I just made that up actually, it wasn’t the weight I’m currently working up to. For my squat workout this Sunday I’m going to try and do 320x1@8 and then -20%x5x5. This one is tricky for me because my Squat PR is 390 and my last two workouts were: (1) 335x1@8; and (2) 315x1@8 (I did 340x1 this same workout but it felt like a 10 RPE so I stuck with 315). Squats are all over the place for me, I think my long legs make everything from 315 up feel like an 8 RPE or more.
So based off last week’s 315x1@8, I plan on going for 320x1@8 but I need to be open to a good squat day where I may go up to 345 or more. So I will do this warmup: empty bar x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 225x1, 275x1, 315x1 and go from there as far as determining my @8. If 315 felt like an @7, I go up to 330x1 (+5%) etc. I then subtract 20% from whatever weight was my 8 RPE and do 5x5.
As a coach, I would not have you plan on being open to anything from 320-345 here. You need to plan more reasonable progress based on your RECENT training history and your current training volume. It is very likely that when you hit 390, you did that without the overall training fatigue carrying over from all of this volume as well, right? So If you hit 315 @8 for your last two sessions, you should plan on getting 320 or 325 done, and then I’d just have you stop there unless is was laughably easy. Like you know you could have done 4 more reps without your form becoming sketchy. If you increase your single and your working sets this week, that is progress, and you will continue to work up from there.
I would do something closer to this-
barx5x2
135x5
185x5
225x3
275x3
300x1, then determine the attempt for the single
320
Warming up to 315 when that was what you did the last two weeks is too close. At 300, you can jump to 320. But if you do 315 again and it feels just like it has, you’re kind of stuck there, right?
Actually my last two squat workouts were 335x1@8 and then 315x1@8 but my problem is determining what an 8 RPE is —everything over 315 feels heavy to me in the squat. I also think I need to learn to be okay with repeating weights and not always moving up in weight workout to workout. I tend to think I need to move heavier weight every workout or I’m failing. After reading this, it’s clear that I need to more seriously consider some coaching. I’m a bit of a floundering moron in the gym. Not sure if the group programming is good to do while cutting though (main focus right now is getting my waist under 40 inches), and I’d be willing to bet that one-on-one coaching is not in my current budget. Still, I learn a lot just from reading tons of stuff here. Thanks for taking the time to write that out Leah, much appreciated.
Put together this spreadsheet for testing purposes, based on the experiences above in this thread.
It should help for warming up to a 1@8.
If anybody cares to test it themselves, please let me know what feedback you have on it.
Singles at RPE 8 always “feel” heavy to me. I’m still learning this stuff too, but for me I really have to ignore how it “feels”. I try to focus more on how I PERFORMED the single. I’ve watched a lot of RTS videos with Mike T and others on RPE and judging performance AFTER the set is done. Here’s what I have learned:
Sometimes they will use the word “feel” but I don’t think they really mean it that way. Mostly they all say don’t concentrate on RPE during the set or how it feels. If you’ve picked a weight, then focus JUST on getting it done with whatever rep scheme you are supposed to do. This will eliminate you focusing on the feel and more on execution.
As soon as you rack it, start thinking about RPE. Bar speed is a big component here for me. For me, if the bar was slow but mostly steady, it was in the RPE 8 range. If it decelerated a good bit at some point during the concentric portion, that’s a good sign it was RPE 9, especially if it regained some momentum again towards lockout. If it came close to stopping (or actually did stop) during the concentric phase, that’s probably a 9.5 if not a 10. This is for ME, so just telling you what I’ve found to be true. All of these feel heavy, but of course a squat single @9 or better does “feel” a bit more unnerving when you’re under the bar.
For you in particular, did the 335x1@8 and 315x1@8 come in back to back weeks? That’s a pretty big drop off, barring things outside of the gym that might have severely impacted performance in the short term between those two sessions. If that wasn’t the case, then I’d go back to what I said in steps 1 and 2 above. Maybe your FeeLz ™ are all wrong.
Disclaimer: I’m only 9 or 10 months into RPE training, and I’m not a coach. Just sharing my thoughts.
This is almost exactly what I gathered from one of Mike T’s videos a few months back for warm-ups. It has worked beautifully for me. It’s less volume than what I’ve seen Jordan and Leah recommend for warmups, but I perform better this way, not only with the single@8, but also with the subsequent backoffs.
And I don’t take anywhere near 4-5 minute rests between worksets or before the single. I pretty much do the warmups about as fast as I can change the weights. After the last warmup I might take a minute or two before hitting the single. I’ve found that with this warmup method, moving through it FASTER rather than slower helps performance, probably because it is lower volume than doing a lot of multi-rep warmup sets.