Old Forum Messed up my ladder! What now?

[Lehrskov]

So, I'm doing periodisation work with a barbell:

It's the kind where a program might look something like:

MONDAY: Warm up. Then 5reps, then 3 reps, then 2 reps. Then some lower weight (80%) assistance exercises. Then go home.

Repeat next week +5lbs ad infinitum until the 5rep set becomes too hard. Next week you do only the 3 and 2 rep sets, until finally you are ready to try a 1RPM.

Whole cycle should take somewhere from 10-13 weeks and hopefully add a some real weight to my lifts.

All well and good.

But what if you, say, have a brain ^*#% at the end of your cycle and accidentally overload the bar with 20lbs when setting up for the 5rep set (which is 5lbs over my previous PR) and then make a full 3 fast reps before figuring it out?

Do you just look around, and if nobody saw it just shrug, offload 20lbs, then do the remaining 2 sets like nothing happened?

Do you, right then and there, start going for a 1RPM on that day?

Do you just put the weight down, reset the clock 10 weeks and start all over?

Do you shout "PR!" call all your friends to get drunk and then hope the strongfirst forum can figure it all out in the morning?

???

/Ulrik

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve Freides]

Trust your instinct here - there is no single "correct" answer.  If that PR really felt like a true max or near-max effort, then I wouldn't do any more of that lift.  If, on the other hand, it wasn't hard, then just finish the workout as planned.

Not every lifting cycle has to end with a 1RM attempt - sometimes you can plan a cycle to end with another rep count max attempt, e.g., you decide to try to better your best previous double, triple, or even 5.  Some people, e.g., competitors leading up to a meet, prefer to end a cycle with a 2- or 3-rep max then save the 1RM attempt for the competition.

So, end the workout - or not.  End the cycle - or not.  You have to judge by how things feel.

Another choice - shorten the current cycle but still finish it, and then start over.   I've done that when a planned cycle seems easier than expected - I skip a few workouts, still make sure I do the planned final workout, then start over with a heavier weight and go through every planned workout in the cycle on the second pass.

Hope that helps, congratulations on the PR, and best of luck to you.

-S-

 

[Lehrskov]

Hi Steve - thanks for the input.

I guess that is pretty much what I did: decided it was time to next time go 3+2rep sets and then add a 1RPM attempt after that, simply because I felt that was where my body could perform the best.

I guess the basis of my question was something like: as you are (almost per definition) lifting lighter than you can while doing cycles, how much can you trust your 'feeling' that a particular weight is light or not, but I guess the point of your answer is: you've got nothing else to trust.

Thanks again,

 

 

[Steve W.]

Ulrik,

Basically, I agree with Steve F. There are a lot of right answers to your question and not a whole lot of wrong ones.

Another dimension to this is that, unless you are training for a specific competition, you don't HAVE to ever max out. One of the concepts in Easy Strength is the idea of "PR without maxing" -- which you accidentally stumbled upon. You lifted more than you ever lifted before (PR), but it wasn't a max effort.

I think there's a lot be said for this approach (Pavel and Dan John wrote a whole book about it, although it covers much more). Keep gradually nudging up what you can do submaximally, and your max goes up too. You don't have to milk every cycle to the last drop. Over time, your submaximal efforts will exceed your previous maxes.