RPE

[chrisza]

You conveniently ignored my reasoning for why the market is moving away from SS and towards RPE-based programming. Most of us former lifters who tried using your logic for post-novice programming came to prefer more sophisticated methods. You tend to call those types of programming needlessly complicated, but since you keep misstating how RPE is used, you either misunderstand it or straw-man it, and thus ignore the value of the added complexity. And it's not as if RPE or DUP-type programs are rocket science. They improve recovery and help increase volume, increase muscle growth and reduce injuries.

If you were truly right, there would be people here who still programmed according to your logic, but all that's left here are new people who haven't yet figured out all the ways in which your post-novice programming is misguided. All the more experienced lifters grew to program differently and only stay here if they're SSCs reliant on your good will for financial reasons.

I have to say sir that you are absolutely full of it and yourself. I frequent many of these boards and using RPE, more volume etc has not transformed these guys into these elite lifters you speak of. I've seen the same people spinning their wheels struggling to progress just like anyone else. One site's programming board is full of novice/early intermediate lifters making little to no progress after running the $40-$80 template and the advice almost every time is to buy another template!

[m s]

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.

Your experiment doesn't even make sense though because the lifters are fatigued from the previous set which they used to judge their RPE.

And I agree with the general consensus here that RPE is definitely not for novice or intermediate lifters. That being said, your experiment is not indicative of anything. We don't know what "very experienced lifters" are. Maybe RPE has a learning curve -- my guess is that if you kept guessing you had 3 more reps in you, and kept getting 0, you'd learn something about your guesses.

It doesn't really matter though -- I see your posts here on the board, and just like your experiment, they are usually just silly nonsense.

[Thip]

I don't get this. Do all of you people have stock in the RPE company or something? What is the bizarre obsession with somehow trying to browbeat Rip into completely up-ending SS's training approach and then having a pissy tantrum about it when you're unsuccessful?

Jesus, we know there are large swaths of people that don't like the guy, primarily for his various opinions and positions on many things, fine. I'm just extremely skeptical that their opinion of Rip would change, along with their behavior towards him, if in some moment of loss of principle and mental weakness, he put out a post saying he was abandoning the whole thing and conceding to the "consensus" in the S&C community and ::gasp: elite powerlifting circles.


What the fuck do you people want?

Its like they want validation that what they are doing is correct. RPE is not new and is a recombination of APRE by DR Bryan Mann. RPE is like the shiny new object that everyone thinks is going to give them gains. I got news. No program will work unless you put In the effort (Work) have proper nutrition and have proper recovery. Programming is not a perfect science and one size doe not fit all.A majority depends upon individual effort, genetic make up, hormone profile and as stated above proper nutrition and recovery.

IF the RPE people want validation then they should go hug there mothers instead of berating and beating to death someone that has actually made a major contribution to the strength community. My god over 40 years ago no one really knew of anything regarding strength training. You learned the lifts through magazines, and there was very little published about strength training. Rip has taken strength training out of the dark ages and presented it as a product for the layman. Good for him !

[Fatfacts25]

When I tried RPE it just made me lift lighter than I was capable of for the first few weeks, then as I added weight the RPE got higher as it had to otherwise I would have still been using week 1’s weights. Then eventually I hit weights I could get stronger with, which was a RPE of 10 on the final set. Which put me right back to how I trained without RPE.

Well said. I think you stated that better than I could state it.

[Mark Rippetoe]

AAAND we're done here.