Estimating 1 Rep Maxes (1 RMs) for Barbell Exercises
By prescribing percentages of your 1 Rep Max (1 RM), the maximal weight you’d be able to lift 1 time, we can ensure you are getting the right number of reps and using the right weights for you to optimize the your workouts. We never know all of of our 1 RMs and we certainly don’t want to be testing 1 RMs all the time, just so we know what they are. We have found estimating 1 RMs provides us the information we need to dial in our workouts. This article is meant to be a guide to help you estimate your 1 RM for a variety of different exercises, even if you have never maxed out in your life.
Before we jump into how to estimate, let’s first talk about the big picture of our cycles, to better give you an idea of how you can reuse estimates across cycles. You can dive into a deeper explanation of our workout program here, but our workouts across the year are divided up in to 3 Macrocycles. Each Macrocycle is about 17 weeks long and will typically contain 2 Hypertrophy (Muscle Building) Mesocycles, 1 Strength Mesocycle, and 1 Peaking Mesocycle, each 3 weeks long. Basically, within each Macrocycle there are four x 3-week cycles (2 Hypertrophy, 1 Strength, 1 Peaking) where we will tend to use the same exercises and similar rep schemes for our strength work across each of the 3-week cycles. Here’s an example from one section of Monday’s workouts within a 3 week Strength mesocycle.
Week 1:
Back Squat
1 Set of 5 (65%)
1 Set of 5 (70%)
2 Sets of 5 (60%)
Week 2:
Back Squat
1 Set of 5 (70%)
1 Set of 5 (75%)
2 Sets of 5 (65%)
Week 3:
Back Squat
1 Set of 5 (75%)
1 Set of 5 (80%)
2 Sets of 5 (70%)
These percentages represent a weight that is at that percentage relative to your estimated 1 RM. So, if your Back Squat 1 RM was 200lbs and the workout called for 1 Set of 5 (65%), the math would be [200lbs x 0.65 = 130lbs]. Therefore you would complete 1 Set of 5 Back Squats (65%=130lbs).
Let’s talk about estimating your 1 RMs, so that you can know what weights to lift.
Estimating Strategies
Use an Estimated 1 RM weight that you want your 1 RM to be by the end of the Macrocycle.
Work up to a Rep Technical Max or a Rep Max and use a Rep Max Table to estimate 1 RM.
As we move up in weights, different percentages of 1 RM, especially for a certain number of reps, start to look a certain way. The coaches can help you look at bar speed and get a feel for your current RPE (relative perceived effort) for a set and use that to estimate where you’re at relative to a percent of a 1 RM
If you have a reasonable estimated 1RM for another exercise we can make reasonable guesses as to what your estimated 1 RM would be for other exercises.
Use an Estimated 1 RM that you Want your 1 RM to Be
This is for the more experienced lifters, but is the easiest to explain, so we wanted to knock it out first. If you have a reasonable idea of your estimated 1 RM, you will simply choose what you’d like that number to be by the end of the Macrocycle. This isn’t a choose anything and your dreams come true, but, for experienced lifters choosing 102%-105% of an old estimated 1 RM is usually a good place to start. As we’ll learn in this article, we are going to also rely on reviewing our sets and making adjustments across the weeks to really dial it in, but this can be a great starting point. The reason we don’t like this for newer lifters is that newer lifters can literally increase their 1 RM by more than 100lbs sometimes in a macrocycle, so this style would not keep up with the progress beginners can make.
RM Rep Table
Use a Rep Max Table to Estimate Your 1 RM
Especially when we don’t know any of our estimated 1 RM numbers, a typical thing we will do in Week 1 is work up to a 5 Rep Technical Max (5 RTM) - the maximum weight that you can lift 5 times in a row with good technique. 5 RTMs are a great balance of many things:
Instead of the maximal weight you can lift 5 times, we are looking for the maximal weight your current technique can handle which is much safer and ensures we are working at an appropriate level for you.
The lower the number of reps in a set, the more advanced the athlete should be, so a 5 RTM is a nice balance of heavy paired with a less advanced level.
The higher the number of reps in a set, the worse the estimate becomes, so a 5 RTM will give us a reasonable estimate of 1 RM.
Sets of 5 combine a good weight with a good number of reps, so you are going to get a great stimulus from the workout along with a lot of reps to improve and build a base of technique.
When you work up to a rep max (RM) or a rep technical max (RTM), then we can simply use the RM Rep Table and divide that weight by the percentage listed to get a reasonable estimate of 1 RM.
For this example, let’s say you back squatted 100lbs for 5 good-looking reps and then when you went up to 105lbs, your reps got janky and so you, correctly, stopped the set early. We would then estimate your 1 RM using the 1 RM rep table. Looking at the table, a 5 RTM is typically about 80% of a 1 RM, so we would take our 100lb 5 RTM and divide it by 80%, or 0.8. From that we would get 125lbs for our Estimated 1 RM Back Squat.
Then, for week 2, we have a couple of options,
If you are more experienced, we will use the 125lb Estimated 1 RM number and work off of the percentages:
Week 2:
Back Squat
1 Set of 5 (70%=~90lbs)
1 Set of 5 (75%=~95lbs)
2 Sets of 5 (65%=~80lbs)Depending on how your sets went, you coach can help you figure out how accurate the 125 estimated 1 RM was from week 1, so you can get one final adjustment to the number to use for week 3.
The second option is best for newer lifters as improvements for newer lifters can be big, even over just a few weeks, and this option is a simpler approach that prioritizes getting really good reps in a progressively heavier weights. For example, for new lifters, after establishing a 5 RTM back squat in week 1, they would change the rep scheme and percentage given to:
Week 2:
Back Squat
3 Set of 5 (5 RMT=100)*Complete all 3 sets at the 5 RTM weight you established in week 1.
Week 3:
Back Squat
3 Set of 5 (5 RMT + 5% =105lbs)*Add 5% to your 5 RTM weight from week 1 and complete all 3 sets at that weight.
Using Exercise Ratios to Estimating 1 RMs
Another approach is using an 1 RM estimate from one exercise to create an estimate for another exercise. People do vary from this, but the amount someone can front squat is highly correlated to how much they can back squat. As we get more experienced, assuming a balanced workout program, surprisingly, even the pressing exercises correlate very well with squatting exercises. The biggest things that throw off these numbers are technique and biased experience. For example, if you have done a lot of upper body strength work in the past, but have mostly ignored lower body strength work, then the ratios between pressing and squatting exercises will show you more potential rather than actual. All of these percentages presented are relative to a back squat max, but the chart also preserves ratios between each exercises, so we’ll look at an example of how to use this info.
% of Back Squat Table
Deadlift: 120% (Note, if you are extremely experienced, a deadlift max may start getting closer and closer to a back squat max, and even cross under)
Front Squat: 85%
Clean: 80%
Jerk: 80%
Snatch: 65%
Strict Press: 50%
Push Press: 72%
Thruster: 72%
Bench Press: 75%
Example: Let's say we know an estimate for your bench press (100lbs) and want to estimate your thruster. There are two steps to take:
Step 1: Divide the weight you know by the percentage relative to a back squat.
Your Bench Press Estimated 1 RM = 100lbs
The Bench Press % of Back Squat from table above = 75%
Therefore, your Back Squat Estimated 1 RM = 100lbs / 0.75 = 133lbs
Step 2: Multiply your estimated back squat 1 RM by the percentage for the exercise you'd like to estimate.
The Thruster % of Back Squat from the table above = 72%
Therefore, your Thruster Estimated 1 RM = 133lbs x 0.72 = 96lbs
This table can be very useful as there will typically be a few core exercises that you have a pretty good estimate of your 1 RM and you can simply use those to estimate other things.
All of the above methods are a great starting point, but as you’ve noticed, we have used the word “estimate” over and over again. It’s nice to have additional ways to verify and double check that our estimates are close.
Estimating 1 RM Based on Bar Speed and RPE
As you gain more experience with lifting and barbell workouts, you’ll start to learn what 35%, 50%, 75%, 90% of a 1 RM feels like. As a coach, we have seen millions of reps performed by clients at all different percentages of 1 RM. We know what a set of 5 looks like and feels like at 35%, 50%, 60%, 70%, and 85% and everything in between, so as you are estimating your 1 RM, we can help you improve or confirm your estimates as we watch you lift in the workout, so just ask!
Other General Tips For What Different Percentages “Feel Like”
Even if you’ve done your estimates, it’s nice to develop the experience to know what different percentages feel like. We hope these descriptions help and can be even more useful if you read them before and after you use that exact weight.
35% - A Set of 3 in warm-up before a workout feels very light. 10+ reps in a row is guaranteed and wouldn’t even be that big of a deal. If we had to do 30+ reps we feel like we probably could, but wouldn’t really want to.
50% - This feel heavy, but it is still a weight that we can do reps with. 3 reps in warm-up will usually make us worry a little bit and think, “How many of these am I going to have to do?” We can for sure do 10+ reps in a row with this weight, but we really wouldn’t want to.
65% - This is the first weight that really start to feel very heavy. It usually catches us off guard a bit because 65% is so far away from 100%, we tend to think it should feel lighter, but this is the weight that really feels heavy. If we maxed it out we could do about 15 reps, but we also wouldn’t believe that we could. 3 reps in warm-up feel extremely challenging, but the bar moves and the 3 reps is guaranteed. This is more of a feeling like it’s heavier than it should be.
75%- This weight is really heavy. With 75% being a 6 RTM, usually in a set rep 3 or 4 makes you question if you’re going to be able to complete your set. But, although 75% feels very heavy, if you take it just one rep at a time, you’ll get your set completed successfully.
85%+ - At this weight, even doing only 1 rep at a time feels extremely challenging.
Now that you understand how to estimate your 1 RM, if you want to get a better feel for how we customize the other parts of your workouts from selecting dumbbell (DB) and kettlebell (KB) weights, how to select which box height to use, how we describe different levels of effort for cardio exercises, and how to scale bodyweight exercises like pull-ups and push-ups, you can explore more through the buttons below: