Earlier this week on my way into Columbus this song came on and got me thinking about all the PR's I read about today.

Many times I will read posts where people are breaking several PR's per day. Day after day, week after week, month after month, every post, every tweet, every snap, every lift on their phone is a PR now.

I killed shit in the gym today. 5 PR's with pleanty of room to spare. I can't believe how awesome my training is going right now. I have the best coach in the world!

- Social Gym Bro

That is until we read the post months later when they write about how their training isn't going as planned followed by apologies to their coach, training partners, fans, followers, supporters, political party and everyone else for letting them down.

I'm SO sorry that I suck SO much... and know you don't care but I'm still posting anyway. I know I can do better and want to take this time to say I'm sorry to my coach, family, neighborhood, state and nation.

- Social Gym Bro

Let's step back in time some because I have been doing this shit so long I remember listing to this Waylon tune over and over as a kid.

What the hell is a PR?

Before making a move to Columbus and Westside Barbell Club, I had no idea what the fuck a PR even was. Training for meets since 1983 to 1989 I can honestly say I never heard those two letters put together.  You trained, made progress and did meets. At the meets, you established your own numbers and worked to beat them the next go around. When I started making weekends trips up to the club to train I would hear some of the guys speak about a "PR" and just ignored it because I had no idea what they were talking about- I was new and I didn't want to look stupid. It had nothing to do with what I was doing so I didn't care.

Finger Away From The Smooth

I remember one weekend we began working up on close grip bench presses (finger away from the smooth) after our dynamic bench sets. We would jump 10-30 pounds per set and usually made some type of contest out of it with a bunch of shit talking. I remember hitting 455 for 5 instead of 3 and Louie jumping my ass for doing 5 instead of 3 as my odds of getting hurt were higher with 5's than singles or triples. This pissed me off (Louie was good at that) so I went to 495x3 as my way of saying "fuck you".  After getting up of the other guys in the group asked me, "Was that a PR"? Still pissed I asked what the fuck that stupid shit even meant. I seriously had no idea.

I was told it was something you have never done before. I then asked why in the hell would I care about what my best close grip bench was for 3 reps when all that mattered was what I did in the meet?

Over time I learned the value of PR's for max effort work that had carried over to my main lifts. I knew what my best triples and singles were for each of these movements and if I forgot, Louie knew (we were not allowed to keep training logs - if he saw he tossed it in the dumpster).  They were great for when your training was done to note what happened but a distraction in the session as we were trained to rely on our own feedback (auto-regulation).  I, for one, did a piss poor job of listening to this and was in a group of other enablers. Even when Louie told us to back down, we told him to fuck off. The good part of this is that Louie learned from us what too much was and now the WSBB injury rate is way under what it was with us.

I digress. I learned what a PR was and to me they were key indicators to track progress towards the primary objective- a bigger squat, bench, and deadlift. If the lift didn't have significant carry over then I didn't have a PR for it. How can you? How can you have a PR for the third lift in a sequence? If you kill your best then did you train the first movements hard enough? If you suck at the movement did you do too much? It's a fucking side raise! Does it matter? This is before even factoring in rest periods, tempo, etc.

Breaking a PR meant something to me because the stronger I got the harder they became to get. I had to become smarter and better prepared while still trying my best to stay out of a CM (competitive max or mindset).

A real PR is earned for hard, diligent and consistent work. Not just for showing the fuck up.

Most of the "PR's" I see being posted would be part of what most lifters who have been around a long time would just define as "my training is going well".  - OR - with the number of PR's I see, most of the advanced lifters I know would be saying things like "I'm getting ahead of schedule I need to back it down some."  This is part of what I noted before; you have to learn when to kick yourself in the ass and when to pull back. No coach in the world can help teach you this unless they are in the gym with you every training session.  This is on YOU to learn on your own.

I think too many lifters today are placing too much significance on meaningless PR's that have very little carry over to the main goal. When they feel these lifts dropping off they feel their training is going to shit when it fact their training could be right on the edge of a huge take-off. Thus not being able to break a 3, 5, or 8 rep PR begins to mess with their head and they think their training sucks. Would it suck if your didn't track this shit? If your extensions feel weak would it be better to just change the movement or tempo and do the work, or piss and moan on how you're regressing on freaking extensions?

This is training- the role of exercise leading to the betterment of something. And whatever that "something" is is the real PR. There will be key indicators that will let you know if you are moving to or away from that objective. These need to be tracked and budgeted.

We're  not kids playing Pee Wee baseball in need of participation awards (what most PR's today really are). If you feel you need this so badly go buy a bag of dum dums lollipops and give yourself one after each session. Maybe even 2 or 3. But while in the gym, get back to training toward what you are in there to do in the first place. I'm willing to bet it's not 12 rep PR's on assistance shit.