Sex and Equipment Impact on Lifting Velocity and the Maximum Repetitions in Bench Press

This study investigated how equipment and sex affect the prediction accuracy of the maximum number of repetitions performed to failure (RTF) using the fastest mean velocity of the set (MV ). Sixteen men and twelve women completed four sessions (two using free-weight equipment and two sessions using the Smith machine). Each session involved three sets of repetitions to failure against the 65%, 75%, and 85% of the one-repetition maximum, interspersed by 10-min of rest. The goodness-of-fit of the individualized RTF-MV relationships was comparable between both equipment types and sexes ( ≥0.510). Moreover, there were not significant differences in the MV associated with RTF between equipment types ( ≥0.258). However, the MV associated with RTF was higher for men than for women in repetitions 6 to 15 ( ≤0.043; ES≥0.69). In addition, the absolute errors when predicting RTF showed no significant differences between equipment types and loads (