A New Way to PR
Written by TJ O’Brien
You’ve taken a class or two, so you know that we want you to see improvement over your time working out here.
Personal Records
Sometimes we record our split times on intervals, other times it’s how quick you did the workout, but most often, personal records (PR) are measured in how much weight you lifted.
But there’s another really useful way you can measure your progress and I find it particularly useful when working on skills like snatching or muscle-ups…
What is a Qualitative PR?
It means that you hit the same weight you’ve hit in the past, but you did it with higher quality. For example, you maintained your tempo a little bit better on a back squat, making it a TRUE 30X1 tempo when in the past you rushed to the bottom on your last few reps.
Likewise, the “same weight, better quality” could be applied to snatching – this is the movement that inspired this article in the first place.
When building to a new PR for the snatch (or any lift), achieving a successful lift does not ONLY mean getting the bar overhead. As I’m sure you’ve observed, you have eeked out a sloppy but “count it!” snatch, and other times you may feel “super snappy,” or just “on”, with your lifts.
What is considered a PR?
The point is, hitting a new PR does not just mean you have to go up in weight. You can always work to improve the quality of your current PR. In fact, this method will likely pay off bigger in the long-term, instead of constantly chasing by-the-pound PRs.
Some food for thought – Qualitative PR’s are just as useful a method to measure your progress and improve your technique.