On week 9 of Strength III currently. Last week, for the primary squat, I was to do a single @8, followed by 4 @9, then 2 sets of 4 @80%. The 4 @9 last week felt very difficult, a true 9RPE. This week it didn’t feel quite as challenging, but I wouldn’t call it an 8RPE. Perhaps it was an 8.5, so would this mean that my E1RM should be adjusted up? I’ve noticed that if I keep my E1RM the same for too many weeks, the prescribed sets are not as challenging as they should be. How much of an undershoot in the RPE warrants re-adjustment?
My main question is this: Am I leaving gains on the table if I don’t increase my E1RM as often as possible? Is the effectiveness of a working set considerably lower if the target RPE is not hit, or is the training stimulus more or less just as good so long as I am getting close?
Howdy. I can’t be certain, but it seems like you’re not using RPE to select the weight being used each session, but rather using it to mark how hard the sets were of a pre-selected weight. Does that sound right?
Your e1RM should reflect your performance on a given day, meaning the weight used for 1 @ 8 and 4 @ 9 (or similar) should be determined in real-time based on the RPE rating. If after a warm up, you do a single that feels like a @ 7 or less, you should add weight to attain 1 @ 8. Similarly, if the set of 4 you did feels like @ 8, you should do another set with a heavier weight to hit 4 @ 9. Both of these things will drive up the e1RM. If crunched for time, you can skip adding weight in that session, but plan on adding weight the following session if everything feels good.
To your questions regarding efficacy, small changes in intensity (eg 80 vs 83% 1RM) and proximity to failure (RPE 7.5 vs RPE 8) probably don’t matter much for training effect.
That is exactly what I do. I use the RPE and REPS table to help me determine the weight I should use when aiming for a certain number of reps and difficulty/RPE. I suppose I should be using information from my warmup, as opposed to a set I have done in a previous session. I do find it difficult to gauge the difficulty of warmup sets, as they can feel quite heavy due to me not being warmed up, but with time it should become more intuitive.
Thank you for the links Austin. The first one has already been super informative!