I Forbid You To Max Out During Every Workout

My wife and I often let friends and budding gym goers lift with us. I don’t mind. I enjoy having a good community of lifters and I love teaching others about lifting. One friend got into lifting about a year ago and loves it. He is still a relative novice but you can’t beat his enthusiasm.

He tends to come over on leg days. He’s obsessed with the squat.

“I hit 295 on the squat a two days ago. I’m going to try and hit that again today,” he said.

When he said this, I assumed that he was doing his working sets at 295.

Nope.

As he climbed his way up toward 275, it was becoming clear that he was shooting for a 1 rep max.

He unracked 295, braced himself, and squat. He got it, but it didn’t look pretty. Then he told me he maxed out on the squat 2-3 times per week. I asked him what his reasoning for maxing out multiple times a week was.

“I just want to hit PRs. I’m planning to hit 315 in a few weeks.”

Bingo. Our friend was confusing testing and maxing out for training.

The difference between training and maxing out

Testing your 1 rep max is not training. It’s testing. It’s what you do after you have been training for a few blocks.

I explained to our friend that he needed to dial down the intensity and weight. If you are training too close to your ceiling too often, you will never break through.

In training, you utilize sub-maximal weights between 65-85% of your 1RM to accumulate volume throughout various training phases. The accumulation of volume, work, and fatigue is part of what creates the training effect. When executed appropriately, using sub-maximal weights will increase the 1RM of a particular lift.

Think about how an NFL player will train. Do we have him simply playing scrimmages and games to get better? No! He will be lifting weights, running drills, and practicing to improve his game.

What about an MMA fighter? Do we have fighters simply fight and spar all of the time to get better? No! He or she will be training with weights, calisthenics, drills, and conditioning to improve.

In the same vein, we cannot simply keep maxing out in the hopes of improving our 1RM. We must train using various intensities, volumes, and exercises. Maxing out every workout or even every week will not allow you to use enough training volume to achieve a training effect.

We can think about this in terms of total sets and total work. If you work up to a 1RM, your total volume is 1×1=1 working rep. If your 1RM is 295 lbs, your total work is 295 lbs.

Now if you dialed back the working weight and performed 5 sets of 5 reps, your total volume is now 5×5=25 working reps. If you used 205 lbs, your total work is 205x5x5=5125 lbs.

If you take this in the context of a larger training block, the differences in total volume and work become tremendous. Let’s say you only ever max out on the squat then move on. Your total volume on the squat will be minuscule, even if you incorporate drop sets afterwards. When you incorporate moderate to high volume programming, your total volume and work will be exponentially greater than if you simply max out every session.

If we were to think of the max out as the big event (like the big game or fight for the athlete), then we must train appropriately to ensure that we perform well for the lift.

Supercompensation, Overreaching, and Delayed Transformation

Supercompensation is a theory of sports science that states that our bodies will react to training in such a way that it will increase its level of fitness following a training session if adequate time for recovery is allowed. Put simply, you lift weights, rest a few days, and you come back to the gym stronger than before.

This is an extremely oversimplified explanation of supercompensation in a microscopic context, but it will suffice for now.

When you train continuously for a longer training block, let’s say 3-4 weeks, you begin to accumulate fatigue. If you are training at appropriate intensities, you will be recovered enough to perform well during the next training session but not so fully recovered that it’s as if the previous training session never occurred at all. After the 3-4 week training block, you may go through a “deload” week in which volume and intensity is decreased to allow for greater recovery, allowing your body to “catch up”, so to speak. However, once you are recovered from this extended training block, your body will come back much stronger and fitter than before.

This slow accumulation of fatigue is called overreaching. The subsequent recovery and improvements in performance is supercompensation or delayed transformation. Overreaching needs to be done precisely so the athlete is not burning out and creeping into the territory of overtraining syndrome before the recovery period.

However, the only way to achieve overreaching and delayed transformation is to train optimally with appropriate volumes. Maxing out during every workout will not allow for that.

Trust the process

Some people constantly max out on their lifts due to fear. They’re afraid that using lighter weights or lower intensities will decrease their max. To these people, I say trust the process. Constantly working at your maximum is a great way to stay plateaued. Trust that the volume at lower intensities will work in your favor. A good program will have different phases that allow for handling heavier weights but they will rarely, if ever, have you constantly max out.

Testing is not training. Training is training. To be sure, follow in the footsteps of the most successful athletes. They diligently go through training phases, staying disciplined enough to not unnecessarily test themselves all of the time.

Once I explained this to our friend, a lightbulb turned on in his head. He unloaded the bar down to 185 lbs and did a bunch of sets of 5 reps. His technique improved and he said felt like he actually had a good workout.

Accumulate volume and fatigue over an extended training block, go through a recovery period, and see your strength skyrocket.