What happens to your body when you try to reach your absolute maximum?

If there’s one strength training concept that even an endurance guy like me is familiar with, it’s the one-rep max. This is the heaviest weight you can lift in a single effort for a particular exercise. This is important for two reasons. One is how strength training is normally prescribed. For example, aim for 10 reps at 70% of your 1 rep max. The other thing is that it’s a way to track your progress. At the end of the day, the ultimate goal of weightlifting is to be able to lift heavier objects.

However, a new explanation International Journal of Sports Physiology and PerformanceA team led by Brazilian researcher Irineu LoTurco argues that one-rep maximums are overestimated. Measuring muscle strength is inaccurate, inconvenient, and even dangerous, but the authors argue that there are better ways to prescribe training and track strength gains. Here’s why:

What’s wrong with One-Rep Max?

The main argument against a 1-rep max is that it’s difficult or even fundamentally impossible to measure accurately. Once you lift the weight, you know you can lift it at least That amount. But if you add weight and fail, you won’t know if you added too much weight or if you’re just tired from the previous lift.

In fact, there is a standardized way to assess a one-rep max of five or fewer ascending lifts in a row with a three- to five-minute break between attempts after a structured warm-up. This should give you a good estimate, but it takes time and effort, and it’s just a one-time exercise. Tracking your progress and readjusting the load each time you do a lift can’t be done every week since you’re essentially replacing one of your workouts. Lifting such heavy loads also increases the risk of injury.

Still, in theory, if you’re planning your workouts based on a one-rep max, you’d want updated values ​​every day. Strength will (hopefully) increase over time, and baseline fatigue will vary from workout to workout, as it fluctuates depending on yesterday’s workout, last night’s sleep, today’s stress in life, etc. You can’t expect to know exactly how many reps you need to do today based on your one-rep max that you measured a month ago.

use velocity instead

The main alternative proposed by LoTurco and his colleagues is “velocity-based training.” It’s an idea that’s obviously been around since the 1970s, but advances in technology have made it more feasible. If you’re doing barbell exercises like bench presses or squats, velocity-based training simply tracks how fast the bar is rising. Initially, this is done by wearing an accelerometer or attaching a transducer to the bar. These days, if you download an app, you can use your phone’s camera to measure the speed of the bar.

Velocity-based training is a big topic, and there are endless papers discussing how to analyze and utilize the data collected. For our purposes, there are two important metrics to consider. One is how fast you do your first rep when you “lift with intent”, meaning you lift as quickly as possible. This is an indicator of overall progress. If you used to lift 100 pounds at 1.5 meters per second and now you lift it at 1.6 meters per second, that means you’re getting stronger. This increase in “average propulsion velocity” (average velocity of the active part of the lift) means more force can be exerted. This is essentially the same trait you’re trying to measure with a single rep max. The difference is that it’s an improvement that can be measured immediately, objectively, and non-invasively.

Another important metric used to guide decision-making within a particular workout is how much your average velocity decreases during a set. Once it falls below a critical threshold, it must be stopped. What that threshold should be is a difficult question. One study compared reductions of 0, 10, 20, and 40 percent. This means if your first rep is 1.0 meters per second, continue lifting until your speed is below 1.0 (or 0.9, 0.8, or 0.6) meters per second. The study found that while 20 percent and 40 percent built more muscle, 40 percent had a negative impact on the contractile properties of the muscle, leaving an apparent sweet spot of around 20 to 30 percent.

takeout

Uncertainty about exactly which velocity threshold to use is not a problem unique to velocity-based training. Instead, it reflects a broader debate about the best methods of strength training. In an old-school mindset, you don’t have to worry about setting bar speed or rep goals. Continue with each set until you can complete no more reps.

Nowadays, research suggests that always lifting to failure isn’t necessarily the best approach, as the last few reps create a ton of extra fatigue and risk of injury without providing any significant training benefit. A study I wrote last year found that lifters performed about as well on each set when they stopped each set with two “preliminary reps” — that is, when they felt like they could do two more reps before failing — as when they actually failed on each set. This suggests that you don’t need to choose a very aggressive threshold for speed loss, but it may depend on your goals and experience.

All in all, LoTurco’s point that most of us don’t need to formally measure our one-rep max makes sense. Hey, I’ve never measured it anyway. Velocity-based training also seems logical. In fact, I already do a version when I try to leave 1-2 reps in each set. Seeing the bar slow down is one of the key signals that you are approaching failure. A more sophisticated speed-tracking smartphone app sounds to me like the equivalent of a GPS watch for runners. It’s fun, data-rich, and potentially informative, but ultimately optional.

If you want to know more about the science of sweat, Mail magazine and check out my new book The explorer gene: Why we seek big challenges, new flavors, and blank spaces on the map.