A Better Way to Look at PRs

A Better Way to Look at PRs
Written by Hunter Britt

We all love PRs! That is what we are training for, right?

After all, that is qualitative data that is the proof for some of us that we are getting “better”. Sometimes, however, they can affect how we feel about our fitness. A big PR day usually gets you pretty pumped; your confidence is up and you just want to workout more. On the other hand, some days you are just not going to have it; you may not PR and the best thing you can simply do is move past it and look forward to other chances to improve.

I want to talk about those times when you get a PR and are bummed because it appears to be too small. A lot of athletes will say, “I PR’d my strict press, but it was only by five pounds.” I see this often on the competition workout blog comments. I want athletes to try this approach the next time you PR. If your max strict press was 100 pounds and you hit a PR at 105 pounds, do not look at the pound difference in the terms of “only adding five pounds”; but instead, look at it as a percentage. We all know a strict press is hard to get to go up and for a lot of us it is because we are not thinking percentages. You just increased your strict press by 5%! If we took that same improvement and put that towards a 300 pound deadlift that would make your deadlift 315 pounds. That is a little more exciting!

Now your next thought is that you now want a 15 pound PR on your squat. For a lot of seasoned, well trained athletes, like yourselves, that is likely not going to happen too often and definitely not like it used to. If we look at an extremely well trained strength athlete, like a powerlifter, you will see them going for small pound PRs most of the time. There are a few reasons for that. Something that athletes can respect is confidence in their training, that if they hit a five pound PR or a ten pound PR every time they go to a meet that eventually those numbers are going to add up pretty well. If you consistently chase five to ten more pounds then soon you will have some pretty high numbers. (I am talking about their max out days, not just their heavy days.)

Overall, be happy with any and all improvements. Have the patience and confidence to know that you are and can keep getting those PRs. It is way better to increase your PR by five pounds for the next five sessions that we test than increase by 25 pounds all at once and keep failing the rest of the weeks. Mentally you will feel better knowing that every time you lift, you have the potential to hit a PR.