Imagine you are reading a program, and it says something like Do 4 sets of 3 reps with 70% of your 1RM, and then on the 5th do as many reps as possible. The Power of BroScience by AJAC is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I’m 60. When I started lifting in the late 70s as a teen. I think it was my older brother who told me to do 5 sets of 5 reps per exercise especially bench. I made pretty good gains through my life doing basically that except for times when I would sets of 6-7 and 3 when I went to a weight I could only do 3 times (usually on set 4.). But even if I went 6 or 7 reps of could only get 4, the target was 5. Also I never knew exactly why, but I remember someone telling me if you can bench 225 ten times, then you should be able to a 1 RM of 300…and today 😀 I found that to be 100% true in my case. I just never knew the math behind that. But using this chart it does show ten reps of 225 means your 1 rep max will be 300.
On another note, once I got above 54 or so I stoppped lifting like this and do lighter weight for 8-10 reps. I wasn’t really getting weaker as much it hurt my bones and joints to lift heavy and took a much longer recovery period.
I’m 60. When I started lifting in the late 70s as a teen. I think it was my older brother who told me to do 5 sets of 5 reps per exercise especially bench. I made pretty good gains through my life doing basically that except for times when I would sets of 6-7 and 3 when I went to a weight I could only do 3 times (usually on set 4.). But even if I went 6 or 7 reps of could only get 4, the target was 5. Also I never knew exactly why, but I remember someone telling me if you can bench 225 ten times, then you should be able to a 1 RM of 300…and today 😀 I found that to be 100% true in my case. I just never knew the math behind that. But using this chart it does show ten reps of 225 means your 1 rep max will be 300.
On another note, once I got above 54 or so I stoppped lifting like this and do lighter weight for 8-10 reps. I wasn’t really getting weaker as much it hurt my bones and joints to lift heavy and took a much longer recovery period.