I’ve found that this 5% rule is pretty close to true for me. And I know it’ll be open to fluctuation, but if I plan to increase a little weight next week in my lifts, do I increase weight evenly on my RPE 6,7 sets as well? I want to make sure I’m not subconsciously keeping my RPE 6 and 7 sets lower than they should be to make my sets @8 or @9 easier. For example if on squats I did 275 5@6 290 5@7 305 5@8 and I wanted to shoot for 310 next week, would I have to make it 280 5@6 and 295 5@7 then 310 5@8? I know this will vary but I’m already noticing a tendency to keep my sets of @6 and @7 lighter (more like @5 or @6) so it gives me more energy to hit sets of @8 or @9 with more weight. I know this isn’t correct. Like if I’m up to 325 for 5@8 but my @6 is still 275 and my @7 is 295 I feel like it’s not true.
I’m not 100% sure exactly what you’re asking… but if you’re asking if as your e1rm’s go up your @6’s and @7’s should go up to I would say of course. Have you used the RPE chart before? Take your e1rm and use the chart to find the exact weight you should be lifting for each set in advance so you have an idea of a plan for the day going into the workout. Then adjust from there if your RPE’s aren’t matching up to your planned targets. If you purchased a template they have a handy calculator tab in there exactly for this. You should not hold back on your lower sets to save up for your higher sets. The higher RPE sets are not more important than the lower RPE sets. It’s the total work as a whole done over a long period of time that matters. Moreover, if you hold back and intentionally undershoot your lower RPE sets you lose the valuable data from those sets to judge if you’re on track to hit your numbers on your higher RPE sets that day. If, for instance, you are supposed to hit a 6 and it’s clearly a 7 on your first set, you should auto-regulate lower the weight for subsequent sets by 1 RPE (3-5%).
Thanks for your help dude. What I’m asking in a nutshell is this: obviously one should AIM to progress in weight from week to week. I plan to do this, but then I’ll calibrate RPE during the set to see if I actually should or not. NOW… what I’m saying is if I did 315 last week for @8 and my set @6 was 285 and my set @7 was 300 and I plan this week to try 320 @8, do I also plan to start my @6 at 290? I use the @6 and @7 as “calibration sets” for what weights to use for my work sets that day. But how do I calibrate the calibration sets lol.
One thing I am finding for me is that RPE differences are more like 5% than 3%. I think I read Leah felt this also. And so the chart recommendations don’t match up. The working set estimates are right, but for example the difference in the chart provided between any RPE ends up being 3% which is only like 5lbs a lot of the time. Even on deadlifts if my e1rm is 500 a set of 5@8 is about 405. Great. But then it says on the chart a set of 5@7 would be 395. I’m finding it’s more like 385. Anyway, I’m wondering if this is normalnor if I’m so not used to RPE I’m I messing something up.
*what I’m meaning to say is that the chart provided on the bridge 1.0 and the recommendation both in the PDF and on this forum that up or down 5% is about 1 RPE do NOT provide the same numbers. The chart shows differences in 3%, not 5%. And the higher you go up in weight the more different those percents make the weight jumps. Let me explain: using the chart for a set of 5@8 at 185 on press gives me 180x5@7 and 175x5@6. Those jumps seem too close together to be accurate. Now with the 5% suggestion it becomes 165x5@6 175x5@7 and 185x5@8. And that seems more correct to me. Yeah the difference is only 5lbs here but on the press that’s a lot. If I did 175x5 and 180x5 before attempting 185x@8 I probably would have trouble doing the set. Multiple sets @8 this way? Forget about that. The difference between 5lbs or 10lbs jumps here could be the difference between getting the reps and missing one or two or rating RPE too high because the sets were too close together in weight. And since @6 is hard to judge you wouldn’t notice it until you missed you working weight or rated it a @10. I don’t want to not be doing this correctly so I don’t know which to go off of (chart or 5%). I’m just gonna stick to the 5%. I don’t think it’ll make or break anything.
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I want to add that some of the reps in your @6 and @7 (more so the 7) in a BBM program are considered training stimulus, and if you are consistently lowballing the weight and not hitting an actual 6 and 7, you may be giving yourself less of a training stimulus than was prescribed.
For purposes of hypertrophy, as long as the weight is north of 30% of 1RM, the last 5 reps before failure are the reps that recruit max muscle fibers, and thus are prime training stimulus. Thus if a warmup set is actually an @6, then by definition, the last rep was within 5 reps of failure, and an @7 had 2 reps that were within 5 reps of failure. Those 3 reps of the prescribed warm up were prime training stimulus that are part of the program.
Missing RPE on one particular warmup set probably won’t mean much though, and even if you do it consistently, you might be one of the individuals that would respond better to that approach, although probably not.