An Uncommon, Yet Effective Way To PR

I recently wrote about three ways you can set new PRs: 1RM, Rep PRs, and Volume PRs.

It is important to PR.

It is indicative of progress.

If you are never reaching higher weights, not pushing to do the same weights for more reps, or never adding more sets to accumulate more total poundage, you’re not making progress.

A good mentality is to try to PR (in some way) every single session.

For a while you will be able to do this, but you will notice that the longer you lift for, the harder PRs are to come by.

An experienced lifter won’t see PRs as frequently as a novice lifter.

Some days you won’t be able to hit higher weights. Some days you won’t be able to do more reps. Some days you will be too beat up to crank out more volume.

Pre-Exhausted PRs

Pre-exhaustion is a method that is most commonly used in bodybuilding to induce more muscle growth. This is where we intentionally fatigue smaller muscle groups first, which will then require the bigger and stronger muscle groups to work harder during compound exercises.

An example of this is to do bicep curls before doing pull-ups. The biceps would fatigue to the point they could not contribute to the pull-up as much as if the curls were done after the pull-ups. The pre-exhaustion of the biceps forces the lats to work harder to perform the exercise.

PR attempts are conventionally taken when a lifter is fresh, but we can utilize pre-exhaustion to push the body in a different way, and to boost PR numbers when we return to a fresh state.

Don’t be afraid to push your numbers later in your workout when you are fatigued.

The fatigue makes you work at a disadvantage. When a disadvantage is introduced, there becomes more room to build up.

Then, when you take that disadvantage away, you be left stronger.

Push to lift heavier and heavier weight in a state of fatigue.

Push to do more reps of a certain weight in a state of fatigue.

If you can hit a 600x1 deadlift at the end of your deadlift workout, how easy will it be to hit 600+ at the beginning of it?

Types of PR

When lifting weights, there are 3 main ways to PR.*

“PR” means to set a new personal record.

1RM

For the majority of lifters, the most sought after PR is the 1RM (1 Rep-Max). This is the maximum amount of weight that can be lifted a single time for a given exercise. If you take your max bench press from 80lb to 95lb - your PR bench used to be 80, but is now 95.

Repetition

You don’t necessarily have to push a higher weight to PR. You can set new repetition, or rep PRs. This is the number of repetitions that can be completed at any given weight, for any given exercise. If during your last training cycle you could squat 275 for 8 reps, and your current cycle has you squatting 275 for 10, you have established a new rep PR (for 275lb). The convenient thing about rep PRs is that they can be set for every single weight. This gives you more opportunities to set new ones.

Volume

The type of PR that is most overlooked, yet the easiest to make is a volume PR.

Volume = Sets x Reps x Load (weight).

Calculating and tracking your volume can be complicated if you want it to be. Because of this, I typically only consider the total volume for the main lift of each training session.

Here is a very simple way to ramp up volume over a relatively short period of time…

Let’s say that today you deadlifted for 5 sets of 5 using 135lb for all five sets. That would put you at 3,375lb worth of volume. The next time you deadlift, you could increase your volume by doing everything the same, except for bumping up the weight to 145lb on only your fifth set. That would give you 3,425lb worth of volume. The next time you deadlift after that, you could boost your volume again by using 135 for your first three sets, then 145 for your remaining two. That would be 3,475lb worth of volume, and you would have volume PR’d three deadlift sessions in a row. Continuing to fill your working sets with heavier and heavier weights will get you stronger over time.

As you see in the above example, it is very feasible to set new volume PRs and it is something you can do pretty quickly and regularly.

*There is another “type” of PR that I use. It opens up your PR setting possibilities even further, and I will write about it in another post (once I can come up with a name for it, or figure out if there is already a name for it).