Training Leading Up to 1RM?

Training
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Hi guys, short and sweet question related to powerlifting (maxing out on strength) but not really because it has to do with neither of the 3 power lifts.

I’ve been training weighted chin up twice a week, one heavy one light day, and be able to progress relatively nicely.

Heavy day = 5 reps x 5 sets with the same total weight (body + added weight) on each set, with max effort needed to go through all reps cleanly (chin clears well over the bar)

Light day = 5 reps x 3 sets, with total weight (body + added weight) on each set = roughly 85% relative to heavy day’s total weight, with moderate effort needed to clear well over the bar

The 5x5 system is hardly designed for maxing out so I was wondering if I want to test the 1RM, how should I transition through the weeks leading up to the test? Like the following week moving down from 5x5 to 4x4 with increased total weight (higher % of predicted 1RM), then the following week moving down to 3x3 with further increased total weight (even higher % of predicted 1RM), etc etc or what?

Thanks everyone!

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Why do you need to peak for weeks up to the test? You could test your 1RM next week if you felt like it. Do your next regular light day, take your regular few days of rest, then go in for the testing day.

I really don’t like the idea of 1RM with bodyweight exercises though, because form can get really funky, which skews the entire point of it (if you even complete the lift at all).

Pretty sure it was Dan John who liked having lifters test for a 2RM instead of1RM, to “allow” that second rep to get a little sloppy in order to complete the lift. That way, when you get one clean rep with 100 pounds followed by one uglier rep with 100 pounds, you know your legit 1RM is right around 100 pounds.

If you’ve been progressing steadily, I’d hold off on testing at all and just keep riding it out. Save the test for when things start to slow down.

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Thanks for the advices Chris, I will keep them in mind! Right now I’m still staying on course with the current program, just asking for future reference.

Sorry if my original post appeared confusing but I didn’t mean to peak before the test. What I meant was that in order to know and test your true 1-2RM, your neural and muscle systems have to have gotten used to produce 90+% maximum capacity prior to the test. 5x5 doesn’t really train you within this domain of capacity, and so my guess is that in order to produce 1-2RM in a test, I should transition to a mode of training (which I’m guessing lasts a couple of weeks) that is geared dominantly towards producing 90+%, i.e. lower reps, higher intensity, etc.

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Thats literally what a peak is (excluding the taper)

If you spend more time practising higher intensities, that will give you a higher carryover to a 1-2RM. However, the more specialised your training is to a 1-2RM, the less your 1-2RM will represent what you could do on “any given day”. Thats not a good thing, nor is it a bad thing. It’s just a consideration

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Thanks for replying j4gga2! That’s exactly what I meant, higher carry over to a 1-2RM.

I don’t necessarily want to test 1-2RM on any given day, but much like a power lifter, I want to build up to a max test on a scheduled date. So that’s why a “maxing out priming period” would be necessary to bridge the gap between 5x5 and 1-2RM.

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In that case, the strategy you laid out would work, but if anything it might be excessively drawn-out

Consider doing a 5 x 3 week, a 5-4-3-2-1 week (sub-max), lightish week, then test week

That said, my above strategy isnt perfect either

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Thanks a lot! I will give it a shot when the time comes!

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Shimano did a study in 2006: For your information, loads of 60%, 80% and 90% of 1RM translate respectively into sets of about 20-30, 9-12 and 4-5 rep, taken to muscular failure when using compound exercises like the bench press, squat, etc.

By using this as a template you can get an estimate of your 1RM.

Reflecting on chinups, you could really challenge yourself by doing a Darden 30-30-30 chinup. That is a 30 sec neg rep, a 30 sec pos rep finalized with a 30 sec neg rep. A much safer way of testing your limit.

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Thanks pettersson, I will look more into these ideas!

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10

But is that “limit” relevant to anything?

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11

I’ve experimented with this progression,

I do front squats 2x/wk and OHP 2x/wk, so rather than doing this progression on a week-by-week basis it has been a training session by training session basis making it take just a little bit more than one month to go through the entire thing.

I’d reckon that’d set you up nicely to test a “genuine” 2RM

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12

Good question. Maybe short term as a way of resisting adaptation, but not long term - if we are to believe the current science.

I personally did that as a plateaubreaker for 4 weeks, and believe it shocked the system into new progression.

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Do you mind elaborating on this? What is “resisting adaptation” and why would that desireable?

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Thanks for pitching in Voxel!

Damn, either you have super recovery ability or the body generally can handle stress from squats and OHP much better than chin up/pull up, because right now, after one 5x5 session on weighted chin up (with 50%+ body weight attached) say on Tuesday, there’s almost no way I can repeat approximately the same performance, i.e. progressing from 5x5-77.5% to 6x4-80%, within the same week, say on Friday.

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I don’t think I have a super recovery ability. Sometimes I end up doing 4 sessions in 7 days, sometimes 9. I play it a bit by ear, and also because I like doing other things.

One thing that might work for you would be to take your max, and use a training max of 85-90% to compute the weights you’d use. That’d give you a bit more leeway to recover properly. For me the first weeks are the worst, as the intensity goes up and the reps goes down it becomes more manageable recovery-wise.

I asked @jskrabac about deloading on that schedule and it was optional to slot in before the last final three sessions.

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Nothing magical at all, just a term HIT proponent Brian Johnston states as a vital ingredient in order to build muscle. Can be said in many ways.

Makes sense though. By changing/varying program, routine, excercise selection and reptempo you “resist” muscular adaption and allow for growth to happen. One theory of many, but I happen to like it.

If you train in a certain way, you will (hopefully) get a certain result - but only to a certain point. Then a change is needed to progress further - to resist adaptation.

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“To adapt to training is to never adapt to training.”
Ben Tabachnik

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One question - why? IMO there’s simply no good reason to be doing 1RM with exercises like weighted chins & dips etc. Just asking for trouble, trust me; been there done that! No harm in having goals with such exercises, but my training has improved massively since I shifted to other targets like 8RM up to 20RM, or how many reps I can do at bodyweight with an 8 second eccentric, or try the 30-10-30 protocol etc etc.

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Gotcha. “Adaptation” in this context means stagnation.

You always want to adapt to training. Getting bigger and stronger are both adaptations to stress. You just don’t want the adaptations to stagnate or plateau

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Just a personal interest of mine really. Chin up has been my favourite exercise for a long time. Been doing it with 5x5, reverse pyramid, body weight, training every day, training 2-3 times a week, etc … basically many variations. 1RM with the extra load equals body weight has been a big goal of mine, and these days with the new progressing numbers coming in, it seems like I’m slowly approaching it. Just estimating at the moment, no real data yet.