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Relative Intensity Chart: Training Zones as a Percentage of 1RM
Tonnage tells you how much weight moved. It can't tell you how hard the training was. Five sets of five at 85% of your max and five sets of ten at 42.5% are exactly the same tonnage, and nothing like the same session. Relative intensity is the missing dimension.
Why tonnage isn't enough
Volume load (sets × reps × weight) is the workhorse of training analytics, and for good reason: it's simple, comparable, and tracks the overall dose. But it's blind to where the work happened relative to your capacity. A hypertrophy block and a peaking block can carry similar tonnage while doing completely different things to you. Powerlifting and weightlifting programs are planned in percentages of one-rep max.
The relative intensity chart
Strength training has settled on four broad intensity bands, a lineage that runs back through A. S. Prilepin's guidelines, compiled from Soviet weightlifting research in the 1960s and 70s and carried into Western coaching through the weightlifting texts of Laputin and Oleshko:
| Zone | % of 1RM | What it is for | Typical reps per set |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light | Below 70% | Speed, technique and movement volume. The bar should move crisply. | 3 to 6 |
| Volume | 70 to 80% | The volume zone. Most hypertrophy and base-building work lives here. | 3 to 6 |
| Strength | 80 to 90% | Heavy enough to drive maximal strength, light enough to accumulate. | 2 to 4 |
| Peak | 90% and up | Expresses strength more than it builds it. Small doses, big fatigue. | 1 to 2 |
These are the four bands Ægir Iron sorts your working sets into on the Relative Intensity card, so the distribution you see in the app is this chart applied to what you actually lifted. The app uses only the chart's boundaries; the rep columns are context, and none of them feed a calculation.
A note on sourcing: these bands come from Soviet-era coaching literature that was never published in an indexed journal, so unlike the load and intensity research cited elsewhere on this site there is no primary paper to link. The app's copy of the chart comes from a traceable secondary source, Table 1 of Pritchard et al. (2016), an NSCA conference poster, which itself notes that the chart's effectiveness has not been tested in peer-reviewed research. Treat the zones as a durable coaching convention rather than a validated model.
A well-planned block has a deliberate shape across these zones, and that shape should change as you move from accumulation toward a meet. Seeing your actual distribution, not the one the program intended, is the point of tracking it.
Percentage of 1RM by reps and RPE
The zones tell you which band a weight sits in. This table works the other way: it gives the percentage of your one-rep max a set corresponds to, from the reps you did and how hard it was (RPE, where 10 is a true max and 8 means about two reps left). It is the reps-by-RPE chart from Reactive Training Systems, the same one the one-rep max calculator and the Ægir Iron app use.
| Reps | RPE 10 | RPE 9 | RPE 8 | RPE 7 | RPE 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100% | 95.5% | 92.2% | 89.2% | 86.3% |
| 2 | 95.5% | 92.2% | 89.2% | 86.3% | 83.7% |
| 3 | 92.2% | 89.2% | 86.3% | 83.7% | 81.1% |
| 4 | 89.2% | 86.3% | 83.7% | 81.1% | 78.6% |
| 5 | 86.3% | 83.7% | 81.1% | 78.6% | 76.2% |
| 6 | 83.7% | 81.1% | 78.6% | 76.2% | 73.9% |
| 7 | 81.1% | 78.6% | 76.2% | 73.9% | 70.7% |
| 8 | 78.6% | 76.2% | 73.9% | 70.7% | 68% |
| 9 | 76.2% | 73.9% | 70.7% | 68% | 65.3% |
| 10 | 73.9% | 70.7% | 68% | 65.3% | 62.6% |
Reading it: 5 reps at RPE 8 is 81.1% of your max, so on a 200 kg squat that set is about 162 kg. Read it backwards to estimate a max from a set: divide the weight by the percentage. The chart stops at 10 reps because higher-rep sets predict a max poorly, and ratings below RPE 7 are the least reliable, which is why the app only uses RPE 7 and harder for its estimates.
Sources: Tuchscherer (RTS chart), Helms et al. 2016, Zourdos et al. 2016, Halperin et al. 2022. Every source behind the app's numbers is on the research page.
What the number is relative to
A percentage needs a denominator. Ægir Iron places each working set against your training max for that lift, the same maxes table your percentage-based program resolves from. If a lift has no training max yet, it falls back to your best estimated 1RM from logged history (an RPE-aware estimate when you log RPE). Sets on lifts with no usable reference are counted as unclassified rather than guessed, so the distribution never invents a max for you.
Make rate: the signal hiding in your misses
There's a second read that only exists if you record your failures. A missed lift, a snatch out front, a bench that got buried, a third attempt that stapled you, moves no tonnage and sets no record. Most apps have no way to record it at all, which throws away one of the most useful numbers in strength sport:
Weightlifting training in particular runs on make rate at heavy singles. As a coaching rule of thumb rather than a published threshold, a lifter making 9 of 10 attempts at 90%+ is likely peaking well, and a lifter making 5 of 10 is likely overreached or heading that way. In Ægir Iron you flag a missed attempt on any set while logging. Misses are excluded from PRs, estimated 1RM, volume, and load analytics (the lift didn't happen), and they feed exactly one thing: your make rate, overall and at 90%+ of max.
Reading your own block
- If your average intensity keeps drifting up inside an accumulation block, you're peaking early, usually by feel instead of by plan.
- If a peaking block shows most sets still living under 80%, the plan on paper and the training in the gym have diverged.
- If your make rate at 90%+ drops across a block, that's fatigue talking, and it often shows up before your top sets do.
Ægir Iron computes the zone distribution, block-average intensity, per-lift breakdown, and make rate automatically from your logged sets, and shows them block by block right next to your volume and workload analytics.
Common questions about relative intensity
What is relative intensity in strength training? It's how heavy a set is as a percentage of your one-rep max, rather than an absolute weight. It's the dimension tonnage can't capture: five sets of five at 85% and five sets of ten at 42.5% move identical tonnage but train completely differently.
What are the relative intensity zones? Below 70% is speed and technique work, 70 to 80% is the volume zone, 80 to 90% is the strength zone, and 90% and up is peak work in small doses. Powerlifting and weightlifting blocks are periodized across these bands.
What is make rate? Make rate is successful attempts divided by total attempts. It only exists if you log your misses. As a coaching rule of thumb rather than a published threshold, making 9 of 10 attempts at 90%+ suggests a lifter is peaking well, while 5 of 10 suggests overreaching.
What app shows relative intensity? Ægir Iron computes your zone distribution, block-average intensity, per-lift breakdown, and make rate automatically from logged sets, next to your volume and load analytics.