out every other week. Furthermore, although you are training light, the AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible) sets allow you to push yourself at the end of each workout.
The other component of the program is your assistance work, which should theoretically consist of exercises intended to support the main lift you're doing that day. This is where you can work in bodybuilding/hypertrophy work if you like.
I've been using the "Boring But Big" template for this where you do 5 sets of 10 of the same lift at 50-60% of your training max. Then I also throw in some upright rows on bench days, pullups on OHP, and some other stuff.
Definitely take a look at some of the stuff Wendler writing.
