Progress Graphs

You can access your progress graphs in the Stronglifts App like this:

  1. Open Stronglifts
  2. Select "Progress" at the bottom of the screen

The progress graphs show how your lifts and body-weight improve over time.

Total

Your total is the sum of your Squat + Bench + Deadlift. In the sport of powerlifting, the winner is determined by the highest total. The total gives an overview of your full body strength.

You can find your total like this:

  1. Open Stronglifts
  2. Go to Progress > Total

If you replaced the Squat, Bench or Deadlift by another exercise, the total will take that exercise into account. For example: if you replaced Deadlift by Sumo Deadlift, the total will take your Sumo Deadlift into account to calculate your total. Same if you replace Squats by Safety Bar Squats or so.

Exercise Options

When you tap an exercise in the progress tab, you'll see the weight you lifted over time. But you can also track several other metrics.

  • e1RM: your estimated one rep max. See below for more info.
  • Volume: SetxRepxWeight lifted over time.
  • Reps: total reps done in each session.

To enable these options, go to Stronglifts > Progress > tap an exercise > Select one of the options at the bottom.

Estimated One Rep Max (e1RM)

Your estimated one rep max is the weight you could lift for one rep based on what you've lifted for one to twelve reps, or even 5x5. You can find your e1RM like this:

  1. Open Stronglifts
  2. Tap "Progress" at the bottom
  3. Tap an exercise
  4. Enable e1RM

Stronglifts e1RM progress graphs

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Stronglifts calculate the e1RM?

Stronglifts uses three values to determine your estimated one rep max aka e1RM...

  1. Weight lifted
  2. Reps done
  3. RPE

Your RPE is your rate of perceived exertion. It's a 1 to 10 scale. RPE 10 is an all-out effort: you couldn't have done another rep if you tried. The RPE gives us an idea of how hard a set was so we can better determine your e1RM.

For 5x5 straight sets, your RPE will usually be between 6-8. If you look at an RPE table, you'll find the matching percentage for 5 reps at RPE 6-8 is about 80%. This means that if you do 5x5 200lb, your e1RM would be about 245lb.

Stronglifts currently only has an RPE entry when setting your weights when you start a new program. It does not have an option to enter your RPE per set. We're considering adding this feature so your e1RM is more accurate (email us if you're interested).

For now, we're making assumptions to guess what your RPE is. The resulting e1RM is in most cases close enough. Here are some examples...

  • If you do 5x5 200lb, we assume that your RPE is 8. Your first set is most likely not RPE 9 or 10. If it was, you couldn't repeat it for four more sets of five sets. And so your e1RM would be about 246.5lb (5x200lb@8 RPE).
  • If you're supposed to do 5x5 200lb, but you fail reps and do 4/3/3/2/2 200lb, we assume RPE 10. If you couldn't do 5 reps, then you're probably lifting to failure. In this case your e1RM would be 224lb (4x200lb@10 RPE).
  • If you do 1x1 200lb, we assume that your RPE is 10 and so your e1RM is 200lb. We assume RPE 10 because if you only do one set, you're usually going to be make it count. And so if you do 1x10 200lb (one set of 10 reps), we also assume your RPE is 10. Your e1RM would then be 270.5lb.

Why does the e1RM not show for more than 12 reps?

Your e1RM becomes less accurate when you log more than 12 reps.

We've had requests for extending the e1RM calculations to support up to 40 reps. But this would result in inaccurate and misleading estimates. If you tried to lift an e1RM based on what you did for 40 reps, you would most likely not be able to lift that e1M. This is because when you do a high number of reps, your muscles are working more on endurance rather than maximum strength. The e1RM formulas assume that the decrease in weight as reps increase is linear and primarily related to short-term muscle fatigue. But this is not the case with higher rep ranges. The maximum weight you can lift for one rep doesn't match your endurance capacity when you do 40 reps.

For this reason, if you log more than 12 reps, the e1RM value will show as NA.

The progress graphs don't show for exercises not part in my current program

This on purpose. We don't want to clutter the progress graphs with tons of exercises that you may not be interested in right now. So we only show exercises that are part of your current training program.

Example: say you do Deadlifts for six months. You decide to replace Deadlifts with Sumo Deadlifts. Your current program does not have Sumo Deadlifts in any of the workouts. When you visit the progress tab you will only see a graph for Sumo Deadlift but not Deadlifts.

However, all your workout history for Deadlifts remains. So as soon as you add Deadlifts back to your current program, the progress graphs for Deadlifts will show again.