Everybody loves to test out the max weight they can perform for a lift. I mean who doesnt want to see if they can deadlift more than their previous max or more than their buddy. Lifting heavy can also increase strength if executed with a proper program.
1 big issue with this is that as the weight gets close to maximal, form becomes very important but hard to maintain. As I look in some weight rooms in high schools and colleges, they have a leaderboard of max bench press, squat, and deadlift. I see and hear a lot of people say “It took me 9 attempts, but I finally was able to get 225# back squat”. You then watch the video of it and its not pretty. That spot on the leaderboard came at the expense of your body taking some unneccesary load in a poor position. We need to be very cautious with proper movement as we work our way up. If you are on the platform at the olympics and going for a world record, well yes we will probably sacrifice a little form in order to do so. This shouldnt be the case in 95% of cases and with 95% of people. Here is a good way to think about and execute the 1 rep max.
The 3-3-2-2-1-1- Plan
I like to think about this as a “heavy single for the day”. What that means is we will never truly be able to work up to a 1RM due to many different factors. These factors include fatigue from previous workouts, lack of sleep, improper nutrition, poor warmup, and muscle soreness. This goes into the mantra of “some days you have it and some days you dont”. We all know those days when we go to pick up the empty barbell out of the rack and it already feels heavy. I would probably think you wont be able to PR that day and probably shouldnt even try.
I like to do a set of 3 for the first two sets as we are building because that really primes the muscles for our heavy attempt later. Lets take the back squat as an example, we need to make sure our legs are prepped and ready for a heavy attempt. Glute activation, cardio work, and mobility work is great, but can’t substitute actually doing the movement with heavy weight.
We then switch to sets of 2, because we want to prime and warm up these muscles, but do not want to fatigue these muscles too much. After you get through the 2s, you should be at a weight close to your 1 RM. Gauge how you feel after this and choose your weight based on ease of movement. Always think quality movement over max weight.
Here is a good example; John Doe thinks he can back squat 315 lbs as a 1 RM. He would do his warm ups and his work sets would look something like this:
3-255
3-275
2-285
2-300
1-? This is based on how the last weight feels
1-?Did that one go up easy? Lets jump some more and see where we can get. 1 attempt, maybe 2 at this weight.
For warmup sets up until that first work set think about doing sets of 3 until you get to 255.
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