Percentage, RPE, or RIR?
What are they? How are they used in your training? And which one is best?
When following a powerlifting program, there are a few different ways it can be designed for you to follow. Particularly when it comes to selecting the weights you will be using. So, this post will be going through the most common ways programs get you to select weights, the goods and the bads of each, and my personal opinion on what I use.
Percentage:
What it is:
Percentage based programs are very straight forward. It will give you a percentage of your 1 rep max (1RM), and that is the amount of weight you use. So, you might have 5 sets of 5 reps at 75% of your 1 rep max for example. Very straight forward and very popular old school method.
Benefits:
- Very simple to follow. Pretty much idiot proof as it is a set number
- If you tend to overshoot or undershoot your effort levels, this can be a good way to make sure you are choosing the exact weight you need and not slacking off
Drawbacks:
- Doesn’t account for external factors. You could’ve had a bad night’s sleep, not eaten much food, or just generally not feel very good. Then you’re locked in to doing a weight that’s harder than what you wanted for your intended purpose.
- Your all time PB at a competition, isn’t an accurate 1RM for training. When at a competition, that is when you are at peak strength. If you use that as your 1RM for training percentages when you are unpeaked, then it will feel a lot harder than you intended. So, if you want to use % based training, you’ll have to base it off what you currently think you could do for 1 rep, not your all-time best when peaked.
- Can be very hard to program for variations of lifts. If its your first time doing a certain variation, then how the hell are you going to know what your 1 rep max is for the variation? Or how your primary 1 rep max will translate to a secondary variation.
RPE:
What it is:
RPE stands for ‘rate of perceived exertion’. Basically, how hard is it on a scale on 1 to 10. So, you might have a top set of 3 reps at an RPE of 7 programmed. That means your top set needs to feel like about a 7 out of 10 in difficulty. This is often mistakenly taken as RIR. An RPE of 8, does not mean 2 reps in reserve. It means exactly what it means. Feeling like an 8 out of 10 in difficulty.
Benefits:
- Takes into account external factors. Instead of having to do a certain weight when you feel tired and weak, you just have to follow the RPE. This also means, on the days you feel really good, you aren’t at risk of undershooting the intended purpose.
- Depending on what your coach or program wants to get out of a session, you should be able to get exactly that purpose out of your session.
- Makes trying a new variation easier as you can just feel your way through it in your warmups, rather than trying to work up to a set number or percentage
- Can use this for accessories too. Can’t exactly use percentage of your 1 rep max for single arm tricep pushdowns. Most of the time your accessories should just be max effort, but sometimes various RPEs can be appropriate to use.
Drawbacks:
- How hard something feels is very individual. 1 persons RPE 8 can look and be very different to another person’s RPE 8. Depending on why a program or coach has chosen a certain RPE, this can mean some people massively undershoot or overshoot the intended purpose.
- It can be hard to judge what the right weight for the right RPE. It takes a bit of thinking from the athlete to choose the correct weight and the correct warmup weights. Particularly for beginners
RIR:
What it is:
RIR stands for ‘reps in reserve’. So, how many more reps you could have done for that set. For example, you might have to do 7 reps with an RIR of 2. Which means it is your 9-rep max, or whatever weight you feel like you could’ve done 2 more reps of.
Benefits:
- Has a balance between the set number with percentages and the feelings based RPE. For example, you might have a set of 3 reps RIR 2. Which you initially know is whatever your 5-rep max is. So, you have a number in your head already that you can work towards. But also, the flexibility of the RPE. If as you’re doing your warmups, you can see it will be a weak or a strong day, you can adjust the weight you had planned according to how you feel.
- Can be used with set weights rather than set reps. For example, you could have 130kg on squats with an RIR of 2. That way you know exactly what weight to work up to and can plan your warmups accordingly.
- Can be very useful for accessories, especially when trying to get someone to push their accessories hard.
Drawbacks:
- Can be very hard to know what weight to do sometimes. Especially if you are a beginner without having knowledge of what your various rep maxes are.
- Can be hard to program low effort days/sets as RIR gets less accurate the higher the RIR is.
- Similar to RPE, it does involve an element of the athlete thinking and judging for themselves. If they get this wrong it can lead to under and overshooting.
My personal opinion:
I would not disregard any of these options. I think they can all have their place for various types of people and have their uses.
For me personally as a coach, I mainly use RPE as I like the flexibility. I don’t sell set programs; I work with people 1 to 1. This eliminates the human error aspect after working with someone for a little while, as I can give them feedback on whether they’re massively under or overshooting. Alternatively, I can sometimes just adjust the programming to suit the individuals’ opinions. If someone chronically undershoots, I’ll give them higher numbers. If someone chronically overshoots, I’ll give them lower numbers.
However, I will use other options like %, RIR, or even set weight and reps depending on the person and what will benefit them the most. It is very individual based as to what will work best for you.
If you need help with your programming and your workouts then send me a message on the contact form for us to start working together.
