Today I’m steering the metaphorical learning bus of fitness to obvious city. Welcome aboard, I’ll be your driver for the next 10 minutes after which I will ask you to kindly get the fuck outta my oversized vehicle and move on with your merry life. The topic we’ll be covering today is the discussion and importance of your one rep max. You see, it really doesn’t matter whether you’re a competitive pro lifter or just enjoy lifting weights every now and then… you need to know your one rep max. It gives you a benchmark and let’s you know where you’re at, just like a body fat percentage reading.

So the first obvious question I wanted knock out was “How do I find my one rep max?”. It’s pretty god damn simple – you rack the bar with the weight you think you can do and you lift the damn thing. The problem is that too many of you are shit scared and are therefore looking for the ever evolving formulas that try and accurately predict your 1RM. Bullshit. No equation or formula in the world will accurately predict your 1RM. The only real way is to do it. However, there is a method to the madness that I use… and I suggest you do the same so you don’t get your ass crushed.

First and foremost, know your body. No one knows your body as well as you do so use common sense. If you’ve been lifting for 5+ years, then it’s safe to say you know what your limits are and can work of that… but if it’s your first year and this is your first time attempting 1RM, then you might want to go about it smartly.

My future wife will be able to lift heavy loads like that…

Second, you’ll need to know for which exercises you need to do the 1RM. Finding your max for a forearm curl is completely useless and an excellent waste of time. Now, I should make you use common sense and force you to think about which lifts should be important. However, I know you’re lazy, so below I’ve provided a list of exercises for which I know my 1RM for. You don’t have to do them all, but the big three (bench, deadlift & squat) is the minimum.

• Parallel Squat
• Full Squat
• Military Press
• Bench Press
• Deadlift
• Barbell Bent Over Row
• Powerclean
• Snatch*

* The snatch is not recommend for everyone… only those that do Olympic lifting or some type of competitive lifting. Personally, my snatch technique resembles a pile of dog shit so until I train it and it becomes relatively slick, I won’t attempt a 1RM. I don’t feel like having a heavy bar fall on my head. See what I did there? Common sense.

Time To Lift

Now comes the fun part; where you actually attempt a lift. First, get yourself a spotter. Never, and I mean never attempt a 1RM session without a spotter. Hire a PT for an hour if you don’t have friends or friends that don’t take care of their bodies in some way shape or form.

Then there is warm up. My usual warm up involves 8 reps at an extremely light weight and some form of nervous system priming. So if I’m planning on performing a 1RM for my bench, I’ll do about 8 reps with 135lbs to get the joints lubricated, then I’ll throw on a shit load of weight. Usually 20-30lbs more than I know I can do and just do an isometric hold with it for 10 seconds.

The reason for this is simple… after holding a heavy ass weight for 10 seconds, anything lighter than that particular load feels like a breeze. Sort of like jump training with ankle weights then removing them. But this is not something everyone will be able to do so my suggestion is to load the bar with your max weight you currently use in your workouts + 20% if you’re a newbie.

Hmm… wonder what her 1RM deadlift is?

Ok so you’re warmed up and your nervous system is primed. I’m going to assume that you’ve never done a 1RM session before and that you’ve been lifting for just about a year or less. Here’s what I’d recommend (let’s use the bench press as the example lift).

1. Load the bar with your known max weight you currently use and add 10-15% on top of that. Go with what you know, so if you’ve been doing 150lbs for 6 reps then use 150 + 10%. Now attempt one clean rep. If the spotter has to help you with the lift at any point (excluding the lift off from the bench station) then it was a failed attempt. Don’t cry, just read step 2. If the lift was a success, add 5lbs to each side and rest 90-120 seconds.

2. If the lift “failed” but you thought you were close, rest 90-120 seconds and re-attempt it. If it was too heavy, drop the weight by 10lbs.

3. Attempt your 2nd rep, and if it’s a success then add another 5lbs plate on each side. If your previous lift was a success but this 2nd attempt failed, rest 90-120 seconds to re-attempt and if it fails again then replace the 5lbs plates with 2.5lbs and re-attempt.

At each point, you should write down exactly what happened. If you’ve done 1RM sessions before and know your limits, then you know that increasing by a total of 10lbs (5lbs per side) is actually a bit steep. If a bench of 200lbs has been your max for the past 2 months then you’re new attempt this month should be 205, not 210. Don’t be a hero. For those that are very new… they usually underestimate their strength – hence the total of 10lbs jumps. Below is an example log of how a bench 1RM session would look like for a newbie 180lbs male (or… a female?)

Bench Press 1RM Session

1st Attempt 180lbs – Success

1st Attempt 190lbs – Success

1st Attempt 200lbs – Success

1st Attempt 210lbs – Fail

2nd Attempt 210lbs – Fail

1st Attempt 205lbs – Success

3rd Attempt 210 – Fail

Concluded 1RM – 205lbs

As you can see, it took about 7 reps for this person to figure out their 1RM. Is that how long it will take you? No. But you also don’t want to spend all day on one lift and this is where common sense comes in. If it takes you more than 10-12 reps to find your 1RM, you weren’t using common sense. I spit out a whole bunch of cautious mumbo jumbo so people won’t kill themselves. But if you’re under the bar and it obviously feels like you’re pushing too light then bump the weight by 20lbs instead of 10lbs. 1RM sessions aren’t exactly workout session, they are meant to gauge your absolute strength, so don’t burn yourself out trying to do like 30 reps.

Then we have the re-attempt scenarios. How many times should you re-attempt a weight before you bitch slap your ego and just accept that tomorrow is another day? Three. That’s my rule anyway. But I’ve found that chasing a weight more than 3 times is just not worth it and will burn you out.

And finally, be aware of odd anomalies. In the example above, it wouldn’t have been uncommon to see the person actually hit their 3rd attempt after failing the first two times. I remember the first time I ever deadlifted 300lbs (or attempted to). The first 2 attempts were a huge fail; the god damn bar didn’t move more than 3 inches off the floor. But I knew I had one attempt left… and on that 3rd attempt, I made that 300lbs bar my bitch. The reason for this is the nervous system. For some people it takes a few heavy attempts before their body is firing on all cylinders so don’t lose hope. It’s like playing poker, know when to push your luck and when to call it quits.

Why You Need To Know Your One Rep Max

Beyond having the obvious ability to track your absolute strength gains over the years, knowing your 1RM is important if you plan on following specific training programs. Let’s take a hypertrophy program for example. I’ve found that high volume training at about 70-75% of your max builds the most muscle… but if you don’t know your 1RM, how the hell are you going to calculate this? Basted on theoretical formulas and other nonsense? I don’t think so. Not if you’re looking for the fastest results possible.

Don’t be one of those chumps that scratches their heads when they see something like “lift 5 reps at 85% of your max”. Know your maxes and memorize them. Train hard, train smart and you’ll be on your way to looking as sexy as me. Almost.

Cheers.

- FitJerk

Content originally written by FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2010 All Rights Reserved – This post is NOT to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face.

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