Thursday, May 16, 2013

The importance of the every day max

One of the biggest reasons so many training programs fail is the lack of honesty on the part of the lifter.

Our goals and aspirations often cause us to take a "shoot for the moon" mentality, and more often than not that FAILS because it does not take into consideration that well, we're not being realistic.

I absolutely hate the mentality of "no limits" because we ALL have limits, and when you sit down and decide to make a productive training program, you have to be very aware of your limits in order to actually push PAST THEM.

This is one of the reasons that an EVERY DAY MAX is what you should be programming around. That day that you managed to bench a PR by 20 pounds is NOT what you should be basing your training cycles around. It's what you are good for on an every day basis. That is your baseline. When you improve your baseline, you will be able to improve the peak associated with that baseline.

This is how intelligent training is programmed.

Grinding weights week after week eventually causes people to stall in progress, or get injured because the fatigue curve gets too steep, and the supercompensation curve is negated. This is backed over and over and over again by what we've seen from the Russians and other strength systems that have been kicking our ass.

Pushing your baseline strength level can be done without deloads, lessens the chance of injury, and keep training cycles consistent.

This is going to be a whole chapter in the new Base Building book.  There's so much more to cover about the importance of programming around your average, rather than your exception.  


  1. This is one of the biggest lessons I learned over the last year. That, and your baseline with a belt is different than your baseline without one.

    I also took you up on the challenge to look at how a bunch of strong people train. There's a lot of recurring themes. An eye opener I saw recently is how Andy Bolton programs deadlifts. Top couple reps are at 70% and everything else is below. 16 reps of warmup and 16 reps of work, all doubles and singles. Let's me get in the technique work I need without killing myself.

    I'm definitely looking forward to this fleshed out some more. I'm slowly getting a more realistic feel for the every day max, but I still feel the need to check where things are every now and again since I'm not working anywhere close to my max right now.

  2. This post could not ring any truer---

    there is a huge difference between your "HOLY SHIT...I JUST NAILED ###" and your everyday max which you KNOW you can hit damn near any day of the week. Fat chance in hell if you think you can keep saying "HOLY SHIT" every damn day. If so, wouldn't life be grand????

    Hell, I am guilty of that myself. There are days when I had a big PR and I believe I am capable of programming....more. The shit really hits the fan when you're not hitting the numbers you're hoping for, and that in itself is a huge mental blow. Then your mind starts playing tricks on you, thinking something is wrong! But really, you just programmed too damn high. Baby steps, folks. Babyyyy steps. A pound here and there, a rep here and there don't sound like much---but over time, it adds up.

    For instance, I have a sand-filled keg weighing about i believe 240lbs. Only 2 people, including me, out of roughly 30 friends and some passing bystanders could shoulder the keg. The other being my bro in law. I know i can shoulder that thing any day of the week. Some days it is heavy, some days it is light. I also know I could fill it to the brim and probably still shoulder it. But it wouldn't be my everyday max! That would be me going berserk mode. The idea is to ease my way into fillin the keg to the brim. That's when I will know.... I could lift it anytime.

  3. I agree that most people make this mistake. I would go on a limb and say new lifters or young lifters (like when you used to believe you were immortal young) are the largest group.

    In my training I call this the "Prove it Max" As in, if you showed up on my door step one morning and said to me, "Prove it internet warrior, bench XXXlbs right now." This is the weight I can hit any day good or bad. I don't make training programs around anything else.

    Seems like a no brainer to me.

  4. Team Lillybridge PR every week
    Rubish is always hitting maxes
    There are loads of examples, you're constantly saying that you need to find what works for you then you post stuff like this where you're 100% certain that you'll crash and burn unless you follow X despite many other people showing otherwise

    1. Team Lilliebrdige (who the fuck is Lillybridge?) does not "PR every week". I'm not sure where you get that.

      Pete is now training under my guidance and has never been able to hit in meets what he's hit in the gym. Wonder why that is?

      maybe you should know what the fuck it is you're talking about before you post again. god damn sick of internet warriors who don't know shit.

    2. Rubish still deadlifts 800+
      What do you deadlift again?

    3. Bench 430, squat 600+ no belt, pull 600+ no belt, incline 400+ overhead press over 300.....what do you do again since you're tossing out numbers and being a first class dip shit?

    4. I'm not the one saying that one training system can't possibly work. The Russians showed us that all you need to do is increase training volume over time. You can go ahead and read the source material if you like (Medvedyev). Intensity and maxing out has nothing to do with it as demonstrated by the Bulgarians, who like the Russians increased their training volume over time. Mike Tuchscherer is on record saying that you just need to increase your training volume over time. Greg Nuckols is another example who maxes out most days and currently holds the all time total and wrapless squat at 220lb in a drug tested meet. I know raw and drug free is the small time still but as he recently squatted 700lb it's clear that it works for him. Jamie Lewis is another example that people love to bring up.

      Rubish deadlifts 800lb. 800lb. There is no way you can logically state that maxing won't work in the long run when many people are putting up these numbers. Who cares if he didn't match it in a meet? That's 800lb we're talking about here. There are hundreds of examples, you simply can't state that it doesn't work.

    5. Because in a meet is the only fucking place it matters. Otherwise, it's just youtube bullshit.

      I never said a training system couldn't work, I said there were optimal ways to train. And in case you didn't know, there are guys that fully understand that you can't just keep increasing volume. You can't. 1600+ lifts in a week. What then? What fucking then? You can't just keep adding volume. It all has to be waved.

      You're also using guys that had nothing to do BUT train. Do you know anyone like that currently? That trains in powerlifting? No. So it's a god damn piss poor example.

      If maxing out worked, all you'd have to do is do a meet every weekend and you'd get stronger. But everyone knows training doesn't work that way. God's like you just want to corner the internet market on idiocy. Tell me your fucking name and numbers again.

    6. >If maxing out worked, all you'd have to do is do a meet every weekend and you'd get stronger.

      No you wouldn't Paul, because you need to keep increasing your volume over time. There are plenty of people that use Russian and Bulgarian loading protocols that don't train all day every day. Sheiko is massively popular and is based around increasing total number of lifts a month. That is literally what Sheiko is. If I deadlifted 800lb I couldn't give a fuck if I could only do 750 in a meet. Saying it only matters in a meet is bullshit. If your goal is to hit big numbers at a meet then sure you don't hit maxes close to a meet. Take a look at the training of Mike T. He thinks though his training very carefully and he is hitting maxes very close to his meets, based on the fact he hits PBs for a few weeks before going stale- so times it such that he is hitting PRs right up until his meet where he peaks.

      "1600+ lifts in a week. What then? What fucking then?" is reductio ad absurdum and a retarded argument. How again is a training system that gets you an 800lb deadlift in the gym not optimal? Seems to me it was just timed incorrectly. What if by chance the day you hit 800lb a meet day? Would it be optimal then? 800lb Paul... 800lb

    7. I'm not sure why you are hung up on 800 pounds. Again, I already went over the volume thing. There is a point of diminishing returns with it. Yes, there is.

      And if you could pull 800 but only pull 750 on meet day then your training sucks. Think about that you idiot. The whole purpose is putting up your best total meet day. Not in the fucking gym. God're the reason people train with stupidity.

  5. Agree!
    A week ago I hit deadlift PR 330x6 at 200 lb bodyweight.
    Maybe could have grind one more rep, but stopped there for the day.
    This is a projected 1RM of ~400
    The last time I was in the neighbourhood of 400 was exactly last year, May 2012.
    Since then I had maybe 30 deadlift sessions, sometimes ones a week sometimes one in two weeks. All those sessions were in the range of
    225-315, i.e with programmed max of 350 with work in 65%-90%.

    Although I am not as strong as I want to be at 200LB bodyweight, I am confident that with a few months of training in the range of 300-360. I will get north of 400LBs.

  6. Couldn't agree more, read something similar on an oly lifting site, cMax (competition) vs. tMax (training). I normally use RPEs, but when I do use a percentage, it's always a training max and not a balls-out competition max. I this is one of your better posts and could make huge differences for people.