Where the programming comes from

Buy a training program and you are trusting whoever wrote it. This page is where we show our working.

The method

The catalogue runs on structure that has trained lifters for decades. A twelve-week program splits into two five-week phases with a deload between them, a light week we schedule in advance instead of waiting until you need one. The deload lets the second phase start heavier than the first one did.

We write the overload into the numbers rather than leaving it as advice. Week four of a program asks more of you than week one did, in kilos or in reps, and you can read the whole climb before you start. Each working set carries an effort target in reps in reserve, the reps you could still do when you rack the bar.

The evidence base

The training variables in the catalogue are drawn from decades of exercise science research, not from a proprietary system. Rep ranges follow the work of researchers like Brad Schoenfeld, whose studies on hypertrophy rep ranges established that muscle grows across a broad range of repetitions, from sets of six to sets of thirty, provided the effort is high enough. The programs in this catalogue work in the six to fifteen range for most exercises, which balances growth stimulus with joint-friendly loads.

Volume prescription comes from the dose-response literature. The research on weekly set volume shows a clear relationship between the number of hard sets per muscle group per week and the rate of muscle growth, with diminishing returns above a certain threshold. The catalogue starts most trainees at ten to twelve sets per muscle per week and provides room to add more as training age grows.

Effort targets use the reps-in-reserve model, drawn from the RPE and proximity-to-failure research. Stopping a set one or two reps short of failure captures most of the growth stimulus while reducing injury risk and accumulated fatigue. The catalogue prints these targets on the page so you know how hard each set should feel before you start it.

Deload timing comes from fatigue management models. After several weeks of hard training, fatigue accumulates faster than fitness. A planned reduction in volume or intensity lets the fatigue dissipate while the fitness stays, and the lifter returns stronger on the other side. The catalogue schedules these deloads in advance rather than waiting for performance to drop.

Nothing novel

None of that is new, which is the point. A method that has survived forty years of lifters holds its place in these pages on merit. A novel system with a proprietary name is what a marketing team produces when someone asks it for a training program.

What we do not do

No session in this catalogue was generated by an AI. No algorithm wrote these programs. A language model cannot assess whether a session's exercise order taxes the right muscles in the right sequence, or whether the jump from week three to week four is too steep for someone training three days a week on dumbbells. Those are coaching decisions. A person made each one.

We do not use a template with a multiplier applied across the weeks. A template approach takes week one and multiplies the load by a fixed percentage for each subsequent week: week two is 105%, week three is 110%, and so on. That produces a smooth curve on a spreadsheet and ignores the fact that different exercises progress at different rates. A squat adds load faster than a lateral raise. A deadlift stalls earlier than a leg press. The catalogue accounts for these differences by writing each week as its own set of decisions.

There is no novel periodisation scheme with a brand name. The catalogue does not use wave-loaded reverse-banded conjugate undulation or any other phrase designed to sound proprietary. It uses progressive overload in straight sets, in supersets, and in rep ranges that the evidence supports. The method has a name: it is called training.

The writing

Settled methods still need writing out. Each session in the catalogue is its own page: week eleven's squat day assumes ten weeks of progress and reads nothing like week one's, because we wrote both of them.

Across 40+ programs that comes to thousands of pages of programming, and we wrote them one session at a time rather than generating the rest from week one and a multiplier.

How the catalogue grows

A new program starts from a brief. The brief specifies the equipment list, the number of training days per week, the goal, the target population, and the program length. A hypertrophy program for three days a week on dumbbells and a bench is a different brief from a strength program for four days a week with a full barbell setup.

From the brief, sessions are written one at a time. Week one, day one comes first. It establishes the exercise selection, the set and rep scheme, the rest periods, and the effort targets. Week one, day two follows, and it accounts for what day one trained: if day one loaded the quads and chest, day two might open with a deadlift variation and a row. Each session is written as a response to the one before it.

After the sessions are written, the build system checks them against the brief. If the brief says the program needs a pull-up bar and a set of dumbbells, the build system reads every session and confirms that no exercise calls for equipment outside that list. If a session reaches for a cable machine in a dumbbell program, the build fails.

The build system also checks the training days. If the cover says three days a week, every week in the program must contain three sessions. If week seven has four, the build fails. These checks run on every build of the catalogue, not as a one-time audit. A program that passes today will be checked again tomorrow.

The result is a growing catalogue where every program meets its own brief, every session respects the equipment list, and the gap between what the cover promises and what the pages contain is zero.

The check

The front of a program makes claims: days per week, session length, the equipment you need, the shape of the weeks ahead. On each build of the catalogue an automated check reads those claims and compares them with the sessions behind them. A program whose cover promises three days a week and whose weeks hold four fails the build, and a failed build does not ship.

The equipment rule gets the same treatment: a session that reaches for a barbell inside a machine-only program is a failed build too. The check's one job is confirming that the cover and the sessions tell the same story.

The result is a catalogue with no secret in it: the method is public knowledge, and the pages are the product.

For more on how overload works inside a program, see what progressive overload means. For why the first week of a program feels light on purpose, see why week one is a calibration week.

The program quiz matches you to a program based on your available days, equipment and goal.