A SEASON OF VICTORY

April 27, 2010Read: Revelation 7 "These are they who have come out of great tribulation, they have washed their robes in the blood of the lamb." --Revelation 7:14

Today a tradition continued as last year's World Series champions got the honor of visiting the White House and were congratulated by the president. Score the most runs and make fewer mistakes than any other team, and you get to meet the leader of the free world. If you win, you're in.

But the bible says Heaven will be a much different story. His story, actually. And while I have no idea what to expect, I do know we won't be there because of how well we performed or that we made fewer errors than the next guy. No, unlike a White House visit, a Heavenly home has a much higher price than anything our own sweat and tears could ever afford.

--J.P.

ASK THE TRAINER What is the point of knowing your one-rep max (1RM)?

Q: What is the point to knowing your 1RM as you talked about in yesterday's post?

--Catrina

A: Thanks for the question, Catrina. Well, basically, certain muscle fibers respond to a certain rep range. In other words, the fibers most responsible for tone and speed respond to a certain weight or percentage of rep max (RM), while the fibers most responsible for endurance respond to another percentage of one’s RM. It’s important for people to know what weight causes failure from 1-20 reps so that they can gauge what weight to choose for a particular exercise as they pursue a specific goal.

Someone who is wanting to gain strength wouldn’t necessarily reach for weight that would allow them to do 20 reps when they should be concentrating on sticking with weight that causes them to fail around six reps, since the strength fiber responds to weight that causes failure from 1-6.

Put simply, knowing what weight to use is as important for reaching your goals as, say, exercise selection, exercise order, rest periods or any other training variable. So calculate your rep max on key exercises and watch your body change!