When NOT to do "Max Effort" on Max Effort Day

In Conjugate Style programming, when we talk about "Max Effort" work, we're almost always referencing heavy singles.

Usually these heavy singles are an attempt at a new 1-rep max, but it's unrealistic to think that's going to happen 52 weeks out of the year.

So the minimum standard is usually at least a single within 10% of your all time best on that lift.

But are there times when it's best NOT to do heavy singles on Max Effort Day?

Yes.

And here's a few scenarios where that plays out.

#1: Extended Range of Motion Lifting

This is for safety and injury avoidance. A good example would be benching with a 4" cambered bar or perhaps doing something like a stiff leg deadlift or certainly a stiff leg deadlift from a deficit.

Anything where a big tissue is going to be put at an extreme stretch at the end of the range of motion.

In these types of lifts I'd rather see you work up to top sets in the 3-6 rep range. You'll still get the benefits of lifting heavy without the risk of stretching that tissue under extreme loads.

#2: Lifts that "Drain" You

This is a very individual thing that can only be observed with your own individual patterns over time.

I recently had one of my conjugate clients tell me that every time we do Max Effort Rack Pulls he feels completely drained the next couple of weeks. Felt like it impacted his performance in subsequent workouts.

So in this case I recommended we only do like 5-rep maxes on Rack Pulls for the next few cycles and see how that affects things.

"Drain" doesn't mean it's simply hard in the moment. It's all hard in the moment.

It means that the fatigue bleeds over into the next couple of workouts and has a deleterious effect on performance.

#3: Form Degradation

Some lifts are simply hard to hold together for heavy singles.

Perhaps this is the inability to hold the rack position on max effort front squats.

Perhaps you can't keep from bending your knees excessively on a goodmorning.

This is again likely to be an individual thing for you, but if a pattern emerges, then it's okay to do these lifts for heavy 3-5 rep sets vs heavy singles.

#4: You Don't "Have It" Today

You have to be careful to differentiate between just not feeling like lifting today vs legitimately having an off day.

But when you feel like you are legitimately overtrained, under-recovered, etc on any given day it's okay to forgo the max effort single and either do a handful of lighter singles or a top set in the 3-5 range.

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Want to start training with the conjugate system?

The only place I offer coaching and programming via the conjugate method is inside my online coaching group, The Baker Barbell Club.