Suitable e1rm percentages for 53 yo lifter

[jimmydabear]

Hi love the forum ,website podcast etc .Listened with great interest to the progressive overload podcast and it really struck a chord with me and my own experience of continuously to use my own phrase ‘going up against the gun ‘ ,trying to lift heavy (for myself) sailing close to that limit and then regressing /getting burnt out.
I am pretty much maxed out with a physical job ,young family and ageing parents who require support in the form of shopping and errands,my aim is to be healthy and meet the health recommendations of twice weekly resistance training and sufficient aerobic activity (I have a Wattbike I use for this doing aerobic intervals and HIT . I am overweight and moderately restricting calories. I am looking to progress my strength by increasing reps weekly for sets across but unsure of how to select the loads . Thanks

[Leah Lutz]

Hi Jimmy and welcome! Sounds like you've got a nice perspective on your overall health here. What kind of programming are you doing now?

As far as reasonably e1rm, there is nothing about your age that determines this, and this determined by your own training: what can you do now? How difficult is that (so using something like RPE to assess that)? And adjusting your expectations of training to appreciate the idea that a sessions was heavy and good work for the day but not a grind.

If you're not familiar with RPE, you can start here-https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/autoregulation-and-rpe-part-i/

You can also look at something like our Beginner's Template for a program that provides a variety of movements, reps, and allows you to use RPE.

Leah