The theory is based on the assumption that the reaction can be described by a reaction coordinate, and that we can apply Boltzmann distribution at least in the reactant state.
A new, especially reactive segment of the reactant, called the saddle domain, is introduced, and the rate constant is factored:
where α is the conversion factor between the reactant state and saddle domain, while k is the rate constant from the saddle domain. The first can be simply calculated from the free energy surface, the latter is easily accessible from short molecular dynamics simulations