Stop Gambling With Your Athletes' Health I know you want to figure...
Pat Basil@pbasilstrength
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Oct 01, 2025
~2 min read
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1
Stop Gambling With Your Athletes' Health
I know you want to figure out "who put the work in" over break.
Using maxes on day one comes with two major problems:
1. Unless they're skilled lifters, their "one rep max" isn't actually a true measure of strength
2. You don't know who's prepared to handle those heavy loads and who isn't. It's literally Russian roulette with barbells
You're gambling with your athletes' health and safety just to get inaccurate measurement.
Lose-Lose.
How Is Max Testing Not A Measure of Strength?
Because novice lifters (most of your population) they don't have the skill, coordination, or strength across their whole body to truly support max loads with high quality technique.
The best you'll get is a knee-buckled half-squat and a sore lower back the next day.
Technique and stability is the limiter, not true strength.
You're measuring their ability to survive an extreme task they're not prepared for, not true maximal force output.
So you're trading high injury risk to get a bad measurement.
Bad idea.
It Gets Worse
Your Advanced lifters who are actually ready for max testing need more time and direct training specialization to make significant gains in max strength.
This isn't the case for novices and lower level intermediates who will make gains with almost any general training.
You know this if you're strong and actually train hard yourself.
Even if we assume they've all trained, your lower level lifters are going to make larger gains than your advanced lifters.
If you judge them solely on the weight they lift on the bar, it would appear that your lower level lifters "made more progress" than your more advanced lifters did.
That's not fair to your best workers who actually do what you ask them to do.
It's comparing apples to oranges.
This is why maxing on Day 1 is a lose-lose for everyone.
It's dangerous and inaccurate for your lower level lifters, and it's not fair to compare for your more advanced ones.
And it could cost you your paycheck when a kid gets hurt doing it.
Especially now since you're aware of the awful risk to no-reward ratio.
When Testing Is Ok
The only acceptable answer is this:
When you've directly prepared them for it.
If you have them under your direct supervision and coaching throughout the semester, you can build up to some kind of testing at the end of the semester after months of preparation.
Now you're sure that your lower level lifters are physically and technically prepared, and your advanced athletes get the progression they need to peak for testing.
You'll get a much better measurement of strength and you minimize the injury risk.
Win-Win.
I know you want to figure out "who put the work in" over break.
Using maxes on day one comes with two major problems:
1. Unless they're skilled lifters, their "one rep max" isn't actually a true measure of strength
2. You don't know who's prepared to handle those heavy loads and who isn't. It's literally Russian roulette with barbells
You're gambling with your athletes' health and safety just to get inaccurate measurement.
Lose-Lose.
How Is Max Testing Not A Measure of Strength?
Because novice lifters (most of your population) they don't have the skill, coordination, or strength across their whole body to truly support max loads with high quality technique.
The best you'll get is a knee-buckled half-squat and a sore lower back the next day.
Technique and stability is the limiter, not true strength.
You're measuring their ability to survive an extreme task they're not prepared for, not true maximal force output.
So you're trading high injury risk to get a bad measurement.
Bad idea.
It Gets Worse
Your Advanced lifters who are actually ready for max testing need more time and direct training specialization to make significant gains in max strength.
This isn't the case for novices and lower level intermediates who will make gains with almost any general training.
You know this if you're strong and actually train hard yourself.
Even if we assume they've all trained, your lower level lifters are going to make larger gains than your advanced lifters.
If you judge them solely on the weight they lift on the bar, it would appear that your lower level lifters "made more progress" than your more advanced lifters did.
That's not fair to your best workers who actually do what you ask them to do.
It's comparing apples to oranges.
This is why maxing on Day 1 is a lose-lose for everyone.
It's dangerous and inaccurate for your lower level lifters, and it's not fair to compare for your more advanced ones.
And it could cost you your paycheck when a kid gets hurt doing it.
Especially now since you're aware of the awful risk to no-reward ratio.
When Testing Is Ok
The only acceptable answer is this:
When you've directly prepared them for it.
If you have them under your direct supervision and coaching throughout the semester, you can build up to some kind of testing at the end of the semester after months of preparation.
Now you're sure that your lower level lifters are physically and technically prepared, and your advanced athletes get the progression they need to peak for testing.
You'll get a much better measurement of strength and you minimize the injury risk.
Win-Win.