When people are lifting weights and getting really tired, they're pretty good at guessing how many more reps they can do if they're almost done—only off by about one rep. But if they could do a few more, their guess is less accurate, off by more than two reps.

29

Pro

0

Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

29

Community contributions welcome

29

Accuracy in Estimating Repetitions to Failure During Resistance Exercise

Cross-Sectional Study

Human

2017 Aug

The study directly tested whether people can guess how many more reps they can do during weightlifting and found they're very close when almost exhausted, just like the claim says.

Contradicting (0)

0

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No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Accuracy in Estimating Repetitions to Failure During Resistance Exercise

Score: 29

DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001683

Similar Assertions

People who lift weights for over a year often guess wrong about how many more reps they can do before getting tired—they usually think they can do about 2 fewer than they actually can.

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Whether you're new to lifting weights or have been doing it for years, you're just as good at guessing how many more reps you can do before your muscles give out.

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When people do more reps in a row during weight training, they become worse at guessing how many more reps they could do. This means longer sets make it harder to judge your own effort accurately.

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