Why doesn't anyone do medium deadlifts?

[Eric Larousse]

And like I said I really do not think there is world of difference between a straight percentage based program and that. I think the benefit of RPE is you do not know what you can actually do that day and it could better regulate your intensity for the day for the desired training effect. It gets slightly more murky than that when we are talking a 8-12 week cycle or so though.

[manveer]

Mike uses the analogy of launching a rocket to explain RPE. You have a path, a general idea of what it's going to take to get where you're going, but there will be small course corrections along the way (say due to wind or whatever, I don't know).

You design a training plan for a full cycle. RPE just provides the course corrections along the way by getting the right weight on the bar each day to achieve the desired training effect. TRAC (short daily questionnaire) tells you whether your stress levels are too high, too low or just right and, if necessary, adds or subtracts volume from the plan.

[Tom Narvaez]

There isn't a world of difference between SSLP and StrongLifts, either.

[Dag]

Thanks Eric. Appreciate both Tom's patience as well as yours. My comprehension and retention skills have always been subpar but I'm trying to learn!

[Eric Larousse]

There isn't a world of difference between SSLP and StrongLifts, either.

Not the exercises but I have a hard time believing you can progress for very long with 5x5 vs just starting with 3x5 and further when you drop to 1x5 as per the program with no extra sets have you found this to be enough volume to eek out a few more progressions? I know we(we SS zealots) have several ways of eeking our more progress(1x5+-5% sets or drop the reps)

[Tom Narvaez]

I think you missed my point. Seemingly "small" changes can have a big impact on results in the long run. For advanced athletes, "small" differences are the difference between making progress and not making progress.

[Eric Larousse]

I think you missed my point. Seemingly "small" changes can have a big impact on results in the long run. For advanced athletes, "small" differences are the difference between making progress and not making progress.

O I see hah. Have you considered the disadvantages of RPE programming though? If you have a good day for one you will be constantly comparing yourself the whole cycle to that good day and when a bad day creeps up this can be demotivating. Why I Don't Use The RPE Scale - YouTube

I reference Candito in this thread but there are several people I know of saying things like this.

[Tom Narvaez]

Honestly, Jonnie has helped me a TON with YouTube stuff, but I don't buy that argument at all. It's weaksauce.

An experienced lifter needs to have a handle on their emotions. "But my ego..." is not argument.

You SHOULD compare yourself to where you were at on your best regularly, anyways. That's how you measure progress. That's irrespective of percentage based work or RPE work. Are you really more likely to compare yourself to your best day and get too sad because of RPE? I think that's total bullshit. People get sad about their training when weights don't move as fast as they'd like let alone worrying that every single session isn't an "e1RM PR". People literally do the same thing with percentage work. Pretending you didn't have an amazing training session isn't a mature approach to take.

Education is the solution here. Experience should tell you that you're not expected to hit PRs every session whether percentage-based OR RPE based. Knowledge should tell you that PRs generally don't happen during accumulation. If trainees have never been through that before, go back to the education part -- coaches should set expectations so they know what to expect during each part of the training cycle.

And if you only have one good day per training cycle, and you never beat that day again, news flash, but something is wrong in your program.

The only good argument I've found against RPE has to do with individual lifter psychology. I don't see the opposite a lot, but I have some competitive lifters who I can't let use RPE because they fixate on certain numbers and kill themselves trying to hit them. They basically just ignore RPE by convincing themselves that @10 sets were really @9 or other such B.S. More rarely, you'll have a newer lifter who is really afraid of new weights and will rate things super inaccurately out of fear or inexperience. However, both these issues are maturity problems and advanced lifters, whether percentage based or not, must get over this type of mental failing to keep progressing. Ignoring RPE is no different than going off plan with a percentage program. Not going up heavier is no different than bitching out of a written set on your percentage plan. RPE just makes it slightly easier for immature lifters to justify emotional decisions. They're given more leeway that they abuse. Again though, this is an individual failing and not a failing of RPE.

Again though, "I had a really good day and today isn't as good, wahhh" can happen to percentage based lifters too and it isn't a good argument regardless.

[Tom Narvaez]

Let me also say this, I think that if someone simply doesn't like RPE, that's a plenty good enough reason to not use it. It's just not an argument against it.

[manveer]

O I see hah. Have you considered the disadvantages of RPE programming though? If you have a good day for one you will be constantly comparing yourself the whole cycle to that good day and when a bad day creeps up this can be demotivating. Why I Don't Use The RPE Scale - YouTube

I reference Candito in this thread but there are several people I know of saying things like this.

I think Mike's response was pretty comprehensive: