One Rep Max Percentage Chart and Estimated 1RM Tables

This is the lookup version of a one rep max, for when you want a number without typing anything. The percentage chart reads: 1 rep = 100%, 2 = 95%, 3 = 93%, 4 = 90%, 5 = 87%, 6 = 85%, 7 = 83%, 8 = 80%, 9 = 77%, 10 = 75%, 12 = 70%, 15 = 67% and 16 = 65%. Everything else on this page is that relationship applied to real bar weights.

A one rep max, or 1RM, is the heaviest load you could lift once through a full range of motion with acceptable technique. An estimated one rep max is what a formula predicts that load to be, calculated from a set you actually completed at a lighter weight for more reps. The distinction matters in a home gym more than anywhere else: the estimate exists precisely so you never have to find out the hard way, alone, with a loaded bar on your chest.

Every weight on this page assumes a standard 45 lb men's Olympic bar, because that is what the plate maths below is built on. A 20 kg bar is 44.1 lb, close enough that the rounding absorbs it. If you train on a 20 kg Synergee Regional bar or any other genuine Olympic bar, use 45 lb and move on. If you train on a 1 inch standard bar, weigh it, because those run anywhere from 15 to 25 lb and no chart can guess which.

What percentage of your max is each rep count?

The standard chart below is the one that appears in most programs, and it is worth knowing that it is a consensus table rather than the output of a single formula. The two columns beside it show what Epley and Brzycki each imply for the same rep count, which is the honest way to see how much agreement there actually is.

Read the pattern rather than the individual rows. Between 3 and 9 reps the standard chart sits almost exactly between the two formulas, which is why it works. At 10 reps all three agree on 75 percent, and that is not a coincidence: it is the crossover point where the Epley and Brzycki multipliers are identical at 1.3333. Above 10 reps the standard chart abandons Brzycki entirely and tracks Epley, because Brzycki starts producing numbers that nobody believes.

One quirk in the top row is worth calling out because it looks like an error and is not. At a single rep Brzycki returns exactly the weight you lifted, since 36 divided by 36 is 1. Epley returns 3.3 percent more than you lifted, which is obviously wrong: you cannot lift more than you just lifted. That happens because Epley was fitted to multi rep sets and never constrained to pass through a single. If your set was a genuine single, the answer is the weight on the bar and no formula is needed.

What is my estimated 1RM from the set I just did?

This is the direct lookup. Find the weight you lifted down the left, read across to the number of reps you completed, and the cell is your estimated one rep max in pounds. Every figure is the average of Epley and Brzycki, rounded to the nearest 5 lb, because 5 lb is the smallest change a typical home setup can actually load.

The averaging is deliberate. Neither formula is reliably better than the other across the whole range, and taking the midpoint gives you a number that is never more wrong than the worse of the two. Use the 3, 5 and 8 rep columns with reasonable confidence, treat 10 as usable but soft, and treat the 12 rep column as an upper bound rather than an estimate.

The left column is not arbitrary. Those are the weights a 45 lb bar makes with whole plates: 95 lb is a 25 per side, 135 lb is a 45, 185 lb is a 45 and a 25, 225 lb is two 45s, 275 lb is two 45s and a 25, 315 lb is three 45s, and 405 lb is four. If your working sets land on those numbers it is because the plates put them there, which is the same reason the estimates come out on convenient figures.

How do the Epley and Brzycki formulas actually work?

Both are single line arithmetic, written out here so you can check any number on this page rather than trust it.

Epley: 1RM = weight x (1 + reps / 30)
Brzycki: 1RM = weight x 36 / (37 - reps)

Work one example fully. A 225 lb bench press for 5 reps. Epley gives 225 x (1 + 5/30), which is 225 x 1.1667, or 262.5 lb. Brzycki gives 225 x 36 / 32, which is 225 x 1.125, or 253.1 lb. The average is 257.8 lb, and the two disagree by 9.4 lb, or 3.7 percent. That spread is the honest precision of the method. Rounded to something loadable, the answer is 260 lb, and any further decimal place is decoration.

The structural difference between them is where they were fitted. Brzycki is a straight line in the low rep range and passes exactly through the single, which makes it the cleaner formula for sets of 1 to 5. Epley has a gentler slope and stays more plausible as reps climb. They cross at exactly 10 reps, where both multipliers equal 1.3333, and that crossing point is also, not coincidentally, where both of them begin to fail.

Look at the bottom two rows. At 15 reps the formulas are 9.1 percent apart. At 20 reps they are 27 percent apart, which on a 225 lb set is a hundred pound disagreement about the same lifter on the same day. Both cannot be right, and in practice neither is. The reason is not mathematical, it is physiological: a set of 3 is limited by how much force you can produce, while a set of 20 is limited by breathing, by legs filling with lactate, and by how much discomfort you are willing to sit in. Those vary enormously between people and within one person week to week.

There is also a pure artefact at the far end. Brzycki has a pole at 37 reps, where the denominator hits zero and the estimate goes to infinity. That is a property of a linear fit, not a claim about human physiology, and it is the clearest possible demonstration that these formulas have a domain outside which they are not describing anything. The practical rule: estimate from sets of 3 to 8 reps, accept 9 and 10 as soft, and do not program percentages off anything above 10.

What weight is each training percentage for my max?

This is the loading table, and it is the one most people actually print. Find your one rep max down the left, read across to the percentage your program calls for, and the cell is the weight to put on the bar. Every figure is rounded to the nearest 5 lb, which is the smallest increment a typical home setup can make: a pair of 2.5 lb plates changes the bar by 5 lb, and most people do not own anything smaller.

The 70 to 85 percent block in the middle is where most productive training lives, which is roughly 6 to 12 reps. That is the band with enough load to drive adaptation and enough volume to accumulate work without each session costing a week of recovery. Above 90 percent you are largely testing, and the recovery cost climbs steeply for very little extra stimulus. Below 65 percent the set becomes technique work, a warm up or conditioning, all worth doing and none of them the same thing as strength training.

How does the plate maths work out on the bar?

A percentage table is only useful if the number it gives you can be built out of the plates you own, and this is where home gyms differ from commercial ones. A commercial gym has fractional plates and a full ladder of pairs. A home gym usually has 45s, 25s, 10s, 5s and one pair of 2.5s, which means the smallest change you can make to the bar is 5 lb.

Worked through a 315 lb squat max, the table below shows what each percentage actually looks like loaded. The rounding column is the part worth reading: rounding 252 lb down to 250 makes the set 79.4 percent instead of 80 percent, a shortfall of 0.6 percent, and rounding 267.75 up to 270 makes it 85.7 percent instead of 85. Both errors are an order of magnitude smaller than the 3 to 4 percent uncertainty already baked into the max estimate, which is exactly why chasing decimal places on a loading chart is wasted effort.

Two practical consequences fall out of this. First, if your smallest jump feels too coarse, that is a plate problem rather than a programming problem, and a pair of fractional plates in the 1 to 2.5 lb range fixes it for the price of a takeaway meal. Second, plate diameter changes what fits: cast iron plates are far thinner than bumpers, so a heavy bar still fits inside a 16 inch usable sleeve, while a bumper-loaded bar runs out of sleeve sooner. The plate loading calculator will show you exactly what your own plate set can and cannot make.

How do you get an estimate you can actually trust?

The formula is the least important variable. Five things matter more, roughly in this order.

• Estimate from a set of 3 to 5 reps. This is the range both formulas were built for and where they disagree least in absolute terms. A set of 12 gives you a number, not an estimate.
• Take the set close to failure but not to it. A set with three reps still in the tank underestimates badly. A set taken to genuine failure gives a good number and costs more recovery than it is worth. One rep in reserve is the sweet spot.
• Warm up the same way every time. The same set done cold reads meaningfully lower than the same set done after a full ramp up. Holding the protocol constant is what makes week to week comparisons mean anything.
• Estimate each lift separately. Never derive a bench max from a squat max, and never assume one percentage table transfers unchanged across movements.
• Re-estimate every four to six weeks. A stale maximum makes every percentage in the program wrong in the same direction, which quietly turns a hard block into an easy one or an easy block into an injury risk.

Equipment consistency matters more than people expect, and it is the part a home gym controls completely. The same set on a different bar is a different set: a stiff bar and a whippy one feel different off the chest and out of the hole. A bench that flexes under a heavy press changes what you can brace against, so a stable frame like the REP AB-3100 gives you a repeatable base that a budget folding bench does not. If your estimate swings 20 lb between weeks, look at the bar, the bench and the warm up before you blame the formula. Our barbell picks cover the specifications that actually change how a bar behaves under load.

Why the estimate is safer than the test in a home gym

Squats and deadlifts have an escape route. A failed squat dumps onto safeties set at the right height and a failed deadlift simply stays on the floor. A bench press has no escape route at all, and that asymmetry is the whole argument for estimating rather than testing when you train alone. A loaded bar that stalls two inches off your chest in an empty room with the door shut is a genuine emergency.

If you are going to lift anywhere near a maximum alone, the equipment stops being optional. That means a full cage with safeties pinned at the correct height, or spotter arms on a squat stand set so a failed rep lands on steel rather than on you. Test the height with an empty bar first: lie down, set the pins, and confirm the bar rests above your chest with room to slide out. Before buying any set of arms, check two specifications, your upright tube size and whether your rack holes are 5/8 inch or 1 inch, because arms that almost fit are arms that do not fit. A rack with 1 inch hole spacing through the bench zone, like the REP PR-1100 , gives you the adjustment resolution this actually needs.

Two habits that cost nothing. Use collars on every set without exception, because a plate sliding off one end of a loaded bar mid rep is how solo lifters get badly hurt. And put a mirror on the wall you face rather than behind the rack, so you can see your own bar path on a heavy single. The power rack versus squat stand comparison lays out the safety trade in full, and how to choose a power rack covers what to look for in the safeties themselves.

Related tools and charts

• One rep max calculator, the same maths run against your own numbers
• Plate loading calculator, to turn a percentage into plates on the bar
• Best barbell, the specifications that change how a bar behaves
• Power rack vs squat stand, the safety trade in detail
• Intermediate home gym setup, the build these loads assume
• All home gym spec charts, plate weights, bar specs and rack clearances