Dear Dr. Feigenbaum,
I remember watching Alan Thrall’s video on not micro loading squats and the deadlift.
What would you set as the upper limit for weekly e1rm increments?
I plead guilty for linearly progressing my e1RM for the squat and deadlift by 1~2kg each week.
Kind Regards,
Eddie Mun
It sounds like you are “setting” an e1RM and likely back-calculating your numbers for the training session. That is not how any of this works.
You don’t intentionally increment an e1RM. Rather, e1RM is calculated based on your actual performance during the session. If you are able to progress (i.e., lift more) for a given rep range without overshooting the RPE targets, that would calculate/predict a higher e1RM. This is how autoregulated training works.
Dear Dr. Baraki,
Thank you for your reply! I have been doing it wrong all this time… I thought I had to intentionally set a goal e1RM and use RPE to account for any deviations or prevent myself from overshooting. I guess I was just afraid of undershooting my efforts :(. How can I correct my approach?
Kind Regards,
Eddie Mun
Austin. I have a similar question regarding this topic.
I have not micro loaded at all in training. But wondering if it’s beneficial in bench and OHP. The reason being using the smallest plates I currently use 1.25kg plates each side. Can often mean on an RpE calculator that the next rpe target is the same weight
This is especially apparent for me on pause bench where 75kg for 6 reps is a solid 9 but also could be an 8. I’ve been unable to add weight to the bar because I know 77.5 kg would be 10 or a failure. In these circumstances is it worth using smaller plates to fine tune the weights and make the RpE calculator more accurate? Or keep plugging away at the same weight until it feels like the 2.5kg jump won’t overshoot the RpE? Cheers
It is perfectly acceptable to use that strategy as a target for your top work set(s), however thee feedback you get from the warm up sets preceding your target set(s) should carry more weight than an arbitrary number on an Excel spreadsheet.
Microloading without using calibrated plates is a waste of time, in general. Additionally, the benefit of adding 1kg to the barbell for a workset is minimal (or zero) with respect to training adaptations.
I did have a feeling this might be the case. Always better to defer to more experienced trained individuals. Thanks!
This is what I have been doing as well. For each week, I add about 5 lbs to the prior week’s e1RM and then see how the warm up sets feel on my way up to the work sets. I may have to dial back the e1RM depending on the RPE of the sets before my work sets.
I actually don’t see how to progress otherwise, unless you do the same weights as the week before and if the RPE is less than the week before, increase the weight? It seems easier to just add to the 1RM and work backward from there.
Sunil