Peaking Calculator
Peaking means shedding accumulated fatigue while keeping the strength you built. That means cutting sets, not weight.
Your results
A conventional taper structure, not an individual plan. Peaking is highly individual and the right approach depends on your training history, your recovery and how you respond to reduced volume.
Why volume comes down and intensity does not
Fatigue and fitness decay at different rates. Fitness — the adaptations you built — persists for weeks. Fatigue clears in days. A taper exploits that gap.
Volume is the main driver of fatigue, so cutting sets sheds fatigue quickly. Intensity is what maintains the neural qualities and the skill of lifting heavy, so it holds or rises slightly. If you reduce the weight instead, you lose the specificity and keep the fatigue — the opposite of the goal.
The final week is the exception: both come down, because there is nothing left to gain and everything to lose from a hard session days before a competition.
Attempt selection
The conventional structure, and it is conservative for good reasons:
- Opener at around 90%. A lift you could make on your worst day, half asleep. Its job is to get a number on the board and settle your nerves — not to be impressive.
- Second at around 95%. Hard but certain. Roughly your best training single.
- Third at around 101%. A small personal best. Ambitious, not speculative.
The commonest error is opening too heavy. A missed opener costs you the whole day's momentum and often the next two attempts as well. There is no prize for a big opener.
Adjust upward only on the basis of how the earlier attempts actually moved, not on how you felt in the warm-up room.
Common questions
How long should a taper be?
One to three weeks for most lifters, depending on how much volume you were carrying. Longer tapers risk losing sharpness.
Should I test my max before a competition?
No. Testing costs fatigue and gains nothing you cannot infer from heavy training singles.
What should my opener be?
Around 90% of your best — a lift you are certain of on a bad day.
Do I still train in the final week?
Yes, lightly. Movement practice at moderate loads, no testing, no failure.
Related calculators
Track the numbers, not just calculate them
MyFitsy stores your weight, measurements and every session, so the figures above become a trend instead of a one-off.
