How to PR every Workout

Most people stop training because they get frustrated not seeing results and the effort becomes too much for the reward. One of the best things I learned while competing in powerlifting was to always break a PR (personal record). If you hit a new PR every training session it does two things to benefit you. First, it keeps you engaged because you can see the progress being made for your effort. Secondly, it teaches you to compete with yourself every time you train. There will always be somebody bigger or better at some exercise than you, but if you’re always bringing a better version of yourself, then you’re winning. Louie Simmons would often say that at Westside Barbell, we would hit PRs 90+% of our Max Effort workouts. While this is true, it also wasn’t just a measure of a one rep max on bench press, squat, and deadlift. This article is going to show you how you can PR every training session and make continual progress without increasing the risk of injury. 

        REP PR

We would use this for both main lifts and also accessory exercises like dumbbell benches, rollbacks, JM Presses, and so on. On the main exercise like a squat. Bench, deadlift variation, you can establish a 1,3, and 5 rep max. You can utilize these different Rep PRs throughout the year based on competition schedule. On accessory exercises, we would use a higher rep range to shoot for like 10,15, and 20 rep max. If your 3 and 5 rep max is going up, it’s usually a good sign that you’re increasing absolute strength which will lead to a higher 1 rep max. On the accessory exercises, the higher rep maxes are about increasing strength endurance. This is essentially teaching your muscles to fire for a longer period of time. 

Grip Placement PR

For bench press, we would track our close grip, medium grip, and competition grip on all pressing exercises. We would also piggy back after the last section and have rep PRs with each grip. When you add in variations of different boards used for pressing and also combinations of accommodating resistance, the grip used can make for a lot of variety. This also can help identify weak areas in pressing or pulling exercises like pull ups and chin ups. Only working one grip position on any exercise will limit your overall strength potential and also increase the risk of an overuse injury. 

    Stance PR

This was commonly used for lower body exercises. For Deadlift, we would have a conventional stance, sumo, and ultra wide PR on every variation. This would help us focus on building our weak points and help us assess where we had better leverages. One of the most dreaded Squat exercises was a close stance low box (10-12 inches) safety bar squat. This was really to build the deadlift more than the squat. Track your PRs as you play with different stances and it will help you build a much stronger lower body. 

      Time PR

The time PR was always an accessory exercise or even a finisher at the end of a training session. This could be doing dumbbell presses for a set time and tracking the number of reps you get and trying to break that each time. It could be holding a position for as long as you can like a dead hang or double over hand axle holds. These were used less because they can have a pretty damaging effect from them because of the time under tension. Use this as a great way to change up the pace of a training session. 

Off-Season PR

This is a pretty simple one. If one your trackable exercises goes up when you’re not getting ready for a competition, then this is a good sign because it’s without additional motivation of a competition and your body isn’t near peak physical condition yet. This can be a double edged sword that needs to be monitored. You don’t need to be at your best 12 weeks out from a competition. When these numbers go up, it should be very gradual and recovery should be monitored during this. 

Post Injury PR

Any strength athlete who has been around for a while has some injuries or tweaks that need to be worked around. This is where the post injury PR comes in. This is where you set markers in your training coming back to hit so that you can keep motivation up instead of being the person that says “ I used to be able to lift X, but this injury stopped me”. Injuries can be frustrating, but they shouldn’t make you stop training hard. 

Now that you can see all the ways to hit a new PR, you have tools to keep yourself engaged in your own training for continued progress. If there are any you would add to the list, I would love to hear them. Shoot me an email at nick@showtimestrength.com.

Nick Showman

Showtime Strength & Performance