It’s important to set big goals. With performance-based activities like strength training, having a powerful long-term goal helps keep us focused and motivated. Competitions such as powerlifting meets are especially motivating because it gives your goal a specific deadline.
Big goals can also be intimidating. This is a good thing. It means you’re challenging yourself. If your goal doesn’t scare you a bit, it’s probably not ambitious enough. However, a substantial goal might seem so far away that you’re unsure of how you can possibly achieve it.
I had a great talk with one of my lifters the other day about how to be more intentional with her weight selection as she aims to bench press 135 for the first time. She said she was struggling a bit with matching her weight selection to the assigned RPEs each workout and felt a bit stuck.
Now, I try my best not to spoon feed weight selection to most of my lifters because I think it’s extremely important that lifters develop the skill of self-evaluation using RPE. This is the “listen to your body” advice that’s always spouted by grouchy old lifters who are scared of science and acronyms (but in reality, we’re just using different words to describe the same thing: autoregulation).
And when lifters are first starting out, the weight on the bar really doesn’t matter too much as long as it’s not heavier than they can lift with good form. Research suggests that beginners can gain strength using as little as 40 percent of their 1-rep max. That’s ridiculously low, so it would be silly for a coach to push beginners to lift overly heavy when we can make progress with much lighter weights.
But this lifter isn’t a beginner and can’t cruise along on newbie gains anymore, so a more strategic plan was necessary. Benching 135 seemed a little far off, so we needed to set some process goals.
Process Goals to Chart the Path
Process goals are smaller goals (often habit-based) that you must achieve in order to reach your big, lofty goal. They help chart the path and make the loftier goal seem less intimidating.
For example, if my goal is to gain 10 lbs of muscle in 6 months, some habit-based process goals may be:
- Sleep at least 8 hours a night 6 out of 7 days a week
- Eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight 6 out of 7 days a week
- Strength train 4 days a week every week
If I do these things consistently, I’ll likely reach my goal. I can also break my big goal down into smaller chunks to give me landmarks to aim for along the way. For example:
- Gain 3 lbs of muscle in month 1
- Gain 2 lbs of muscle in months 2 and 3
- Gain 1 lb of muscle in months 4, 5 and 6
Strategies like this are helpful because when approaching a new goal, progress often comes quickly at first when motivation is high and sensitivity to adaption is also high. As we know, progress often slows down the longer we pursue a goal, so factoring that into your process goals can prevent feelings of demotivation.
Using Estimated 1-Rep Maxes
We decided to use some estimated 1-rep maxes (E1RMs) to help us figure out some process goals for this lifter. Now, some coaches frown upon using E1RMs because they can be inaccurate. I’m not saying that they’re spot on 100 percent of the time, and they’re especially inaccurate if you use lighter weights and higher reps to predict a 1RM. However, I’ve found them to be very helpful and surprisingly accurate when using low reps (1-5 reps) and high RPEs (8-10 RPE). A set of 12 reps at 7 RPE isn’t going to give you an accurate E1RM, but a single at 8 or 9 RPE can probably get you pretty close. So as usual, it’s the wizard, not the wand.
We drew out some numbers for this lifter based on this chart:
Here are some process goals we came up with based on a 1RM of 135:
1×5 @ 9 RPE = 83.7% of 1RM = 113 lbs
1×4 @ 9 RPE = 86.3% of 1RM = 116 lbs
1×3 @ 9 RPE = 89.2% of 1RM = 120 lbs
So once she can bench 113×5, 116×4 and 120×3, all at 9 RPE, she’s probably ready to bench 135. Once we mapped it out, she realized she’s actually already hit some of these landmarks. Suddenly, a bench with the big plates doesn’t feel so far off.
I use this chart to track E1RMs for most of my lifters week-to-week as long as they’re in phase of training where reps are low (1-5) and RPEs are high (8-10). This helps us:
- Visualize progress week-to-week
- Estimate time to peak (i.e., how long can a lifter add weight to the bar in the same rep range?)
- Understand which rep range best transfers to a lifter’s 1RM
The more data we acquire, the more objective we can be in our training decisions. Coaching instincts are important and sometimes you just have to go on a hunch, but making informed decisions based on the patterns that emerge in a lifter’s training is going to lead to better results and more confidence for the lifter.
Trust the Process
If you’re struggling to wrap your head around how you’re going to reach a big goal, trying using the above chart to figure out what weights you need to hit for a certain number of reps at a certain RPE. Again, I recommend choosing sets of 1-5 and RPEs of 8-10 because those are going to be more accurate. It’s a lot easier to get where you want to go when you’ve got a roadmap with recognizable landmarks along the way.