Hi BBM team.
Just finished week 1 of Powerbuilding 1 and I know I probably shouldnt overthink this one but wanted to make sure i am on track.
Day 3 Slot 3 calls for Press / DB Press 70%e1rm * AMRAP , 63%e1rm * 12 * 2 sets.
I went for Seated DB Press (its fine, right?), and because i didnt know what my e1rm is for this one i searched this forum and found a comment by Jordan says the way to go with this is to choose a weight that one could probably do for 10-15@10.
Tried 20kg for each hand and got 16 reps @10.
According to the template, my e1rm then was 34kg, so 63% is 21.25.
I have adjustable dumbells so went for exactly that, and got 12 reps at @10.
Figured i will not be able to get another set of 12 within 2 minutes of rest so lowered it to 20 for the next one and only got 9 at @10.
Did i get any of it wrong and thats why i couldnt complete all of the prescribed reps?
How would you recommend to go about it next week?
Thanks in advance!
Hello! I don’t think you did anything wrong at all. RPE at higher reps can be tough to nail down too closely. But you are close here. Next time you can lower the weight by a couple of lbs and likely be just fine.
An anecdotal response here, but last week I had a similar experience. I chose 45lb DBs for my AMRAP set and got 16 reps, making my e1rm 149lbs (75lb DBs). So my 63% x 12 sets were also done with 45lb DBs. I got 12 on my first set @10, and 8 on my second set. The following week I used 50lb DBs on my 70% AMRAP and only got 10 reps, but was able to complete the backoff sets with 45lb DBs for 12 reps a piece. I suspect that undershooting the weight and therefore doing additional reps on the initial set caused more fatigue due to the shorter 2min rest periods between sets. At least that’s what happened for me.
If you take your e1rm of 34kg from yesterday and take 70% of that for the first set of your session next week, you’ll be doing an AMRAP with 23.5-24kg as opposed to 20kg, so you’ll likely get closer to 10-12 reps instead of 16 on the first set, and maybe be able to get all 12 reps with 21.25 for your back-off sets at 63%.