Percentage of 1RM

Why it matters for online coaching

Two clients both squatting "heavy" might be moving 60kg and 140kg. Without a shared intensity marker, the programme is meaningless as it travels between them. Percentage of 1RM turns a vague word into a number both clients can act on. The 80% set means the same thing to each, relative to their own ceiling.

For a remote coach, this is the difference between a programme that scales and one that does not. Write one block at 75 to 85% of 1RM and it works for a strength client in Sydney and a strength client in Manchester. The coach adjusts the ceiling, not the structure.

The catch is the ceiling itself. A client's 1RM drifts over a training cycle, up with adaptation and down with fatigue. A percentage written in week one is stale by week four. That is the gap RPE and autoregulation fill, and the reason most coaches use both markers together rather than choosing one.

Our data on what coaches actually programme

Percentage-based loading lives in the strength rep brackets, and our platform audit of rep ranges shows those brackets cluster tightly. Coaches programme 3 to 6 reps for strength work around a small set of compound lifts, which is exactly where percentage of 1RM is most useful. In the higher rep brackets, where hypertrophy lives, the marker matters less because proximity to failure, not a fraction of a max, drives the adaptation.

This is read from real programmes, not inferred. The rep brackets a coach chooses tell you which load marker they are likely relying on.

How it shows up in coaching software

The programme editor accepts a load as a percentage, a raw weight, or both. A coach writes 4x6 at 80% and the client sees the calculated weight next to the percentage, updated if their max changes. That is the small, unglamorous feature that makes percentage-based programming deliverable at roster scale. Without it, the coach is recalculating 30 clients' loads by hand each week.

The marker itself carries no opinion. The software does not tell you that 80% is right for your client. It makes the coach's instruction legible to the client and consistent across the roster. For the full picture of how programmes are built and reused, see writing client programmes faster.

Related terms

Percentage of 1RM is one of two load markers coaches use inside a block. RPE is the other, and the two are usually paired, percentage for the planned load and RPE for the daily adjustment. Block periodisation is the container both markers sit inside.

Where this is drawn from

Percentage-based loading is standard practice in strength and conditioning and is codified in the NSCA's Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. The NSCA is the primary source. Our addition is the coaching-software standpoint and the platform data on which brackets coaches actually use it in.