Whatever reason you lift for, finding your 1RM for a compound lift is essential in knowing your ultimate strength, what you can push at a point in time, your personal record. It is also useful if you follow a percentage based program (Pretty much all programs) as the percentages are almost always based off your 1RM.
Its hard to find a good article that explains how to train for a 1RM. Okay, it will depend on the exercise, the attributes of the primary muscles used, but it is still not clear for many people. Usually a workout will be longer for training bigger muscles such as the legs, with the squat, than with a bench press, for example.
I am technically still in the base cycle for the for the Smolov squat routine, and will be training for my new 1RM very soon. My way of approaching this will be with a couple of warm up sets, triples, doubles and eventually heavy singles, incrementing the weight each time. Never, go straight into a heavy single lift. For instance, for this routine, you should expect to add 10kg-20kg on your previous 1RM, an example of working toward this would be:
Set 1: 12 reps @ 80kg
Set 2: 8 reps @ 100kg
Set 3: 3 reps @ 120kg
Set 4: 3 reps @ 120kg
Set 5: 2 reps @ 130kg
Set 6: 2 reps @ 130kg
Set 7: 1 rep @ 135kg
Set 8: 1 rep @ 140kg
Set 9: 1 rep @ 145kg
Set 10: 1 rep @ 150kg
Set 11: 1 rep @155kg
Set 12: 1 rep @160kg
It could be any number of heavy single sets, depending on how much you feel you can lift. Keep adding 5kg each set until you fail a lift. Make sure to have a spotter, for this session for when you do fail, which you will if you push yourself. Never give in, a failed lift really eats into confidence, just get back in there and try, try, try again, only by going too far can one see how far one can go!
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