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I wrote before on Reddit on the WW threads about negative thoughts and lifting (under a different username). I thought I might continue here.
I have switched to 5/3/1 programming over the past few months. First doing Original, then Forever-style programming last month. I haven't really progressed at all though. It's been very difficult for me to gain weight. Since starting my new job, I have eaten more than ever in my life, but weight gain is still very slow - I have ramped up from eating about 3000 calories a day at the start of June to over 4500 now and only have 2kg to show for it. I still freak out every time my scale gives a lower number, and I am still paranoid about not gaining any muscle. Over the past month I got frustrated with the lack of progress on 5/3/1 and decided to push it a bit further. I am now doing FSL for supplemental work and have cut out rest days nearly entirely so I'm in the gym every day. This is basically the opposite of what Wendler counsels... but I'd rather err on the side of doing too much than doing too little.
I think we generally need a bit more data to tell you anything substantial, like experience (you mention five years downthread), bar weight, and your size. Depending on your experience and the weight you can lift the advice can change pretty drastically. Newer lifters (read: squatting <225lbs) can put on 2lbs of muscle a month, whereas experienced lifters (read: squatting >300lbs) will be able to put on maybe a quarter of that mass if they are lucky. Be patient with yourself and focus on the basics: form, diet, and consistency. What I have to say here you may already know, but might be helpful to anyone reading so I'll say it anyway:
First make sure you are consistently getting enough protein. About 50 grams per meal is the max you can metabolize for muscle gain (or, at least, that's the number I keep hearing Peter Attia throw out, ymmv), so be eating protein throughout the day. For those that don't the bare minimum is 0.8g / 1kg, so for myself at a little more than 100kg I need at least 80 grams per day. I've heard that actually hitting somewhere near 1.2g / 1kg saturates better. Good protein sources are best found in animal products, which have nearly all of the necessary amino acids your body needs. Whey protein is a good supplement, but iirc it lacks some key amino acids that you need so be sure to eat a variety of sources to saturate your body's requirements.
Also, don't do any weird, crazy diets. You can avoid processed foods, but be sure to eat a decent amount of fruits and vegetables. The sugars give your muscles the extra zing they need to really push past plateaus and lift heavier over time. A balanced diet of good, unprocessed foods will probably improve your PR by some reasonable margin (5-10%). Also, Creatine works wonders if you aren't using it. 5g a day will improve your power by 10% across the board with zero drawbacks or downsides. If you are new to Creatine, overload it for the first week (20g/day) to really saturate your muscles, and then drop down to 5g a day for an easy increase in strength. Anything else outside of this is a fad and probably wont work (outside anabolic steroids), so the rest is built in the gym.
I think this is a bad idea. On top of hitting all your macro and micro nutrients, your body needs plenty of good rest to repair, rebuild, and replenish the proteins expended during your workout. The purpose of rest is to allow your body to make the necessary improvements to your musculature, which takes time and sleep. While it is technically locational (doing arms won't improve legs by much if at all) it does take time. This process is also different for stronger lifters, as the more stressful weights take a longer time to recover from. Because powerlifting routines rely on constantly increasing the weight and lifting as close to max as possible as much as possible, you need to give your body the necessary time between sessions. That said, active rest > sedentary rest, so cut back on off days and lift really heavy during your on days.
Out of curiosity, what were you doing before 5/3/1? I do essentially the same thing at the gym but a 5x5 focused around squats. What I read about 5/3/1 is that it does the main powerlifts (DL,SQ,BP) with added mili press. You might want to consider adding a row in to your movements, like a barbell row or something to hit your upper back a little bit.
Also, in regards to volume, if you really feel the need to be moving throughout the week then just do calisthenics during rest days. Heavy weights trigger muscle growth, but training body weight exercise over a wide range of motions can really help improve general fitness and even help with recovery through increased blood flow. Capillarization is also a really useful bonus that volume at lower weights can provide, where capillaries grow and expand within your musculature improving blood flow and giving your muscles better endurance and recovery. If you have specific weight/fitness goals it would be pretty helpful to have them in specifics so that we can help you figure out your path to get there.
Lifting about five years - started with the popular Reddit PPL, tried NSuns, messed around with PPL-style programming, didn't really train over lockdown, did Jeff Nippard's Upper-Lower split when I came back, started 5/3/1 in spring of this year. Started with original 5/3/1 with BBB sets, then did a 5/3/1 Forever mesocycle with BBB sets.
Currently my highest lifts are four reps with 100kg on bench press (which I did a few months ago), 155kg on back squat (again, done a few months ago before I started getting back pain) and 190kg on deadlift (done about three years ago). I currently weigh about 84kg, up from about 77kg this time last year.
Yes, I eat lots of protein. Not hard when you eat over 4500 calories. I don't track it but when I do it is normally about 250 grams or more which should be more than enough since most recommendations go up to 2.2g/kg. Admittedly I do eat a fair amount of processed foods, I'm not much of a cook and I don't really know how to make or grow things from scratch and I often have to eat out when I'm working. Honestly I don't understand what people are getting at when they criticize processed foods. Lots of people have gained weight and muscle drinking milk, eating pizza, and using processed supplements like whey protein and creatine (which you yourself recommend). I don't believe it's somehow necessary to cut all those things out of a diet. You're also wrong about whey protein - it has a complete amino acid profile.
5/3/1 isn't a powerlifting program and I'm not really interested in powerlifting.
5/3/1 has assistance work, and I do some sort of row or pulldown variation every day, including barbell rows on press day.
Sometimes in the evenings I go for a run and do some pullups/burpees/dips in an outdoor gym. I'm not that consistent about it, I need to fit it around my schedule, but I usually aim for going twice or three times a week.
Well, in the past when I've trained with rest days, I didn't get any stronger. I've read the best thing to do in that case is to train harder or with more volume or great frequency, so I chose greater frequency.
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