RPE Struggles

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hey guys,

I did post a question very similar to this about 3 weeks ago, however, it was never approved.

I’m currently on Phase 2 week 2 of the beginner template. Coming from SS NLP, I had an E1RM for all the main 4 lifts starting off with your program. At the end of phase one, I added 5kg to my bench, 7.5kg to my squat, my deadlift didn’t increase, and my OHP deceased by 2.5-5kg. I’m not concerned about this, I think it’s down to me not fully grasping RPE.

Two weeks into phase 2 and right now the motivation to train is at an all time low, and this is because I feel like I don’t understand RPE. For the last 3 sessions, I’ve left feeling worse than when I’ve come in. I’m hoping you guys can help me solve this problem.

I’m really struggling to understand how to use my warm up sets to gauge my work sets. I think the best way to explain this is by taking you through an example of what I did today.

Last week, my top set of bench was 82.5kg 4@8, which puts my E1RM at 100kg which is a big PR for me. Today I repeated this workout, with the goal of getting 85kg 4@8 for my top set. I took the bar, 30kg, 40kg, 50kg, 60kg and finally 70kg as my warm up sets. I’m expecting 70kg to feel like RPE 4/5 based on my pre-calculated numbers. 70kg moved well, but felt heavy in my hands, so I decided to repeat the weights from last week which were 75kg 4@6, 77.5kg 4@7, and 82.5kg for what felt like 8.5 and got on with the rest of the workout.

I understand there will be fluctuation from week to week, but I’m struggling to understand how 70kg will help me determine whether I can lift 82.5kg or 85kg? 2.5kg doesn’t sound like it would make a huge difference to the difficulty of the set, but I don’t just want to get fixated on pre-calculated numbers and end up overshooting. I’m trying to assess my warm up sets but don’t know what I’m looking for in order to figure out what my top sets will be.

I feel like that was a very long winded way of asking that question, but I wanted to outline my process to see if you can pick out what I’m doing wrong.

Thanks for your time,

Andre

2

Thanks for the post, Andre.

I don’t think that 70kg would be able to help you predict whether or not 82 vs 85 was the right call, but 77.5 probably would. It seems like the misunderstanding may stem from placing emphasis on the warm-up sets (e.g. @6 and @ 7) when they don’t really matter outside of helping you dial in the top set. You’re looking for the barbell to slow down, feel heavier, etc. more than predicted to direct you to be more conservative or, when feeling good, the weight to feel light, move quickly, etc. when you can be more aggressive.

Hopefully that helps.

-Jordan

3

Thanks Jordan! This helps a lot.

Using the example of an 85kg bench 4@8, is it wise to work backwards and say that if that is on today, then 80kg should be 4@7, and 75kg should be 4@6 using the 5% = 1RPE rule? If 75kg feels lighter than normal it could suggest that 85kg may be under shooting for the day, similarly if it feels heavy then I may have to readjust my top set to < 85kg.

4

I think that’s a fine place to start for bracketing your expectations, but I wouldn’t try to base training on RPE 6 sets necessarily, especially if you’ve been struggling with picking the “right” weight.

I’d let 77.5 or 80kg tell you the story in this example.

5

Tried this new way of approaching my top sets out today and it helped a ton! Thanks once again, Jordan.