Each time weightlifting comes up amongst a bunch of dudes, someone will eventually ask a matter like, “How much ya bench?”

We all know what the interrogator desires to know with this query: What’s the heaviest weight you possibly can lift on the bench press for a single repetition?

He’s asking about your one-rep max. 

While not the one measure of strength, the one-rep max is a fairly good gauge of it. It’s also handy for other things: It may be used to fine-tune your programming; when you plan on competing, testing your one-rep max can provide help to practice the skill of lifting a very heavy weight a single time; and, let’s face it, testing your one-rep max can simply be loads of fun. 

However the one-rep max isn’t something you need to do that always. You increase your probabilities of injury if you lift as heavy as possible, and testing your one-rep max will be really fatiguing. Injury and excessive fatigue are not any bueno for gains. 

So how often must you test your one-rep max so that you get the advantages while minimizing the downsides? 

To reply that query, I asked my strength coach, Matt Reynolds, for advice. Here’s what he told me. 

How Often Should You Test Your One-Rep Max?

If you happen to resolve to check your one-rep max, how often must you do it?

Well, it relies on whether you’re a novice, intermediate, or advanced lifter.

Novice to Early-Intermediate Lifters

Based on Matt, novice to early-intermediate lifters should test their one-rep max every 8 to 10 weeks. 

Whether you’re a novice, intermediate, or advanced lifter isn’t determined by how long you’ve been training but how long it takes to completely recuperate from a training session. A novice to early-intermediate lifter can often recuperate from a training session inside 24 to 72 hours. Typically, novice and early-intermediate lifters are on some type of linear progression program where they’re adding weight to the bar each workout. 

If that describes you, shoot to do your one-rep max every two months or so. 

“One-rep maxes are considered one of the most important motivators for my novice lifters,” Matt told me. “They supply a pleasant dopamine hit which might help early lifters proceed to coach often.”

Matt also thinks testing one-rep maxes might help drive adaptation in latest lifters; that’s, they’ll provide help to get stronger.

“There’s an argument on the market that testing your one-rep max doesn’t do anything to drive adaptation within the strength development process, but after coaching hundreds of clients, our team has seen that testing one-rep max does indeed help our athletes get stronger,” Matt said. 

How must you test your one-rep max as a novice or early-intermediate lifter?

Here’s what Matt recommends: Treat your one-rep max attempt like a daily workout. But as a substitute of doing all your scheduled working sets, you’re going to work as much as your one-rep max doing heavy singles. When you hit your one-rep max, you’ll do a back-off set of 5 reps at light weight.

The weights you’ll use will rely upon where you might be strength-wise. But here’s a rough example: let’s say that in a daily workout, you’re currently lifting 405 for a set of 5 reps; in that case, here’s what a sets x reps scheme for a work-up to a one-rep max might appear to be for you:

Warm-up:

• 1×5 @ 135 lbs
• 1×3 @ 225 lbs
• 1×2 @ 315 lbs
• 1×1 @ 415 lbs

One rep max attempts:

• 1 @ 425 lbs (Lift felt really fast; could make a fairly decent jump in weight)
• 1 @ 445 lbs (Beginning to feel a bit grindy; go up but just 10 lbs)
• 1 @ 455 lbs (Slowing down more, but you continue to feel like you possibly can make another 10-pound jump)
• 1 @ 465 lbs (That was a grind, but you bought it! Recent PR!)

As you possibly can see, determining the right way to make your jumps in weight will go by feel. Using a rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale can provide help to determine the right way to make your jumps in weight. 

RPE 1 is essentially no effort, and RPE 10 is full effort. When a lift looks like RPE 10, it looks like you couldn’t do one other rep after that lift. 

If a lift looks like RPE 7, you possibly can make pretty big jumps in weight. As you get to RPE 8, start making smaller jumps in weight.

The goal for testing your one-rep max is to hit a lift that looks like RPE ~9.5 to 10. That’s your one-rep max. 

After you’ve hit your one-rep max, do a back-off set of 5 reps at a lighter weight. 

Late-Intermediate to Advanced Lifters

Once you’re a late-intermediate to advanced lifter, it will probably take several days to per week to recuperate between workouts.

If you happen to fall into this category, how often you need to test your one-rep max will rely upon when you’re training for a contest or not. 

If you happen to’re training for a contest, you’ll likely have programming designed to can help you peak on the time of your competition, where you’ll hopefully hit a one-rep max on all of the lifts through which you’re competing.

If you happen to’re not training for a contest, Matt says when you need to try for a one-rep PR ought to be more intuitive. “If you might have a day where you walk into the gym and all of your warm-up sets are feeling great, and the bar is feeling light, go for the PR,” Matt told me. “As you get along in your lifting profession, you don’t know the way many more opportunities you might have to hit a one-rep max PR, so if a PR is there for the taking, take it.”

But Matt warns that with this more intuitive approach to testing one-rep maxes, you possibly can’t get greedy with it: “You may’t be attempting to hit one-rep max PRs every week and even every other week. That can just disrupt your training.” 

Once you do resolve to go for a one-rep max, treat that day like all other workout. Work as much as your heavy rep, and when you make the attempt, follow it up with two to 3 back-off sets of three to 5 reps at a lighter weight.