Setting a 50-pound personal record (PR) is undoubtedly an exhilarating moment in your training journey. It’s the kind of progress that highlights why you started training to begin with and vividly remembered for years or maybe even for the rest of your life. The downside to this story: massive PRs are rare, and the time it takes to achieve one can feel like an eternity. Focusing on setting smaller, incremental PRs, as little as 5lbs or even 2lbs is a key to sustainable, long-term progress.
Incremental progress feeds consistency. When you hit a massive PR, you’ve lifted more weight than your body has ever handled. While this is an amazing achievement, it’s also a double-edged sword. The higher the jump in weight, the longer it may take to replicate or break that record. PR’s are OK but what needs to improve over the long term is what you can consistently hit any day of the week under any condition. Being a bit more conservative and setting small prs will allow you to incrementally build your lifts over shorter periods of time. This kind of consistent progress reinforces the feeling of accomplishment, releasing dopamine and keeps you motivated week after week.
To put it into perspective, consider a PR as a 1-2% increase in a lift. Over time, these small increments accumulate into significant gains. You step back and reflect you notice that it’s a lot easier, physically and psychologically to consistently improve incrementally, as long as you are extending the span of time at which progress is measured.
Every time you attempt a PR, you’re pushing your body into uncharted territory, Big PR’s inherently increase. Big PR bigger risk-small PR smaller risk. Your muscles, joints, and connective tissues have never experienced that specific load before. This increases your risk of injury. Now, imagine that weight being 50 pounds over your previous max. The risk skyrockets. Will you body recover from this?
By contrast, a 5lb PR (or 1-2% increase) introduces a manageable new stimulus. It’s enough to challenge your body without overwhelming it, allowing you to adapt and grow stronger while minimizing the chances of setbacks. Staying healthy is crucial if you’re in the game for the long haul.
Aside from the physical idea of continuing to make progress the psychological effect can be the determining factor to whether or not you continue to train. If you only celebrate massive PRs, you might feel like you’re not making progress during the months (or years) it takes to reach the next big milestone. This mindset can be discouraging and make training feel stagnant. On the other hand, regularly hitting small PRs builds psychological momentum. You’ll consistently feel like you’re moving forward, which makes showing up to train easier and more rewarding.
If every PR attempt is weighed down by the pressure to add 50 pounds, this is a sure way to set yourself up for frustration. Training should feel like progress, not a relentless chase for impossible standards.
Play the long game and remind yourself you’re training because you are trying to stay strong healthy and capable for as long as possible. The ultimate goal of strength training isn’t just to hit big numbers; it’s to stay strong, healthy, and capable for as long as possible. In order to get stronger you must put yourself in a mild risk to push yourself that’s how we adapt and grow stronger. The biggest risks we face is exposure to stimulus that is above our maximum know capability level. Keep in mind every time you attempt a max effort, you’re taking a risk. As you age, that risk increases, and so does the cost of recovering from an injury.
When I was younger, I used to push my limits all the time. I’d see how long I could keep my hand in the fire before getting burned. Needless to say, I got burned plenty of times. Some of the PRs I’ve set in the past aren’t even worth pursuing anymore because of the sheer time and energy it would take to attempt to break them is not worth my training time, attention and dedication. I now have other more important goals than setting 5 rep maxes. If I could go back in time, I’d focus on smaller increases gains, no more than 2% at a time, and give myself more time to develop skill, strength and hypertrophy. However if I were to go back in time and make that change it might not be the coach and athlete that I am today.
For new lifters, progress often comes quickly. Adding 5 pounds to the bar each session might feel easy at first, equating to a 15-pound increase per week. But as your training age increases, the timeline for improvement slows down. Weeks turn into months, months turn into quarters, and quarters turn into years. The initial phase of quick and fast training progress, step back and think more in terms of progression over years.
Taken an annual approach earlier in ones lifting career, helps mitigates injuries and builts a stronger foundation for future progress. This is the mindset I advocate for my lifters: focus on annual progress rather than obsessing over immediate PRs. By doing so, you separate yourself from the short-term mindset that often leads to burnout or frustration.
Take a sensible approach to PRs because the truth is every time you step into the gym and train with resistance, you’re putting yourself at risk. But with a sensible mindset, you can minimize that risk and maximize your gains. A 2 or 5 pound PR doesn’t sound fancy, but it will keep you moving forward. And when you add up those small victories over time, you’ll find yourself lifting weights you once thought impossible, without sacrificing your health or longevity.
So, the next time you’re tempted to go for a massive PR, ask yourself: will this serve my long-term goals? If the answer is no, grab those fractional plates and celebrate the progress that’s sustainable, sensible, and truly satisfying.