Why Programming Frequent PRs Matters #363

<div>Matt talks to Niki about a refinement of MED principles and how PRs play into the ultimate goal of improving people's quality of life and reaching & surpassing their goals.<br /> <br /> At Barbell Logic, we're really oriented toward the vast majority of people who want to improve their quality of life, and strength and the process of getting stronger can help them. This doesn't mean these people can't get seriously strong, but it means we're not focused on world records or mimicking methods of the world's strongest people. <br /> <br /> Because quality of life and reaching clients' goals are really our purpose, PRs have to connect to this purpose. It can't just be about 1RMs and the typical PRs. We need to tie together consistency, form, quality of life, and PRs.<br /> <br /> First, programming consistent progress & PRs matters for EVERYBODY. People who train consistently and don't have monkey wrenches of injury or exorbitant life stress should be progressing consistently, and they can progress every single workout. <br /> <br /> Part of this came from seeing different set & rep schemes graphed on the new BLOC App, which some BLOC clients are using and to which more will be transferred soon. Matt realized that clients who weren't facing extreme life stress & injury were making volume PRs EVERY SINGLE WORKOUT.<br /> <br /> PRs are an objective way to demonstrate progress. Even people who don't agree with Barbell Logic's philosophy or programming agree that stress needs to increase over time to continue to progress. PRs demonstrate objective, quantifiable demonstrations of progress, and expanding PRs beyond the 1RM helps show that it's not just improvement every couple or few months (especially for more advanced lifters) but that you're doing more consistently. It shows that stress has gone up and that you can handle more stress and that you're stronger.<br /> <br /> It's both about objectivity and a changed mindset. It's about not only seeing the progress, but about looking for it beyond the typical PRs that