What Should I Put On The Bar?

My Method For Choosing Loads In Training

This Happened Last Week

I had a really great call with one of the lifters on The Podium Program last week, training had been a bit of a disaster and they felt that they were going backwards, they also reported the session spiralled a little, went from bad to worse and the prescribed loads were just too heavy.

We spoke for around 45 minutes in the end, working our way through the week, the potential causes, but most importantly we spoke of solutions to get back on track and have great training sessions this coming week. We covered a lot of topics, weekly structure of training, life stress and the impact on muscle tone, recovery cycles etc etc. The one thing we spoke about that really stuck in my mind was the topic of self regulating load on the bar and self analysing the training lifts, how it can make or break a session.

For context, I am maybe a little old school now and I prescribe a lot of my sessions with %’s of 1RM.

This is different in many ways to RPE style training (another newsletter could be written on that debate) and as a result can feel a lot more restrictive for the lifter when they see the programme and the prescribed work for the day. In essence it takes away the subjective ‘feel’ of the exercise and the resultant jumps in weight that you may or may not take. But I do still like it as it makes the phases of training more predictable, and for me personally I feel more in control of the last 4-6 weeks of training, deciding whether to push or pull the program in the correct direction for comp day.

Does that mean you never deviate from the plan?

In short, no.

All training must see the athlete having control of the loading and the intensity they want to go to in session, even more so in the online coaching space because you cannot be there physically to help with the decision making process and the weight that should be put on the bar.

So, how would you do this?

What Happens In Competition

The conversation we had was framed in this way.

“What happens on comp day?”

This for me is critical in the thinking and the application of the coaching and part of the reason I would be more wary of %1RM or RPE exclusively for deciding bar load. During the competition the following process takes place.

1. Lifter walks on the platform and lifts

2. Lifter walks off and they receive the a version of this question “How was that?”

3. Lifter replies with their subjective view of effort to complete the lift

4. The coach balances that feedback with their own subjective view of how the lift looked

5. Decision is made on the size of the jump based on both subjective viewpoints

So in this scenario you have;

• Lifters Feel

  An opinion which is affected by lots of emotional responses to the environment they are currently in. This can be negative, “The bar feels so heavy on my back” or “that was so slow”

• Coaches Eye

  Essentially a third person recording of the event taking in technique, bar speed, body language. The coach can be removed from the emotion of the lift and is able to make more objective decisions as a result.

This is a pretty solid model for in the moment decision making and would likely be considered best practice. Athlete and coach with plenty of information on the lift plus the knowledge of lifters ability, this allows for a good outcome and another successful attempt.

We want to mimic this process in training.

Subjectivity and Emotion

The issue with training on your own is that the coach is not present and cannot provide the less emotive response when assessing the lift.

This leaves the lifter more reliant on the subjective feel of the lift and as competition gets closer those emotions will be heightened due to stress and anxiety of competing. As most would guess if asked directly, does increased stress and anxiety increase perceived effort?

The answer is a resounding yes.

So we know that stress and/or anxiety will increase feelings of perceived effort, the weight will likely feel heavier and slower than it is and that may change what you want or need to put on the bar in training. This is where instagram has solved the problem for us. Never before have so many Powerlifter’s filmed so much! There are cameras everywhere filming from all angles.

With this process I am about to outline the camera will now take the role of the ‘Coach’, the lifters role will remain the same.

The Process Of Self Analysing

Every lifter will film and look back at their lifts. Usually watching a lift back but being overridden by the emotions they just felt and confirming that bias towards the lift.

But with this process, to make very good objective decisions on bar load the lifter will need to regulate their emotions slightly and be able to watch the lift back with no emotion attached. Which is much harder said than done and is undoubtably a skill that is trained. Can you take a deep breath, compose yourself and watch your own lift back in the role of a coach with no emotion attached. What I personally do is to watch the lift as if I am viewing it in 12 months time sitting on my sofa, all the emotion would be gone completely and the objectivity will be high on wether that lift was good or bad.

That is where a checklist can be helpful and a decision making matrix. If certain things match up it will make the process of decision making much easier in the moment.

The key question to be asked is;

“Does it look like how it felt?”

What To Look For

This list could be vey extensive but the situation we are in requires efficiency. You need to be able to view a lift and make a fairly quick judgement on the next set. For context I am assuming anyone reading this has trained and filmed their lifts for a good amount of time where this framework would be of more use.

You want to look for the following things when assessing the quality of the lift;

Descent

• Does the technique alter or change under the heavier load (yes or no)

• Do you have control of the weight on the descent (yes or no)

• Does depth remain consistent under the heavier load (yes or no)

Ascent

• Does technique alter when driving up (yes or no)

• Is there a sticking point (yes or no)

• Is that sticking point significant (yes or no)

This should be a quick fire process and you are looking for general themes, you will then need to layer on top of that the subjective feeling and see if they match up. Below are a few examples of how you could quickly do this and then make a good call on the load to be lifted.

Scenario 1:
Felt - Heavy and slow
Looked - Technique changed on ascent, sticking point was present and significant
Decision - Small jump in weight or stay at the same weight

Scenario 2:
Felt - Heavy and Slow
Looked - Small change in control on descent, no stickin point on ascent
Decision - Moderate jump in weight

Scenario 3:
Felt - Light and Fast
Looked - No changes to technique, with no sticking point
Decision - Big jump in weight

The Lifters Experience

Finally you will have the lifters own experience and knowledge of what kind of lifter they are.

Do they have the ability to focus more and improve technique? Do they know that they can or cannot grind through a sticking point? These aspects require a lot of time lifting and will further improve the decision making.

To finish I’m really pleased to report that the lifter in question has started this week with a bang, using parts of this method he has gone on to double weights on the bench press and the squat he hasn’t touched in just under a year.

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