I’ve always had this issue with upper body lifts (especially overhead press) where the weight I can do in the 3-rep+ range is a much lower % of my max than the RPE charts suggest.
My arms just seem to run out of gas and I have to keep dropping the weight where a 5-rep set might have to be 65% of my max.
I don’t have this issue on lower body movements, the percentages are right in line.
Also this hasn’t improved over time despite my upper body strength going up nicely overall.
Is this something you see often or to be concerned about or should I just carry on and not worry about it?
Can you provide an example and how long has this been going on for if you had to guess?
Sure. Just from my most recent two workouts I did:
3 sets of 5 @8 on OHP. My max is about 135 but I could only do 95 for these, and that even was more like an 8.5 RPE. That’s about .7 of max rather than the .81 the chart estimates.
Similarly on bench yesterday I was going for 3 sets of 4 @9 RPE. On my 205 max the chart suggests I should be able to do about 176… but I did one set at 170 that I barely squeaked out and had to drop to 160 (.78 of max) to get the last two sets and even those were tough (more like a 9.5)
Id say those were relatively good results compared to what usually happens when I’m doing reps in that range. It’s very common that I’ll find if I’m doing 3 to 4 sets I have to keep drastically dropping weight on successive sets just to finish.
ive done a fair bit of barbell training over the last ten years (though was a bit off and on with it) and have always had this issue. I’m about as strong as I’ve ever been now. Like I said, my numbers are going up reliably but this disparity just never improves.
FYI I’m:
6’3” , 225
untrained maxes were like 95 for OHP and 155 for BP.
My wing span’s about 6’8”… don’t know if that is a viable excuse
Hoping to get a follow-up on this, so here’s another anecdote from today’s workout:
Sorry, accidentally hit enter on that last one.
I started the hypertrophy template this week, did day 2 today.
On the touch-and-go bench press myoreps, I was able to do 14 reps on the first set with 60% of max (felt like an RPE 8).
I then failed at 3 reps on the very next step. So I had to call it at 17 total reps.
That’s what I mean in terms of my upper body just completely runs out of gas at higher reps and I’m done.
All rest periods were within the normal recommended ranges, fyi.