Why We Test Strength (And Why We Don't Do It Every Week)
Most of the time when you walk into Resilient Body, we're not asking you to prove how strong you are. We're trying to help you become stronger, and those are two different things.
Strength is mostly built through weeks and months of fairly unremarkable work. You repeat the same fundamental movement patterns, accumulate good repetitions, gradually increase loads, improve technique, build muscle, and learn how to create more force. Some days you add weight. Other days you repeat what you did the week before, or even back off because that's what makes sense that day.
Very little of that requires finding out the absolute most weight you can lift.
In fact, constantly testing your strength can start getting in the way of building it. Near-maximal lifting is demanding, gives us relatively little training volume for the fatigue it creates, and oftentimes doesn't leave much room for technical error. A max is useful partly because we don't treat every workout like one, so when we do, we learn something.
This Friday will be a little different than usual. At the end of this training block, we're going to give you the opportunity to work toward a heavy deadlift and strict overhead press in both classes and personal training. Some of you have spent the last several weeks building toward heavier work, and now we get to see where that work has taken us.
That doesn't mean everyone needs to attempt a true max. If you're up for lifting very heavy but don't want to find your absolute limit, that's completely fine. We'll work toward something that feels incredibly heavy while still feeling safe and appropriate for you.
A Max Is a Snapshot, Not a Report Card
There are plenty of reasons to test strength periodically. It gives us useful information for future programming and loading, lets us see how you handle heavier weights, and provides a much clearer reference point than endlessly guessing what your current strength might be, or, as we so often ask: "How many more reps could you have done…?"
There's also something valuable about simply experiencing a genuinely heavy lift. A deadlift near your limit requires a level of tension, commitment, and confidence that even a comfortable but relatively heavy set of 5 reps doesn't. The same is true when you're standing with a heavy barbell at your shoulders knowing that your legs aren't going to bail you out of the press because we’re keeping it strict.
Frankly, lifting something you've never lifted before is also fun. Yes...fun! It's nervy… it’s exciting… and there's a little bit of fear or anxiety that can come with pushing up against a limit. And afterwards, there's something pretty damn magical about getting to the other side of it and realizing you made the lift.
Not every benefit of training needs to be reduced to a physiological adaptation.
At the same time, we don't want to assign more meaning to one number than it deserves. Performance fluctuates. Sleep, food, stress, recovery, technique, confidence, and normal day-to-day variation all contribute to what shows up on a particular day. As we discussed last week, you can feel run down and perform incredibly well, or feel fantastic and have an unexpectedly mediocre session.
A PR is great. Missing one doesn't erase the training that preceded it. Remember that this week too.
The number gives us information. It doesn't give us a verdict. Hopefully, that takes a little pressure off as well.
This Time We're Looking at Strength Two Ways
We'll obviously record the actual weight everyone lifts. Moving more weight than you have before is about as straightforward a measure of progress as we can get in the gym.
For the challenge, though, we're also looking at pound-for-pound strength in the deadlift and strict press using a Wilks score, which adjusts the weight lifted using a coefficient based on bodyweight and sex. We will also look at your strict pound-for-pound number.
That matters because absolute and relative strength aren't the same thing. Larger people generally have an advantage when the only question is who can move the most total weight. Looking at relative strength gives us another way to appreciate performance across members of very different sizes.
Neither tells us everything about how "fit" or "strong" a person is. They're simply different ways of looking at strength, and for this challenge, we're having some fun with both.
Don't Get Tired Proving You're Ready to Lift
The warm-up on Friday should look increasingly heavy and, in some ways, increasingly routine and boring.
We don't need a heroic set of 5 to 8 reps at “70%” (when it’s not actually your 70%), or a bunch of extra reps because the bar feels good. Those reps cost something, and we're trying to arrive at the heaviest attempts prepared without being unnecessarily fatigued. For quite a few of you, this may be your first time deliberately working through a progression like this outside of regular training.
For someone with a reasonably established max, the progression may look roughly like this:
40–50% × 5–8 reps
55–60% × 3–5 reps
65–70% × 3 reps
75–80% × 2 reps
85% × 1 rep
90–92.5% × 1 rep
95–97.5% × 1 rep
From there, we test.
These percentages aren't a recipe everyone needs to follow exactly. A newer lifter may need more repetitions while the weights are light because they're still rehearsing the movement. A more experienced lifter who can generate considerably more force may need fewer reps and more recovery as the bar gets heavy. Your previous max might also be outdated enough that blindly following percentages doesn't make much sense.
The progression gives us a framework. Your training experience and how you're lifting that day determine how closely we follow it. For some of you, counting that 97.5% as max attempt 1 works well too.
Take Your Rest!
This is also where the article we wrote a few weeks ago about rest periods becomes very real.
When the weights are light, we can move relatively quickly. As we get into heavy singles, there's increasingly little benefit to rushing. Once we're approaching maximal efforts, taking three to five minutes before another attempt can be completely appropriate.
That can feel like forever in a one-hour session, particularly when everyone is excited and other people are lifting around you. We'll have 2 to 3 minute rests built into the session, but if you need a little more, take it.
An extra minute or two isn’t going to make you feel weaker. Starting your next max attempt while you're still recovering from the previous one might.
Let the Session Develop
We don't need everyone walking into the gym Friday with three attempts written in stone. We'd rather see how the warm-ups move and make intelligent decisions from there.
Your first truly heavy attempt should still be something you’re confident you can complete. Depending on your history, that might be around 95–97.5% of an established max. Get a strong lift on the board. If it moves well, we make an appropriate jump. If that moves well too, we can take another swing.
That might mean a new PR. It might mean matching an old one more cleanly than you ever have. For someone newer to strength training, Friday may simply establish a useful baseline that didn't exist before.
The coaches will help manage those decisions because once the weight gets heavy, five pounds in the right direction is more useful than twenty pounds that never leaves the floor.
We're also going to hold the movements to actual standards. A deadlift finishes standing tall with the hips and knees extended. A strict press stays a strict press, which means we're not turning it into a push press when things get difficult and driving through your legs. There will always be some normal technical variation near a maximal effort, but adding weight by fundamentally changing the movement defeats much of the purpose of testing it.
We'll keep you honest and safe, so listen to the standards and your coaches that day.
Your Strength Is Already There
This may be the most reassuring thing about testing after training. There isn't much you can do between now and Friday to become meaningfully stronger, which is actually the nice part.
You don't need an extra workout. You don't need to practice a bunch of heavy singles Thursday night. You don't need a special supplement, an enormous dinner, or some elaborate pre-lift ritual you've never used before.
The real work has already happened.
It happened during all the ordinary sessions when nobody was testing anything. It happened when you added five pounds, when you repeated a load until it moved better, when you stopped a set before technique deteriorated, and when you took the rest you needed before doing it again. It happened through the food, sleep, recovery, and consistency that allowed those sessions to accumulate.
Friday is just our chance to put a number on some of it.
Come in normally. We'll handle the progression with you. Take your time as the bar gets heavy, don't worry about what the person next to you is lifting, and don't turn a missed number into anything more meaningful than it is.
Then, when it's time, pick up something heavy and see what happens.
And maybe most importantly this Friday...have some fun with it!
Meet Evan
That makes this a particularly good week to introduce Evan Bachelder, our newest Massage & Manual Therapist at Resilient Body.
Evan brings several years of experience in sports and medical massage, backed by an 800-hour education from the National Holistic Institute and extensive continuing education. His experience ranges from helping runners, swimmers, and strength athletes with training and recovery to working with people managing injuries, surgery recovery, and the physical demands of everyday life.
His approach fits naturally with ours: start with the person in front of you and use the right tools for what they need that day. He'll be offering full massage and manual therapy sessions as well as shorter targeted sessions for more focused work.
And you don't have to wait until something hurts. Sometimes you're sore, sometimes you're training hard, and sometimes life has simply been asking a lot of you. Supportive care can be just as much about keeping yourself humming along as fixing something that's already gone wrong.
Evan will be offering complimentary demo sessions this week so members can meet him, experience his approach, and see how his work might fit into their own recovery. SIGN UP HERE.
📣 Quick Announcements:
Don’t forget to book your complimentary 15 minute demo session with our new massage therapist Evan Bachelder here 👉 BOOK YOUR TIME. Evan will be here for these special short demo sessions 8/25, and 8/27.
August Challenge This Friday! … Our August challenge has already begun, but it’s baked into your current strength training. Your coaches are getting you ready both in class and individual sessions. Show up and train smart and hard. THIS FRIDAY 8/28 WE TEST OUR STRENGTH!
New Program Block Is in full swing with some changes coming to Saturday’s format soon! We hope you are enjoying some of the new movements and class formats.
Bring a friend and you are both free on either class Saturday morning! If they sign up, receive $100 off your package.
New Personal Training Slots Available – Book a consult if you’re ready to level up
💬 Got questions? Reply here or ask your coach next time you're in