Testing my understanding on progression

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

I bought the beginner template a few months back and then got distracted by life, so starting again. I have a couple quick questions.

  1. Am I trying to increase weight every week or every workout? Ex. Say day 1 back squat calls for 4 reps and my estimated 1rm is 100lbs. When I go to Day 2 where i’m doing 7 reps should i put my 1rm at 105 and then see what weight the calculator gives me, and then on day 3 plug in my 1rm at 110 and then see what weight the calculator gives me for 10 reps at various RPE’s, etc? Or would I keep my 1rm consistent at 100lbs for all of week 1 at the various rep and RPE ranges, and then plus in 105lbs for my 1rm the following week and so the various rep and rpe ranges, and then plus in my 1rm at 110lbs the week after, etc.
  2. How often am I supposed to be using the calculator? Is it just used once to get my numbers, and then I just look at the previous weeks lbs and just try to up them, or do I use the calculator before every workout?

Thanks.

2

Hey Randh,

Both of these questions are answered in some detail in the eBook that came with your program. I would recommend looking that over for some review. In the meantime, here are my thoughts:

  1. Given that different rep schemes represent different kinds of strength, we would recommend planning on increasing the weight every week to the extent you’re able to do that without blowing the RPEs.

  2. Probably every workout if you prefer to use that method for predicting your warm ups, with the understanding that the feedback you get in real time during the workout trumps the calculator’s outputs.

-Jordan

3

I’ll give the ebook a solid read through. I skimmed it breifly and saw the add weights every week thing, but I guess I got confused because I was doing starting strength for a bit and the whole goal was to add weight every single workout. Haha.

Thanks Jordan.