When to Test

How often should we test? The simple answer is:  it depends. But probably less often than you think. As a beginner, you can show up and PR pretty much every workout, but that doesn’t last forever. As we get better, progress will come harder, so we need to spend more time building. On top of that we are more likely to have had a good day the last time we PRed, so unless we are peaked and feeling good when we retest, it’s even harder to see that progress show up. Imagine we are building a wall. Our goal is to build it as high as we can. Every day we are laying brick. Every set is adding to that wall. On days we test, we show up to the wall and break out the tape measure, see where we are at, and then go home. No bricks were laid. On days we test, we are not building and our wall doesn’t get any higher. As that wall gets bigger, it will become harder to test. As we become more advanced, testing will require more prep leading up to it and more recovery after. Now instead of not building for that day, it’s weeks of not building to test one time. The goal again is to build the biggest wall possible, so we don’t need to always know where we’re at, just where we’re going. It is important to know where we are to help dictate our training, but we can use indicators to still allow us to build while testing. This can be through rep maxes or variations or even just how it feels. If I see my 5 rep max squat or my power clean goes up then I know I’m getting stronger, and I can keep doing what I’m doing.