Guides / Programming
How to calculate next week's loads from RPE
The arithmetic coaches do by hand every Sunday, written out step by step, with the mistakes to avoid.
Start with what actually happened
Say your client benched 75 kg for 6 reps and told you it felt like an RPE 8. Those three numbers are everything you need. The weight, the reps, and how hard it was.
Step one: how many reps were left
RPE 10 means nothing left. RPE 9 means one more rep. RPE 8 means two. So a set of 6 at RPE 8 is really a set of 8 in terms of what the client is capable of. That matters, because 6 reps at RPE 8 and 6 reps at RPE 10 are two very different days.
Step two: estimate the one rep max
The usual formula is Epley: one rep max equals weight times one plus reps divided by thirty. With our example that is 75 times 1 plus 8 over 30, which comes to about 95 kg.
It is an estimate, not a measurement. It is close enough to program from, and it is much safer than actually testing a max every month.
Step three: build the weeks off that number
Pick percentages that climb, then drop. A common shape looks like this:
- Week 1: 70 percent for 4 sets of 8
- Week 2: 75 percent for 4 sets of 6
- Week 3: 80 percent for 5 sets of 5
- Week 4: 60 percent for 3 sets of 5, the lighter week
On a 95 kg estimate that gives roughly 67.5, 72.5, 76 and 57.5 kg.
Step four: round to real plates
76 kg is not loadable in most gyms. Round to the nearest jump you can actually make, which is 2.5 kg with kilo plates or 5 lb with pounds. So 76 becomes 75. This sounds obvious and it is the mistake that makes a program look amateur when a client opens it.
The three mistakes to avoid
Ignoring RPE. If you treat every set as maximal you will underprogram a client who left reps in the tank, and overprogram one who did not.
Using an old number. The estimate is only as good as the set it came from. Use the most recent real set, not the one from eight weeks ago.
Chasing the estimate. If the estimated max jumps 15 percent in one week, something is wrong with the data, not with your client. Check the log before you write the next block on top of it.
Doing this twenty times
Everything above takes about two minutes for one lift. A four day block has sixteen lifts. Across a full roster that is most of a day, every month, doing arithmetic.
Here is the same math as a free tool, or start free and it will do a whole block at once.