How Well Can People Guess When Their Muscles Will Give Out?

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.

People are better at guessing how many chest press reps they can do before getting tired compared to leg press reps, with guesses being off by only about one rep for chest press but more for leg press.

When doing leg press exercises, men are better at guessing how many reps they can do before getting tired compared to women, but for chest press exercises, there's no difference between men and women in guessing this.

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.

People aren't very good at guessing how close they are to muscle failure when doing many reps of weightlifting.