RPE

[Eric Larousse]

If you overshoot the first set RPE and then do all of that volume for the back offs you will completely fuck your recovery.

I know because I’ve done it. Without a live coach helping you through it is very easy to screw up and you will.

That said there are definitely elite lifters using RPE based programs that have used it all the way from novice to advanced/Elite.

[Thip]

Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe

You don't have to tell them the weight on the bar for each workout. You place the responsibility for deciding the loads on the client, not the coach. This saves quite a bit of time. It allows you to sell a template that applies to almost everybody, especially if you insist that "there is no evidence that older lifters cannot do the same volume" as everybody else.

Absolutely True. As an older lifter I spent a year on RPE with a coach, and never liked it. RPE is difficult to discern and not objective enough. It is made out so that you believe that one size fits all. It does not. I was age 60 at the time, and looking for advanced programming for the "age" challenged. Turns out "Father time" waits for no one and no new program will overcome age, injuries, and hormonal decline. The answer I was told was more GPP and you will adapt to the volume. Well no knows what age 60 Is like until they are there. The demographic for RPE is certainly not the older lifter.

[mrflibble]

This cannot be a serious question. The first workout of the NLP is not the method used subsequently in the NLP, and I am surprised that you would be so bought in to RPE-babble that you would say something this amazing and transparent a mischaracterization. Grasping at straw men. Desperation. Just stop typing why you retain a shred of your intellectual dignity.

Just to clarify, my responses to you and Hurling were two separate points. I did not mean to imply they were connected. My point to Hurling was that how we "feel" in a general sense isn't a correct or fair interpretation of RPE, in the same way that it would not be a correct or fair understanding of the first NLP workout. The first workout also illustrates that SSBBT accepts that subjective judgements (based on what one thinks might happen on an untaken next set) can be sufficiently accurate.

My separate reply to you was (yes, a serious question, somewhat rhetorcial) regarding the entirety of NLP, not just the first workout:

You don't have to tell them the weight on the bar for each workout. You place the responsibility for deciding the loads on the client, not the coach. This saves quite a bit of time. It allows you to sell a template that applies to almost everybody, especially if you insist that "there is no evidence that older lifters cannot do the same volume" as everybody else.

This certainly all applies to the novice template in SSBBT. The lifter decides the loads, not the book, which advises the workout to workout increments following on from the "feeling" based foundation of the first workout. SSBBT also contains a novice template that "applies to almost everbody". In other words, if this is valid criticism pointing out the flaws of RPE based programs it is similarly a valid criticism of the NLP template. Personally, I don't think this is actually an issue with either method, and instead think it is an overall positive.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This certainly all applies to the novice template in SSBBT. The lifter decides the loads, not the book, which advises the workout to workout increments following on from the "feeling" based foundation of the first workout. SSBBT also contains a novice template that "applies to almost everbody". In other words, if this is valid criticism pointing out the flaws of RPE based programs it is similarly a valid criticism of the NLP template. Personally, I don't think this is actually an issue with either method, and instead think it is an overall positive.

The lifter decides the loads for the FIRST WORKOUT. The fist goddamn workout, and that's all. And the frequency with which this is done incorrectly -- not according to the instructions in the book -- also tells you why RPE is stupid.

That said there are definitely elite lifters using RPE based programs that have used it all the way from novice to advanced/Elite.

There are elite lifters who have done every single possible thing wrong that it is possible to do wrong. This is not an argument, but rather an observation. And it gives me chills, knowing that you guys have been reading the board for years and are still this confused.

[Fatfacts25]

In the spirit of this discussion I will repeat myself. Particularly in lifting variation, which should be used for weaknesses, if you don’t make the set challenging it won’t address the problem. That’s why RPE does not work. You preemptively take the weight down without considering if it worked you hard enough to accomplish anything. Sure you establish a starting point, but go up from there.....continually until you can’t anymore. And make sure the starting point isn’t too light. You have to be willing to push it to get better. See what you can do with say “halting dead.” Grab it with passion damn it!! Lift that shit like a haus!!! You gotta want it man!!! RPE won’t do that. And in past articles and vids..... yes they did say it was based on feelings.

[mrflibble]

The lifter decides the loads for the FIRST WORKOUT. The fist goddamn workout, and that's all.

Yet the load for a lift in the second workout is that from the first +X, and so on. Yes, the book provides guidance, but the lifter ultimately decides the value for X based on "Work-set weight increases will vary with the exercise, your age and sex, your experience, and the consistency of your adherence to the program."

Just to be clear - my point is that I don't think it is a failure of either program that a lifter decides the load. This is true whether it be an NLP guided by a correct following of the book, or an RPE program guided by a correct implementation of RPE.

And the frequency with which this is done incorrectly -- not according to the instructions in the book -- also tells you why RPE is stupid.

I agree that both RPE and the NLP can be misunderstood and performed incorrectly. I don't think this indicates either are stupid.

Whose fault is it when the directions in the book are followed incorrectly?

Whose fault when RPE is applied incorrectly?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Great points. You're obviously correct.

[perman]

There are elite lifters who have done every single possible thing wrong that it is possible to do wrong. This is not an argument, but rather an observation. And it gives me chills, knowing that you guys have been reading the board for years and are still this confused.

You're the one that's confused, because the proper way to analyze this is to look at statistics, not just whether something exists. More and more RPE-based lifters are placing in powerlifting, while less and less strong lifters use SS. The market has decided it's a better way to go than your way, but you're such a grumpy, old man set in his ways that you're unable to see the virtue of new innovations. Even though it's value is obvious to the rest of us...

[Mark Rippetoe]

I really understand now. The consensus decides what is true. Got it.

[Nockian]

Even though it's value is obvious to the rest of us...

A good example of the fallacy of the argument from authority (qualitative).

Why don't you try repeating my experiment in the OP. The simple fact is, that if the RPE is inaccurate on a number of occasions, then it's not valid. It does need to be a blind test though, otherwise there is a temptation to fudge the results-which is why I used very experienced lifters, whom hadn't previously used RPE.

RPE is at best a pair of lucky underpants, at worst a way to derive income from the gullible.