Swipe to see how to choose your weights when starting out in the weight room or with a new movement.

What happens if you don’t know your 1 RM or percentages? What happens if you aren’t experienced enough to gauge RPE (rate of perceived exertion)? Can you still choose your weight well?

Well, good news, you’ve got options (again, swipe).

First off recognize that everyone starts somewhere. And at some point you’re going to have to pick up a weight, or load the barbell and see what it feels like. There is a season of trial and error that needs to be both expected and respected.

The sooner you get through that season, the more willing you are to LEARN and not get it perfect, the sooner you’ll figure your weights.

No matter which approach you use from above – rule of two, amraps, or straight up guessing, it can be confusing to know what sets count and which ones don’t.

As a rule of thumb, always start conservatively.

You can add more weight. Better to be safe, and perform a few more reps than to go big and possibly increase risk of injury.

Sets that were light don’t count. Yes the work is done, but think about these as warm up sets. Then when you find your appropriate weight, these are your working sets.

If a weight was too heavy (you could not complete the set by more than 2 reps), it counts, but you need to lower the weight. That counts because the intensity was high. Vs the sets where weight was light, as was intensity.

Using the rule of two and amraps can be helpful even if parts of your lifting program do use or work off of percentages. That’s because you likely are not going to use percentages based on 1 rep maxes for accessory work like a lat pull down, bicep girl, or walking lunge.

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