About

This program is a five day per week body part split. If you’ve been following the Phases you’ve always hit each muscle group at least 2x per week. So this will be a novel stimulus for you. In addition, the volume is concentrated into one day, which makes the strength on the stimulus a bit higher. That’s just what you need if you really want to trigger some adaptations at this point in your training path.

Who is this for?

This program is designed for experienced men and women who have already gone through at least one cycle of Phase III.

Structure

This isn’t just any ordinary body part split like you can find floating around on the internet. The key difference here is lower training monotony in that you get an alternation of loading (small, medium, and large) on a daily, as well as weekly basis.

To give you an example, instead of hammering away at the most you can sustain workout after workout, this program will push you beyond your limit for a day and then pull back a little to let you actively recover the next day. In numbers:

Your sustainable volume tolerance is 4 sets per exercise. You can do this day after day, week after week. This is a medium load. Suppose you do 6 sets per exercise. You could do this for maybe two or three days in a row, but it is not sustainable. This is a large load. Anything below 4 sets is active recovery and is termed a small load. The key driver of progress is the large load as it pushes you to new heights. Medium loads are for maintenance and small loads are for recovery.

This bodybuilding program will cycle these loads on daily and weekly levels. As far as I am aware, this alternation of the daily load is unique in bodybuilding (although it does exist at the weekly level).

Cardio

You should pair this program with low-intensity steady state cardio, which you can do on non-weight training days.

Flexibility/Mobility

Finish off your cardio days with some stretching. Did you know that stretching a muscle can trigger hypertrophy? It’s true. So don’t skip this if you’re truly looking to maximize your development.

Weights

The first time you encounter a new exercise you have not previously done, the app will assign an estimated working weight. Use the following procedure to correctly calibrate the weights for future workouts.

  1. Scan through your assigned weights.
  2. Locate the first set with the heaviest weight
  3. That set is your first “workset”.
  4. The target reps in reserve (RIR) for all your worksets is 4-1 RIR.
  5. Adjust the weight of your sets as needed by either adding or subtracting weight, so that your heaviest sets fall in this RIR range.
  6. Example: your assigned top set is 85 for 5 reps. The most you’ve ever done is 75 for 5 reps. So adjust your weight down to 70 so you can hit 5 reps with just a little effort to spare.

Program Conclusion

After finishing your first run through the program, go back and rotate a few new exercises into the program. For example, try front squats in place of back squats. Whatever you decide, do try to maintain the loading structure. That’s really the key element. So if you replace 5×5@80% squats with front squats, use the same 5×5@80% pattern.  Got it?

Enjoy, and get Strongur!