How to Help Your Client Hit a New PR

A PR, in relation to fitness, is a personal record. It is your personal best for some type of fitness achievement. You’ve lifted your heaviest weight, completed your highest number of reps, or set some other personal fitness record. It's a popular term in CrossFit and lifting, and with so many different types of lifts, it's possible to hit PRs all the time.

In other sports, PRs may not happen as often. For instance, in running you may hit a PR—a new best race time or per-mile pace—only once or twice a year. Regardless of the type of fitness or sport, helping your clients hit a new PR is beneficial and supports their overall goals.

Here we dive into different PRs within a fitness setting, also providing tips to help you hit yours if that is your fitness goal.

Why Personal Record Matters

Achieving a new gym PR is important for many reasons. One is that it signals that you are making progress. If you can lift a heavier weight, this is a sign of increased strength. Being able to do one more rep also signifies strength increases, along with increases in endurance.

In addition to measuring training progress, hitting PR goals is a great way to stay motivated. There’s something invigorating about achieving a new personal best. It’s like when your goal is weight loss and you step on the scale to see your lowest weight ever. You can feel your motivation instantly rise, encouraging you to stay the course.

Types of PR in Fitness

When training, an athlete or exercise enthusiast can work to set a record in a variety of different areas. Here are a few of the most common fitness PRs.

Weight PR or 1RM PR

If someone lifts their heaviest weight ever, they have achieved a new weight PR. In weightlifting, this is often referred to as a 1RM PR, which involves achieving a new record in your 1 rep max. Your 1 rep max is the amount of weight you can lift one time during a given exercise.

Specific Exercise PR

Some people set out to achieve a new personal record with a specific exercise. Weight training exercises where it is common to work toward a new record include the three hallmark movements in powerlifting. They are the:

• Deadlift. According to data collected by Strength Level, the average beginning male exerciser can deadlift 173 pounds. This weight increases to 246 pounds for novice exercisers and 440 pounds for someone with an advanced level of fitness. For females, the average deadlift weight for beginners is 84 pounds. This increases to 132 pounds for novice exercisers and 265 pounds for those who are advanced. These numbers can help give you a point of reference when working to achieve your deadlift PR.

• Bench Press. Some exercisers strive to reach a new bench press PR. Again, knowing the averages can help. Males with a beginning strength level bench press an average of 103 pounds according to Strength Level data. Males with a novice strength level can bench 154 pounds, while advanced exercisers can bench an average of 291 pounds. A female new to strength training can bench press an average of 38 pounds. Bench weight increases to 69 pounds for females with a novice strength level and 164 pounds for those in the advanced strength category.

• Squat. A third powerlifting exercise where it is common to try to reach a new record is the squat. When choosing a squat PR to aim for, Strength Level reports that the average for beginner males is a weight of 141 pounds. A male with a novice strength level can squat around 206 pounds, with advanced exercisers squatting a weight of 381 pounds. For females, the average for beginners is 65 pounds. A female with novice strength can generally squat a weight of 107 pounds, this amount increasing to 227 pounds for those with advanced strength.

It should be noted that you don’t have to be in powerlifting to work toward a PR in these exercises. Any exerciser with any level of fitness can benefit from achieving a record deadlift, bench press, or squat.

Rep PR

Another area where you might try to set a new record is with your repetitions or reps. If you can do one more rep than you did in your last training session, this shows that you are making progress. Your muscle mass is growing, getting stronger each step of the way. Doing more reps is also a sign that you’re gaining endurance.

Training Volume PR

You might also try to set a new PR in your training volume. Volume is calculated by multiplying your sets by your reps by the amount of weight lifted (sets x reps x weight = volume). This is a good way to keep track of your progress during individual training sessions.

Competition PR

Individuals involved in bodybuilding may try to beat a competition PR. Maybe you placed tenth in your last competition, so you want to place higher the next time you compete. Those participating in powerlifting may also try to beat a previous competition-based personal record.

Things to Keep in Mind When Trying to Achieve Your Personal Best

When making your PR attempt, it’s important to be reasonable. If your last weightlifting record involved a weight of 95 pounds, for instance, trying for a new weight of 100 pounds is reasonable. Anything more than that can result in injury, keeping you from weightlifting altogether.

You can also measure your progress and, therefore, your success in other ways as well. This might involve taking measurements to keep track of your muscle growth. Or you might track your body weight to measure weight loss or weight gain.

It’s also helpful to keep in mind that lifting a heavier weight or doing one more rep isn’t everything. Instead, you might simply aim to keep a consistent workout schedule. This is the key to building muscle and improving fitness. Once you’re exercising regularly, then you can work on beating your personal records.

Why Should I Worry if I Hit a New PR?

Your client may not be all that concerned about PRs. In fact, you may come up against some resistance. There are several reasons a client may push back on this kind of training focus: fear of failure, unwillingness to push too hard or be uncomfortable, or a focus on other goals, like weight loss.

Athletes, trainers, and serious fitness buffs know the power of a PR. Most of us will never be winners in our chosen sports; your client is not likely to place in their next 5K or win a big CrossFit competition. But what anyone can do is compete with their own past performances, and beat them.

Achieving a personal record is a great way to stay motivated, to push harder, and to feel good about all the effort put into workouts and training. While bigger, more important goals may be good health or getting down to a healthy weight, PRs can be great side goals that support the main ones.

Tips for Getting Your Clients to More PRs

PRs are just plain fun to hit. It makes all that hard work feel worthwhile and provides a big self-confidence boost. Help your clients hit more new PRs than ever before by guiding them, pushing them, and setting goals for PRs that make sense for their abilities and time they can put into training.

Start with Appropriate Goal Setting

To hit a new PR, it helps to have goals. Sure, hitting the PR is the goal, but succeeding at it requires a little more finesse. Work with your client to set goals for fitness, strength, lifting, running, or whatever sport they enjoy.

Keep in mind that goals are most likely to be met when they are specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic. They should also have a time limit. For example, a good goal would be for a client to lift to beat his deadlift PR in four weeks. That gives your client something very specific to work toward in a certain amount of time.

Children can hit PRs too. Read this enlightening post about kids and Olympic weightlifting.

Design Workouts with PRs in Mind

Your job as a trainer is to plan workouts for your clients that will best help them meet their goals, and then push them to do those workouts. Focusing on a PR means your workout design should also have that focus. Train specifically to hit the PR, and not only will your client hit it, but they will also be working toward achieving their overall goals.

Attempt to Hit a New PR Often

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take," so said the famous winner Wayne Gretzky. And he was right. Your client will never hit a PR if they are afraid to try. Let's say you have a client who wants to get faster at 5K races. Will that happen if she never registers for a race? Or does one per year?

Encourage that client to sign up for a lot of races. The more she does, the more likely she is to hit that new PR she has been working so hard to achieve. The same goes for any type of PR. Your client trying to hit a new squat or deadlift goal will only do it if he tries it every time he hits the gym. With this strategy, there will be many failures, but that's how you get to a win.

Is your client looking to hit a bench press PR? Check out this ISSA post on perfecting the barbell bench press.

Push Training - Get Your Client in the Gym

Just as your client will never hit that PR without actually trying to do it, they also won't do it without putting in the hard work. One of the great things about working toward a new PR is that it tends to motivate.

Make sure you get your client into the gym enough hours per week to actually achieve the PR. And if you can't or they can't find adequate time, it may be necessary to adjust the goal. A goal or PR that doesn't make sense based on your client's effort will only demotivate them.

Keep Records

As a good trainer you are constantly evaluating your clients and keeping track of their progress, right? Keeping good records for PRs can also help as a motivating tool. Let your client see how far they have come. It gives them a good sense of what they are actually capable of and makes difficult goals and PRs seem more achievable.

With a record of attempts, your clients will also be able to see that there are ups and downs. That their failed attempts to hit PRs are consistently followed by wins. Seeing the overall picture helps make losses seem normal, just a part of the process.

Prepare for the Attempt

Prepping to hit a new PR is mostly about all the weeks of work leading up to it. But you can also help your client be more likely to succeed by working on short-term preparation. Talk about rest days in advance of PR attempts, eating right, visualizing the win, and working on mental focus and blocking out distractions.

Coach through the Failures

A big reason some clients may not want to push for PRs is because failure is inevitable. You can't win if you don't try, but no one PRs on every attempt. Make sure your client understands this and be ready to pick up the pieces when they inevitably feel down after a failure.

Share with your clients your own failures. They look up to you, so if you fail, it can help them better understand that it's just a part of the training process. Celebrate their wins, but also celebrate the non-wins. These attempts are important and help lead to the one that will be successful.

Hitting a new PR is a powerful win for anyone. For clients who have never really competed or whose competitive days are long behind them, this competition with the self is motivating and supports overall fitness goals. Talk to your clients about PRs and help them get more wins.

Looking for a little more focus in your training? A specialization for working on strength, agility, and speed in athletes can help you push all your clients to hit more PRs. Check out ISSA's comprehensive certification course in Strength and Conditioning.

Click HERE to download this handout and share with your clients!