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but a lot of people don't (and IMO, unless it's important to you, shouldn't) test their 1rm
Hard disagree. Lol. I honestly can’t imagine doing weight training without attempting 1RMs - maxing out is literally the best bit, lol.
Nef-
I absolutely love pushing a 1rm, but there's a difference between doing heavy PR singles and true 1rm attempts, and the injury risk in a true 1rm attempt is higher than a true 3rm or 5rm test, which are also good tests of strength.
However, if it's important to you, either for personal enjoyment, or because you are competing in a strength sport, all power to you (and me, I will probably do a peaking program and do some kind of mock meet around March).
zooeyzooey
I think BW% is a good way to go, especially since it allows you to keep things in check a bit if you're gaining or losing weight (e.g. I have stacked on aforementioned reasonable amount of chonk, and even though my numbers aren't objectively good, the amount I am moving in every lift is better in terms of BW% than it was before. Pull ups are a lot harder at 115kg than they are at 80kg tho). And I'd like to cut back to 105 next year, so even if my lifts go down a bit I can keep them in check a bit with BW%.
wilks is great, but a lot of people don't (and IMO, unless it's important to you, shouldn't) test their 1rm so it becomes irrelevant. Estimated 1rm is acceptable but all of my estimated 1rms are lower than my actual ones because mentally I can try very hard for 1 rep, but for more than 3 I find it hard to properly dig in.
I used to get somewhat obsessive over EXRX / strengthlevel standards and where I fell on those and blah, but now I just try to get stronger than I used to be. I don't think I'm genetically gifted for strength sports so I'll always lag behind, but I'll never lag behind me not lifting weights.