Training Max Calculator
Your training max is 90% of your one-rep max — the anchor a 5/3/1-style program loads every percentage off. Enter a recent set and it estimates your 1RM first, then takes 90% and floors it to the bar. Already know your 1RM? Enter it as your weight × 1 rep.
Applied to an already-conservative e1RM (a set left with reps in reserve), 90% lands the training max near 0.84–0.87 of your true 1RM — heavy enough to drive work, low enough that the reps are there on a bad day.
How the number is computed
Two steps: estimate the one-rep max with Brzycki, then take 90% of it and floor to the nearest plate. Worked out for a set of 102.5 kg × 5:
The last step floors rather than rounds — 103.8 kg becomes 102.5, not 105. One more nudge toward a number you can always hit.
Why the anchor sits low on purpose
Ninety percent looks aggressive until you see what it's ninety percent of. Enter a rep set and Sterka takes 90% of an estimate drawn from a set you left with reps in reserve — one that already sits a few percent under what you could actually grind out on a good day. Stack the two together and the training max lands at roughly 0.84 to 0.87 of your genuine 1RM. Enter a tested single instead and there's no estimate in the chain: the training max is a flat 90% of the max you actually hit. Either way it's a working anchor, not a ceiling.
That gap is the whole point. A training max you can beat is a training max the program can build on. Every session prescribes reps against it, and the plan reads how those reps go to decide the next move. When the anchor is honest-to-low, the reps are there, the bar speed stays fast, and the numbers climb. When the anchor is set to your best-ever single, the first hard week buries you and the plan spends its time walking you back.
Undershooting self-corrects. Hit your prescribed reps with room to spare and the training max steps up next block — you lose nothing but a few easy sessions on the way. Overshooting doesn't self-correct so gently: it shows up as missed lifts, grinding singles, and a wave that peaks into a wall instead of a rep. The conservative anchor is the engine choosing the recoverable failure mode over the costly one.
If the number here looks light, that's the design working. It's the weight you build from, not the weight you brag about.
The training max is one number in a full program. Sterka builds the rest — session by session, around your recovery.
Join the WaitlistThis shows how the training max is derived — the engine's math on one set, not a plan built for you. The real one starts with a screening. Consult a clinician before starting a new program.