I wrote a thing

[rydra_wong]

Iron in the blood: in pursuit of the one-rep max

Warning: this is not a how-to, it's a stream-of-consciousness ramble about what this particular mode of lifting heavy things means to me, and why I think it's good for the soul to do it from time to time.

Comments

[lyorn]

I have a how-to question, so I'm asking it here:

How do you determine the starting weight? I worry that if I start to low or too high (as in, won't budge), I'll be exhausted before I get into the useful range. Maybe I'm just worrying too much?

I can do 3*8 reps on 2/3 bodyweight currently, and can lift people of 1,5 times my bodyweight a foot off the floor if they cooperate... Start with bodyweight?

[rydra_wong]

Maybe I'm just worrying too much?

Yes! *g* The great thing here is that you can be kind of haphazard and imprecise (I am), and if you exhaust yourself too early, oh well, it's a lesson for next time. It's about feeling your way and finding out how you respond to different weights.

For reference, not as a how-to but just an example: what I did the day I posted was a warm-up set with a weight that's relatively low for me, for about 8 reps, just to get my brain and body in the groove and see how I was feeling. Then, since I was feeling good, I upped the weight a notch, to the point where 5 reps seemed like a solid set.

Then I decided to go for testing my 1-rep max, so I added more weight, did a single rep, then took a break (about two to five minutes - aiming to recover almost completely). Then more weight, another rep, another break, etc. Going up by smaller and smaller increments each time.

I tend to be cautious, so I'd say start with a warm-up set, then go up in steps from there.

The thing about 1-rep max stuff is that it's not really a workout in the standard way; your ability to produce pure force is going to be worked, but part of what you're doing is research. So you're not going for reps or trying to tire your muscles out with a given weight: it's "Okay, I can lift this much; let's take a break then see if I can lift this + 5kg."

You're gathering information on how your body handles different weights, and you can use that information to feed into your subsequent workouts.

As a completely made-up example, because I don't know what you'll find: you might find that you can lift 3/4 bodyweight pretty comfortably, 8/10 bodyweight with a struggle, and just barely manage a single rep with good form at bodyweight.

In that case, depending on your goals, you might see if next time you go to the gym, you could make one of your sets 5 x 3/4 bodyweight. Or maybe you'll surprise yourself and manage 8 x 3/4 bodyweight. But then you might not be able to manage another set at that level, so you take off a bit of weight and do the other two sets at 2/3 bodyweight.

(Or you might find that you can lift bodyweight for a few reps without too much stress, in which case you might want to try cranking everything up and making your next deadlift workout 3 x 8 x 8/10 bodyweight, with the aim of getting to sets at bodyweight soon and then going past it.)

So you go back to a more standard sets/reps arrangement, but it's informed by knowing much more about what your max is, and having had the chance to experience and play with much more extreme weights (which can often mean you get surprised by what you can actually lift, and your overall expectations take a jump up).

[weirdquark]

You could try a one-rep max calculator. They're not always very accurate, but it's probably within a reasonable margin of error, so it should give you a reasonable starting point. (I have not actually tried to test my one-rep max on anything, so I could be completely wrong though.)