question regarding RPE base training and e1RM

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello BBM team,

long time lurker first time poster, and excuse me for the poor English(not native speaker)

I just started the 4-day 12 weeks strength template and am still very new to RPE.

Finishing up week 1 and establish some baselines for each lift, and have a question for you.

Is my understanding correct that the goal is to have all lifts’ e1RM going up in a weekly basis, assuming recovery is in check and RPE is still gauged within the prescribed intensity? Or, is it not practical to set this expectation, and I should just go with how I feel the weights?

I learned from my very limited lifting experience that there are days I just don’t feel my body can handle the prescribed weights(% based program), but I still managed to finish it. With RPE, I am worried that I might be detrained myself if I don’t have certain goal of weights set for the training days.

Thank you in advance for your response.

  • Ying
2

Yichlee,

Thanks for the post and hope your training has been going well this week.

​​​​​​Is my understanding correct that the goal is to have all lifts’ e1RM going up in a weekly basis, assuming recovery is in check and RPE is still gauged within the prescribed intensity? Or, is it not practical to set this expectation, and I should just go with how I feel the weights?

The goal should be to increase the e1RM or other metrics of progressive overload each week when possible, so our default recommendation is to plan on adding weight weekly.

3

Thank you, Jordan.

After the post I re-read the help tab in the template and found the answer under RPE section. Thank you for response though!

4

Hi Jordan,

I am at Week3 day2 of the 12 weeks strength template today and encounter an unexpected issue.

Instead of adding weights to the first exercise, I had to drop the weight down about 10% from last week’s e1RM. The 1@7 last week feels like 1@10 today.

I didn’t have a good night sleep last night, but

  1. can strength performance vary this much from one week to another, i.e 10% drop?

  2. Does this mean I overshoot the intensity yesterday(week3 day1) or last week so now too much fatigue has been accumulated?

Thank you in advance for your clarification.

  • Ying