Managing expectations while peaking for the first time

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi!

I’m currently on week 10 of the 12 week strength program, which unless I’m misunderstanding something, is part of a “peaking” phase in the the program.

I’ve never run a program meant for all-out meet-prep before, so I really have no idea what to expect. I assume I should expect my e1rm’s to improve to some extent, but I have no idea how much. What I’m worried about here, is that if my expectations are too high, finding it out when testing might highly unmotivating.

So I guess I should just ask, if it’s possible that I might bench 5 kg and deadlift and squat 10 kg more than my current e1rm on “meet day”.

2

SK,

It’s really hard to say, as individuals will respond wildly different to a given program. That said, an e1RM and actual 1RM tend to be pretty close. We’d hope that your e1RM would be trending up week by week and that you’d be in a position to set an all time PR when you test.

Plan on doing something like 1 @ 93%, 1 @ 97%, 1 @ 102% (or more) when you test.

-Jordan