Max testing for bodybuilders

Before I get into the meat of this week's article I want to mention a few clients who have done well recently at their shows:

Lisa Thomas - First up Lisa competed at the INBA show at the Health and Fitness Expo in Melbourne. She placed second in her class in Figure. I've only been working with Lisa for a few months but we were really happy with how she looked on the day.

Melanie Cowling - Mel competed in the INBA Brisbane Classic around three weeks back. She placed first in Figure International Open and second in Figure Open Class 2. A great way to wrap up the season for Mel!

Joey Cantlin - Joey flew down to Sydney for the INBA City Nationals. After a few weeks of harsh dieting and a great peak week Joey looked his best to date on stage. He entered Mr Physique Open and the Mr Physique Pro Qualifier. Unfortunately he did not place in either division simply because both line ups were very strong. Nonetheless a very impressive showing.

Mr Physique Open (third from right)

Mr Physique Pro Qualifier (right)

Max Testing

Now for this week's topic which is max testing for bodybuilders. I see a lot of people go about testing in a way that is less than ideal. I want to discuss where I think people go wrong and what I think is a good way to go about testing.

Testing Mistakes

The casual max out guy - This is the guy/girl who decides randomly that they are going to test their max on a given day despite not having planned it into their training. The best reasons I can ascertain as to why people do this is curiosity as to whether they have gotten stronger and to give themselves a transient ego boost. None of these are particularly useful if you are a bodybuilder. Knowing that your 1 RM went up by X amount might confirm in your mind that you are stronger than previously and that therefore your training is working. It might give you a bit of confidence. But it's not particularly useful unless you intend to plug those numbers into a spreadsheet. Chances are if you randomly decided to test your 1 RM then I'd wager you aren't using this kind of program structure and perhaps you don't have any program structure at all. And further on the down side if you aren't used to performing 1 RMs you are probably looking at an increased risk of injury. This is not an ideal way to do things at all in my opinion.

Bad form - When you are using very heavy loads for low reps it is generally much harder to maintain the same degree of control as you would when you perform more reps with lighter loads. This is especially true if you haven't had a lot of practice training in low rep ranges (weight lifting is a skill). However there is slight variations in form that naturally tend to occur as a result of the weight being lifted simply being heavier and then there is lifting a weight that is beyond your means and having your form become worse as a result. For example if your lower back starts rounding over and you are shaking when deadlifting then chances are the weight is too heavy for you. When testing we should always strive to maintain correct form and we need to be honest with ourselves because ultimately the numbers that come out of the max tests should be meaningful, realistic and practical.

Who wants a one way ticket to Snap City?

1 RM testing as a bodybuilder - As bodybuilders for the most part we train within moderate to high rep ranges (at least if we are training in an efficient way to stimulate hypertrophy). Of course some strength work is usually involved and in fact sometimes we can do entire blocks of strength work. But it's usually 80 % hypertrophy, 20 % strength (for most bodybuilders). Taking this into consideration does it really make sense to do a max test to find out what your 1 RM is? Wouldn't it make more sense to test with more reps so that the number is more "functional" or in line with what you normally do? With a significantly heavy load you've got a higher risk of injury and you've got the fact that as bodybuilders many of us are not conditioned toward strength training. So as a bodybuilder chances are you'll suck more at performing a 1 RM than you will at a moderate rep range simply because we train more frequently in a moderate to high rep range. If you suck at strength work then your 1 RM is going to under estimate what you are capable of when training for reps. Conversely if you are one of the outliers who is great at strength work either due to genetic capacity or because you include plenty of strength work in your training, your 1 RM might actually over estimate your ability to perform reps. When this data is then applied to your training it will make things either way too easy or way too hard respectively. So outside of hybrid powerlifter-bodybuilders or people that do a lot of strength work but for the purpose of bodybuilding, bodybuilders generally shouldn't be testing 1 RMs in my opinion.

Suggested Approach to Max Testing

Purpose of testing - At this point I think it's worth going over WHY we test. Testing is done to see if we got stronger but we aren't doing it just for that end. Perhaps a better question is "why do we want to know our strength levels?". After all we want to do something useful with the result rather than just having it as a vague measurement of apparent progress (don't get me wrong, we do want to measure and track strength over time but this is not the only reason for testing). Remember that as bodybuilders we should care about strength but only to the degree that it allows us to build more muscle tissue. We shouldn't want to get stronger just for the sake of being stronger if our goal is hypertrophy. Anyway we want to do something with our max testing numbers and that is we want to use them to help plan our future training. Either a true 1 RM or estimated 1 RM can be used to calculate estimates of loads for our training. Finding out an estimated 1 RM might be done manually or by plugging the results into a spreadsheet template that has been written for this purpose. The estimated 1 RM can then be used to estimate training loads by doing the same kind of thing but in reverse. That way as you get stronger (or maybe even weaker if you are dieting) the loads go up (or down) by an appropriate amount. In other words it's a tool you can use to aid in your application of progressive overload to training based on your ongoing performance.

How to test as a bodybuilder - In my opinion the best way to test as a bodybuilder is to do an AMRAP set (as many reps as possible). This means that you would train with a load you would normally use and take that set all the way to failure. Of course the reps should be done with good form and in fact I like to terminate the set after experiencing a break down in form. Only good reps should count towards the AMRAP. 

Testing in this way you've most likely done a set to failure in a moderate rep range and this information is now very meaningful because it's relevant to the rep range that bodybuilders typically do most of their training in. It should form a realistic estimate that is useful for planning and adjusting training loads.

Another way to do the test is not to perform the AMRAP set off the back off one of your normal sets but rather to deliberately do a test in a rep range of your choosing. For example you might want to test a 6 RM, so you would take a guess at what weight you could do for 6 reps and then try it. You should generally choose somewhere in the moderate range and at the lowest on the cusp of a low rep range. This is heavy enough to give a realistic estimate of how many good form reps you can do but not so light that you might terminate the set early due to pain or breathlessness. For example testing with 12 - 15 reps might cause you to gas out. Personally I like to test my major compound lifts like squats, bench press and deadlifts in the 4 - 8 rep range. If you happen to be testing something different like lat pull downs though it may well be appropriate to do your AMRAP set in the 10 - 12 rep range so of course take into account what exercise you are doing and in what rep ranges you most frequently train it.

When to test - Testing should be done in a planned manner. A great time to test is at the end of a program during or just after a deload week, That way the data can be applied to the next block of training you are about to do. An alternative to this is to do AMRAP sets throughout the program weekly or fortnightly. This will keep your strength data more current with your progression (you may get stronger as you go, so rather than testing just at the end of the program it can be good to adjust loads throughout).

What to do with the data - In order to apply the data to your training you will need to use the max test data to estimate your 1 RM. After you have that number you can work with percentages of that number for pre-planned numbers of sets and reps (this will depend on the total training structure and how intense you want each set to be).

Below are some resources for calculating 1 RM:

1. An article by Casey Butt which details how to manually calculate an estimated 1 RM using a variety of formulas

http://www.weightrainer.net/training/coefficients.html

2. An article which calculates your estimated 1 RM for you as well as a percentages of your 1 RM in 5% increments. It also contains a table with the number of reps which correspond to percentages of 1 RM. The table can be used to manually predict estimated 1 RM from reps and load or to manually predict reps and load from an estimated 1 RM.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/other7.htm

Those are my thoughts on max testing for bodybuilders. If you agree or disagree leave a comment below and let me know what you guys think about this topic.

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- Evan