One Repetition Max (1RM) testing is still seen by many as the gold standard of strength testing. It is certainly the most reliable method of finding someone’s 1RM on a given day, since the test directly measures someone’s 1RM, without deducing it from an equation.

Why Do You Need to Know Your 1RM?

Knowing your approximate 1RM provides you with a practical and easy to follow way of determining how much weight to lift in the gym to help you progress week on week by ensuring that you are working at the intensities you want to for your training goal, for instance, many will aim to train roughly over 80% to improve their strength, but these same people may not have a clue what their max lift is to subsequently work out what 80% is…

It also allows you to monitor your progress in the gym by allowing you to compare your current maximal lift to previous maximal lifts.

One Rep Max calculations refer to methods to work out your 1RM, without actually having to test your full maximum lift.

Why is this Beneficial?

• It may be safer – for many that are new to the gym, it may not be wise to push them to their absolute max of certain lifts and thus being able to estimate their 1RM from a submaximal lift offers a safe, practical, and fairly accurate way to prescribe their training intensities and monitor progress.

• It can be done more frequently – a 1RM lift often requires some form of a training taper or Deload to give you the energy to perform to your absolute max. Calculating your 1RM from sub-maximal loads, however, allows you to accumulate 1RM calculations week on week without maximal effort to give you a good idea of your 1RM.

• It doesn’t interrupt your training cycle- for the reason stated in point 2, calculating your 1RM may be more beneficial from a training continuity perspective because you don’t need to interrupt your training blocks in order to taper before your 1RM test, with a potential Deload after it. Thus, the gain train does not need to be stopped!

What Lifts Should You Calculate Your 1RM On?

While you may not want to actually test all the lifts in your arsenal because of how impractical it would be, you could, theoretically, calculate a 1RM for all your lifts. Though this is the case, we would recommend reserving your 1RM calculations for your compound ‘KPI’; squat, bench press and deadlifts, to name a few.

What About the Rest of Your Exercises?

We recommend simply using an RPE for the rest of your lifts. This allows you to be a bit stricter with your main lifts, while being a bit more responsive to your daily energy levels with your accessory lifts.

How to Calculate Your 1RM

One of the most common 1RM calculations used is as follows -

1RM Considerations

• This is just a prediction - formulas often over or underestimate an individual’s 1RM. The accuracy of them can be influenced by person-to-person differences in genetics, training history and even training style. Therefore, it is important to avoid comparing your predicted 1RM to anyone else, but instead just your own previous performance, given that their accuracy may differ person to person.

• A different test will bring different results – a different formula or way of estimating your 1RM will yield slightly different results, so it is important to only compare results of one calculation to previous results of the same calculation i.e. use the same calculation every time if possible.

• Strength athletes still NEED to test their 1RM – if you are a strength athlete, of whom competition performance is determined by your actual 1RM, you will still need to test your 1RM in your KPI lifts. This doesn’t mean you cannot use the above calculation to monitor progress within a hard training block, but you will need experience and exposure to maximal lifting prior to competition.

So, there you have it, you do not need to test your 1RM all the time to know if you are making progress. You can calculate your 1RM from submaximal training as much as you want and in as many lifts as you want. So, use this formula to help you know (1) how hard to train in each session and (2) if you are making progress over time…

Written by guest author Ewan Hammond.

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Tags: Exercise Type > Strength