The Speediance 1RM System Is More Complicated Than You Think (But Also Better)

The Claim That Sent Me Down the Rabbit Hole

Someone online bought a Speediance 2S and then posted that the machine was incapable of doing 260 lbs outside of Free Lift mode. He'd gone in, hit Customize, tried to enter 260, and the machine bumped him back down to 220. Based on that single interaction, he was threatening a chargeback. The machine was, he said, totally broken.

I'd shown 260 lbs on the machine in previous videos — specifically on the deadlift, which is the one lift where I'd push to the machine's ceiling — but only in Free Lift mode. So I couldn't just say he was wrong without proving it. More importantly, I realized I didn't fully understand the 1RM calculation system myself. I knew *that* it worked. I didn't know *exactly how*.

So I set up the camera and tried to figure it out live.

The Customize Box Is Not How You Lift Heavy

Here's the thing nobody tells you when you buy one of these machines: **the Customize input box caps you at 220 lbs by design.** That's not a bug. That's a deliberate ceiling on manually-entered weight. If you go into any workout, tap Customize, and try to type in 260, the machine resets you to 220.

The dynamic weight modes — Gain Muscle, Stamina, Strength — do not have this cap. They use your 1RM estimate to calculate your working weight for each exercise, and if your 1RM is established above 220 lbs, the machine will serve up a working weight above 220 lbs automatically. No manual entry required.

So the user's error was using Customize when he should have been letting the dynamic modes do the math. The machine will never offer you a working weight it doesn't think you can handle based on your established 1RM. He just hadn't established his 1RM yet.

How the 1RM Gets Set

This is where it gets interesting, and where I had to actually experiment to understand what was happening.

I have a deadlift custom workout: one set at 9RM for 12 reps. My most recent working weight had been 225 lbs. On the stats screen, clicking through the workout and into the individual barbell deadlift exercise, I can see my 1RM estimate: **293 lbs**, calculated from 195 lbs for 13 reps using the standard 1RM formula.

But I also had a workout entry showing two dashes — no PR — from a session where I'd set the weight to 260 and done 3 reps instead of the prescribed 12. That gap made me suspicious: did the machine refuse to calculate a 1RM above 220, even in dynamic modes?

The answer, which I confirmed live on camera: **no**. The machine calculates 1RM from any weight in dynamic mode. The reason I got dashes was because I didn't do the prescribed number of reps. I did 3 instead of 12. The machine treats extra reps or too-few reps as a non-event — it doesn't penalize you, but it also doesn't update your 1RM unless you hit approximately the prescribed rep count at the new weight.

So I put my mouth guard in — yes, I actually wear a mouth guard for max lifts, I chew on my lip otherwise — cranked the weight to 260 lbs, and deadlifted 12 reps on camera. The new 1RM read: **388 lbs**. The machine calculated it correctly and immediately. The deadlift PR updated. The user's machine wasn't broken. He just had no established 1RM and was using the wrong input method.

The Progressive Overload Logic (And Its Current State)

This is where I want to spend more time, because it explains a lot of confusion in the community.

The Speediance progressive overload system has gone through several phases in the software. The version I was running when I shot this video had effectively **turned off automatic progressive overload entirely**. I noticed it because I was doing the same workout three times in a row, doing more reps each time, and nothing was changing — the machine wasn't bumping my working weight up.

Here's the mechanic: doing additional reps above the prescribed number does *not* trigger a 1RM update. Never has, across any software version. If you're supposed to do 13 reps and you do 16, those extra 3 reps don't count toward your PR. This is different from how Tonal worked — on Tonal, doing extra reps would re-calculate your strength estimate and potentially overload your next session. Some people liked that; I actually don't.

On Speediance, the only way to record a new 1RM is to do approximately the prescribed rep count at a higher weight. That's it. The machine doesn't track your volume progression and extrapolate from it. You have to intentionally test a higher weight and do the reps.

The reason automatic overload seems to have been turned off in this software version is almost certainly community backlash. There was a previous version where the machine was overloading people too aggressively — I personally saw a working weight suggestion that would have been my overhead press max applied to a tricep exercise. It was insane. Someone hit stop. Speediance overcorrected, and now you have to manually drive your own progression.

I actually don't hate this. The approach I use is: train with Unlimited Sets turned on, accumulate reps above the prescribed amount until I feel like the weight is genuinely easy, then schedule a dedicated PR attempt where I set the weight to my target and do the prescribed rep count cleanly. The new 1RM locks in and drives all my working weights up across every exercise in the workout on the next session.

The Lunar Flow Lesson

While I was running through this, I was also mid-way through the Lunar Flow challenge on the Speediance platform — working out every day for a set period to hit Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers. I was at Bronze because I'd missed a couple days and a lot of people had blown past me.

That challenge changed something about the way I program. My previous sessions were enormous: 30,000 to 40,000 lbs, full upper-body-except-legs, required a recovery day after. To hit the challenge every day, I had to create smaller, more targeted sessions. A dedicated arms day. A dedicated back day. Volume in the 10,000–15,000 lb range instead of 40,000.

And I found I actually liked it. Both formats have a place now. The challenge forced me to develop variety I didn't know I wanted.

The 60-something-year-old user in the community who beat me to the previous volume challenge by five or six days? That motivated me more than I'd like to admit. Some people just get after it regardless of age, body type, or physique. The machine's leaderboard makes that visible in a way a private home gym never would.

The Takeaway

If you're using Customize to enter weights on the Speediance, you're using the wrong tool for anything above 220 lbs. The dynamic modes are where the machine's intelligence lives. Get in, let it calculate your working weights from your established 1RM, and let the system do its job.

If you want to push the ceiling — 260 lbs on the deadlift, 294 lbs on the lat pulldown, whatever your goal is — you do it by establishing the 1RM through the dynamic modes and actually lifting the prescribed reps at the new weight. The machine will record it. Your working weights will climb accordingly on the next session.

And put your mouth guard in.