Hey all,
I seem to have a pretty large E1RM discrepancy on Squats. I know there will be some variance due to inefficiencies at higher loads but this seems pretty big and I’m wondering how I might address it.
I just finished a program where the last block had me squatting 3@8, then a bunch of back-off sets of 3. I did Low Bar Squats for this block. During this block, I worked up to 205@8. I’m confident it was actually @8, so this put my E1RM at about 238 lbs.
This week I decided to just do what feels right for a change of pace. After warming up for squats, I put 185 lbs on the bar and just did reps to RPE 7. I did 10 reps to hit RPE ~7.5 for an E1RM of 277 lbs.
Scaling this back to my 3@8 weight, I should be able to do 205 lbs for 8@8, or 235-240 for 3@8. I realize there would be some variance here.
So is this worth addressing? It seems like I might just need more exposure to low-rep sets, but I feel like 5 weeks should have been sufficient. What do?
Thanks!
To your exact question, “is it worth addressing?” I don’t think so, unless there’s a good reason you need to know your exact e1RM, but can’t test it.
I think comparing e1RMs from different rep ranges and RPE’s together can be difficult if they’re way different, e.g. 3 @ 8 vs 10 @ 7, though the majority of the error is likely related to the 10 @ 7 values.
Sometimes I find value in comparing performance across the rep continuum, employing various strategies to overcome them if present. If I’m going down this path however, I make sure the high rep sets are done to failure.
For practical purposes, I suspect your 3 @ 8 set is likely more predictive of your 1RM than the 10 @ 7 set. If you want to test it to find out, that’d be fine. I also am wondering what programming you’re planning on doing going forward?
Thank you! I suspect you’re right that the 3@8 is more representative. The 10@7 set was good for the ego, though 
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I’m planning on running the 3-Day Medium ISF template from the Low Fatigue bundle next, though I also have the new PowerBuilding template you recently published. I’m open to suggestions, though!
Good choices 
I’d probably side with the Powerbuilding I Gen 2 template unless you have a strong distaste for the Big Three right now.
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