The one-rep max: what it is and why it is estimated
A one-rep max (1RM) is the heaviest weight you can lift for exactly one repetition with full technique. Testing it directly is expensive: it requires maximal attempts, careful warm-up, and carries injury and fatigue risk — most lifters test it infrequently or never. So practice uses submaximal prediction: lift a weight for several reps, then extrapolate to the single-rep limit.
The best-known formula is Epley: 1RM ≈ w × (1 + r/30), where w is the weight lifted and r the reps performed to near-failure. A rival form, Brzycki's, is 1RM ≈ w × 36/(37 − r). Worked: 100 kg for 5 reps gives Epley 100 × (1 + 5/30) ≈ 116.7 kg; Brzycki gives 100 × 36/32 = 112.5 kg. Close, but not identical — and that spread is the point. These coefficients were fitted to group data, and real lifters diverge from them in systematic ways:
- Rep capability varies by training background. Trained lifters typically sustain more reps at a given percentage of max than beginners, so formulas tend to *under*-predict their true 1RM at higher rep ranges.
- "To failure" is fuzzy. A set stopped at the technical breakdown of the last clean rep is not the same stimulus as a set that grinds through slow, form-breaking reps to get there.
- Exercise and body region matter. Prediction is tighter for squat and bench than for small-muscle or highly skill-dependent lifts.
Percentage tables (5RM ≈ 85-90% of 1RM, 10RM ≈ 75-80%, and similar) are the same idea viewed from the other side: planning loads as fractions of an *estimated* max. Bodyweight-normalised scoring systems (the classic Wilks coefficient, and its successor DOTS used in powerlifting) convert absolute totals into body-class comparisons via a nonlinear bodyweight curve — useful for ranking, meaningless as a training target.