Reply With QuoteUsually 2 to 3 times a year, and usually only in competition.
Member
How often and how to max?
Finding your max weight is not covered in the book, so how often do you guys do it? Once a month?
How do you do it? Gradually increase weight doing 1 rep until failure or warm up then pick a weight that you hope you can do and give it a go?
Thanks,
CoryB
Member
Usually 2 to 3 times a year, and usually only in competition.
Member
Personal opinion is that doing 1RM once a month is not a useful exercise.
Id do them at the end of every calendar quarter or half-yearly. If you compete then that will also give you your answer by default.
Callador
If you are talking about the SS program, you really don't need to find your max. Just run it until you stall, deload, and try again. After 2-3 deloads, then move to intermediate style programming. This might require that you go for maxes depending on the program.
I am doing intermediate type programs and have been liffting for a little less than 2 years. On my current program I try to shoot for maxes every 12 weeks or so.
Member
I wouldn't max out more than once every 12 weeks. If you want to do a true max, you could taper a bit for 1-2 weeks. But depending on how far along you are in adapation, this may be counter productive. This is probably only necessary for people who are further along in intermediate programming or advanced programming.
How to max: I wouldn't take the squat to failure if you can help it. I like to do it somewhat like a powerlifting meet. Give yourself three attempts, so choose them sort of smart. Depending on how much I'm hoping to PR by 1st attempt will be like 95%, 2nd one will be around 100% (higher or lower depending on how much progress I've think I've made), and then base the 3rd attempt off of how the 2nd goes, usually in the 105-110% range.
Also, depending on where you are in adaptation, your 1RM may not be far from your SS working set weight. This is because your body is not accustomed to the intensity and heavier weights.
Member
Yeah, this is what I'm afraid of. Since almost every workout is a 5RM, then my 1RM is probably going to be 20 lbs more, at most.Originally Posted by PFerrari
Member
Unless you are a PLer it doesn't matter what your 1RM is.
Member
It sounds like you'd be better off waiting a bit before attempting a 1RM. Wait until you progress through intermediate workouts and through it's variations until you get to the point where you're doing singles. You will get more out of doing 5's for now and it will set you up very well for when you are ready to really try 1RMs.
But that being said, if you try to do a 1RM one day it's not going to derail your progress or anything. It can be fun to test yourself like that so if you want to do it, don't overthink it. As long as you're not maxing out too often, it's fine.
Member
---said no man ever.
If you have testosterone levels greater than Richard Simmons then you want to know how much weight you can pick up. It doesn't matter what the number is if you're not a PLer, but that doesn't mean that a man doesn't want to know.
Member
Coming from the guy who can't figure out something as simple as how to test 1RM? Interesting. However this sounds like some shit a Crossfitter would say to be honest.
Like someone else said, unless you are training for 1RM (i.e. powerlifter or weightlifter) your true 1RM probably isn't too far off from your 5RM, if you primarily train with sets of 5. Already knowing this, you should have a pretty good idea what your 1RM is. So what does actually doing it accomplish other than risking injury by doing something you rarely do and interfering with training? Not to mention that 1RM will probably change significantly a few months later and your original test was just an unnecessary risk.
And yes we do care how much weight you can lift. For a set of 5.
If you really care about 1RM that much, start power lifting. Then you'll always know how what your 1RM's are.
Posting Permissions