I think it can be psychologically helpful to testing our limits safely once in a while to help feel a sense of progress and accomplishment. It feels good to set a new PR. BUT I don’t think it is optimal to base training around PRs because it isn’t an optimal way to train to do one rep sets all the time and doing that increases the risk of injuries.

Edit - To answer your question the general consensus is that a rep range of 5-8 reps per set is most optimal for building mass, and heavy low rep sets are better for building strength.

I never will try them because I don’t want to hurt myself doing a vanity rep. Imo, not worth the potential injury. I have a friend who all through HS and college years worked out and was super fit. Most fit human being I’ve ever met irl. Well several years ago he slipped a disk and hasn’t been able to work out since. So that’s always in the back of my mind. The difference between being able to continue working out and spending half a decade trying to recover, if able to recover at all, is one rep that fucks a disk.

If you want MASS do what you can do 5-10 of for several sets. I have been working with sets of 10. 1 warm of set of a lower weight, then 3 sets of my current weight and then see how a 4th set feels. If I can do 4 sets at a weight I move up the next week. I will never be some power lifter but I’ll take “stronger than most but also still functional.”

Eh, the difference between a 1RM and your 8 rep sets is like 10 kilos at most. Maybe 15 on some lifts.

You can actually calculate it quite accurately: https://strengthlevel.com/one-rep-max-calculator

In my opinion 1RMs are only vanity reps. The workout you’ll get from them is from the extensive buildup and warmup you’ll have done to get that one.

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Top end strength is something you should generally aim to “peak” for i.e. you shouldn’t try to maintain all the time. If you are adding muscle, the average trend for your strength, or potential output of strength (muscle recruitment), should be increasing as well.

For a basic sort of use, you can try using 1 rm as a measurement for the beginning of a training cycle and the end of one. Like say, your 1 rm at the start of a cycle is 135. Now we have a concrete number to base our improvement off. Then we can do whatever the % of 135 allows us to do 8-12 reps or 5 or whatever, for 4-6 weeks. Now let’s use 2 weeks, or 1 week, to train a 3 rep max to prepare for the one rep max day. Let’s say for instance one day you max out your 3 rm, rest two or three days, and then you go for your 1 rm.

Then after this you can repeat the whole 6-8 weeks again, or go into an explosive phase for a few weeks.

That’s a pretty basic way of using the 1 rm. There are other ways of incorporating it into training, like for plyometrics where it has benefits for things like jumping and other explosive movements as those also benefit from increased muscle recruit.

For beginners I don’t know if it should be used though. It can be kind of risky for injury even if you are experienced and in tune with your body. A day with the 3 rm before the 1 rm day is personally for me a nice way to ease into the 1 rm safely. Measuring 1 rm at the beginning of the cycle for a beginner is still sketchy though, and also risky for those returning to activity after a while, or returning from injury.

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It doesn’t matter. 1 rep, few reps, many reps, tons of reps, will have the same effect if you’re making your muscles work. For me personally, I don’t bother with lifting heavy to avoid becoming muscle-bound to have better individual muscle control for boxing.