Percentage-based training
Training Maxes: a practical guide
A Training Max is a deliberately conservative number used to calculate your working weights. It keeps a percentage-based program tied to your real strength without making every session depend on your best-ever lift.
What is a Training Max?
A Training Max, often shortened to TM, is a submaximal reference number. A program applies its percentages to the Training Max instead of your true one-rep max, or 1RM.
Chad Wesley Smith calls this number a Working Max in his Juggernaut Method material. Dynamic Program uses Training Max, or TM, for both JTS and 5/3/1 progression so the same app field keeps the same name.
A common starting point is 90% of a recent tested or estimated 1RM. Some 5/3/1 templates use 85% instead. The correct percentage is the one required by the specific program or template you are following.
A Training Max is not a prediction of the most you can lift. It is the number your program uses to choose productive working weights.
Why not calculate from your true 1RM?
A true 1RM reflects what you can do under near-perfect conditions. Normal sessions happen with changing levels of sleep, stress, soreness, and fatigue. If every percentage starts from your absolute limit, those ordinary changes can turn planned work into missed reps.
A conservative Training Max builds room for imperfect days. It makes it easier to keep technique consistent, maintain bar speed, complete the planned volume, and recover before the next session.
The buffer also makes AMRAP sets more useful. Instead of fighting just to reach the minimum, you can demonstrate progress through clean extra reps and use that performance to guide future cycles.
Better sessions
Working weights remain realistic when readiness changes from one day to the next.
Better reps
Submaximal loading leaves more room for useful volume, sound technique, and faster reps.
Better progress
Small planned increases can continue longer than repeated attempts to force a new maximum.
How to calculate a Training Max
1. Find a current 1RM
Use a recently tested 1RM or estimate one from a recent hard set. A set of roughly 1 to 10 reps can work, though lower-rep sets taken reasonably close to failure usually give a more useful strength estimate.
2. Apply the program's percentage
Multiply the 1RM by 0.90 for a 90% Training Max, or by 0.85 when the template calls for 85%. Do not switch percentages just to make the result look more impressive.
3. Round to a load you can use
Round the result to an increment you can load with the plates available to you, commonly the nearest 2.5 kg or 5 lb.
Example: 150 kg squat 1RM
Training Max: 150 kg × 90% = 135 kg
An 85% work set: 135 kg × 85% = 114.75 kg
Rounded load: 115 kg on the bar
If you do not know your current maximum, the estimated 1RM formula weight × reps × 0.0333 + weight provides a starting point. The 1RM calculator can do the estimate for you.
How 5/3/1 uses a Training Max
Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 uses percentages of a Training Max for the main lifts. The classic starting point is 90% of a current true or estimated 1RM, while some later templates call for a more conservative 85% Training Max. Follow the instructions for the exact 5/3/1 template you are running.
After a cycle, add 5 lb or about 2.5 kg to the TM for the bench press and overhead press, and 10 lb or about 5 kg for the squat and deadlift. Calculate the next cycle from the new TM instead of retesting your 1RM.
The small increase is intentional. It allows the percentages to rise gradually while rep PRs show progress inside the cycle. A strong final set is evidence that the Training Max is doing its job, not a reason to skip several planned increases.
In a 5/3/1 TM test, the important question is whether you can perform the program's required reps at 100% of the Training Max. It is a check on the TM, not a true 1RM test.
How JTS uses a Training Max
Start JTS progression with a conservative Training Max, or TM. A common starting point is 90% of a recent true or estimated 1RM.
The Juggernaut Method organizes training into 10s, 8s, 5s, and 3s waves. Each wave moves through accumulation, intensification, realization, and deload phases. The TM supports the volume in those phases without treating every percentage as a percentage of your absolute limit.
Juggernaut uses the realization phase's AMRAP performance to adjust the next TM. The general formula is:
New TM = current TM +
(reps performed − standard reps) × increment per rep
Meeting the standard keeps progression conservative; beating it by more reps produces a larger increase. The TM changes after the wave's realization set.
When to lower or reset a Training Max
A reset is part of long-term training, not a punishment. Fixed increases eventually move faster than real strength gains. When the gap closes, lowering the Training Max restores room for quality work and future progress.
Consider a reset when you repeatedly miss required reps, when AMRAP performance falls below the program's standard, or when normal work sets have become slow grinders across several sessions. One unusually poor day is usually not enough evidence by itself.
Recalculate from recent performance
Estimate a current 1RM from a recent hard set, then take the program's required 85% or 90% to establish a new Training Max.
Roll back a few cycles
For 5/3/1, returning to the TM from two or three cycles earlier is a simple way to rebuild momentum.
Reset only the lift that stalled
Your squat, press, bench press, and deadlift do not progress at identical rates. Keep moving the lifts that still meet their targets.
If reducing a Training Max makes the first cycle feel easy, that is usually a feature. Productive submaximal work leaves somewhere to progress.
Training Max vs true 1RM
A true 1RM measures maximum strength. A Training Max organizes training. They are related numbers with different jobs.
Common Training Max mistakes
Starting from an old personal record
A lift from your best day months ago may not reflect what you can do now. Use a current tested max or a recent rep-based estimate.
Treating the TM like a personal record
A lower TM changes the program's loading reference. Your true strength still comes from what you can lift.
Adding more after one great set
Do not turn one strong AMRAP or TM test into several cycles of increases at once. Use the progression rule built into 5/3/1, JTS, or the program you chose.
Never resetting
A Training Max that only moves up will eventually stop being submaximal. Resetting restores the buffer that made the method work.
Using poor data for an estimate
Very high-rep sets and sets stopped far from failure can produce misleading 1RM estimates. Use recent, lift-specific performance that reflects your current strength.