I was wondering how I should warm up for compound exercises. For example, if I have to squat 4 reps @ RPE 6, 4 reps @ RPE 7, 4 reps @ RPE 8, do I warm up with sets of 4, or do I start for example with just the bar for 10-12 reps, and reduce the amount of reps each warm up set? Also, I wanted to know what percentages I should use for warm up sets, and how many sets I should do?
I am also struggling with this, now on week 2 of the Bridge. My weight for RPE 8 squat is 305 pounds, which feels appropriate. I just have no idea what to program for RPE 6 and 7. I’d like to do 225 and 245, but I could also see doing 275 and 295 for RPE 6 and 7.
Neither is right or wrong outside of what the subjective effort actually is., In other words, you can’t know with certainty what they’ll be ahead of time, however you can plan them.
A handy tidbit is that RPE will go up by 1 when the load goes up 5% and rep ranges stay the same (more or less). So if your goal for the RPE 8 squat is 305, I’d expect your RPE 7 and RPE 6 set to be 95 and 90% of that, respectively.
Finally, while we’d like you to regularly add weight to the barbell, it’s not linear progression and we would highly recommend sticking to the prescribed RPE.