Clean Max vs Top Speed: Which BPM Should You Log?

Log your clean max: the fastest tempo where you can play the passage cleanly and relaxed, several times in a row. Not your top speed — the tempo you hit once, tense, with a couple of flubbed notes. One of these numbers is a training baseline. The other is a highlight reel.

Two numbers, two very different stories

• Top speed: your best single attempt. Survivable once, usually tense, rarely repeatable tomorrow.
• Clean max: the fastest tempo where every note lands and your hands stay loose — for 4 to 10 reps in a row, not just one.

On any given day the gap between them can be 15–30 BPM. That gap is normal. The mistake is writing down the bigger number and treating it as where you are.

Why logging top speed backfires

First, it corrupts your next session. If yesterday's log says 140 but your real clean tempo is 120, you'll start too fast today, stack up sloppy reps, and practise the mistakes. The standard speed method — clean reps first, then a 5–10 BPM bump — only works when the number you build from is honest.

Second, it makes your chart lie. A record-attempt line jumps around with adrenaline and luck. It can creep up for weeks while your actual playing hasn't changed, because tense one-off reps don't transfer to real music.

How to find your clean max

• Play the fragment at your current logged tempo. Clean and relaxed, 4 times in a row?
• Yes — nudge up 5 BPM and test again.
• No — step down 5 BPM until the reps are clean.
• The last tempo that survives the reps test is your clean max. That's the log entry.

Chase records on the instrument, not in the log

Occasional burst attempts are fine — they're fun, and they show you the ceiling. Just don't record them as progress. The log is for the number you can stand on tomorrow.

Crank. is built around exactly this metric: each fragment gets a target and a per-session clean max, and the chart shows whether that honest number is actually climbing. Free on the App Store for iPhone.