Use 70% Training Max? Adjust Plan After Difficult Workout?

Hey everyone. I have some questions and could use some help thinking through some of the thoughts in my head. First things first a few things. I’m a 36 year old male and lift for enjoyment and mental health. I know I’m not an athlete and not trying to be. With that said, some back story. I’ve been doing 5/3/1 for sometime now. I was on my third cycle of 1000% awesome and love it. The issue came that I had a colonoscopy on Thursday. I knew my training schedule would have to be flexible so I trained on Tuesday and figured finish the week on Friday and Sunday. The procedure went well but it was mentioned that I had a small a hernia. I decided today to get back into my groove and start a new cycle. With that I have some questions.

A while back I heard Jim talking about TM and he had mentioned on, I believe it was the power project, that he said he was finding the best results were in a 70% training max. This got me thinking would trying some of the templates at 70% be worth while or even safer with the small hernia or to stay the course? As a side note I have no pain or would have known I had anything like a hernia if I didn’t go through the procedure.

The next question is today I repeated the week that I had didn’t finish. I struggled with the workout. I am down 5-6 lbs since last time but figuring that it was only a week I should be able to still hammer out the workout with ease. Should I readjust my TM’s or run the cycle and see if its just a bad workout?

1)TM is not important. I mean, it is important for planning and training, but the idea is that its not important if you drop the TM - your progress doesnt change as you will just be doing more reps with lower TM, but the same intensity is there so its more of a personal prefference. Jim started with 90% TM, then got to 85%, then 80% by the time of Forever. Now hes at 70%. The truth might be in the middle, but it wont matter much - so just do whatever you feel enjoyable.
I wouldnt like 70% TM as that would mean that my 85% and 90% weeks would be at least 10+ reps and i really dont like doing deadlifts and squats for high reps. Some people like that, so again - doesnt matter, do whatever you enjoy.

2)Just rest, eat, drink lots of water. Then test your TM like it says in the Forever book, and start all new.

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Thanks for the advice. I’m going to do the PR test this week and see where I stand and if I want to drop to a lower TM percentage