Just finished W3D4 of the 4 day hypertrophy and I ran into a serious RPE snag on the last few sets of close grip bench.
the first few sets of 8 @ 6,7,8 felt great, in fact i was looking to up the weight but i wanted to see how the 2nd set @8 felt. Then the next set @ 8 slowed down but there were some external factors (bunch of punk kids messing around right behind me mid set). So I chalked it up to lack of focus and kept the weight the same for the last set, which came up as a set of 6 at more like RPE 9.5, when the target was 8 @8.
At first I felt like a failure of a Barbell Medicine disciple for so badly estimating RPE, then got motivated to take back my man card, and set a PR for weight/reps/sets on rows (nothing to write home about but it felt good to accomplish something) and left the gym feeling good with a session RPE around 7.
So I suppose my question is 3 fold:
- Given no specific strength targets, is there benefit to occasionally pushing RPE past the program for some psychologically motivating factor? Obviously this was an accident, but the effect seemed strange.
- I tend to be someone who leaves too much in the tank set to set, but then today clearly miscalculated. Is that so badly failed set some indication of work capacity issues or something worth exploring? Or should I just move on with my life and think nothing of it?
- Is there more psychology that goes into session RPE than into set RPE? I find my session RPE seemingly uncorrelated, or maybe inversely correlated, to the cumulative set RPE/fatigue. Is that just a subjective measure that I tend to leave the gym feeling accomplished and energized, and should that feedback into the data that I should be pushing myself harder?
As always, i appreciate your input!
Tyler