Training program
Wave progression program
Four main-lift days a week, each built on a percentage wave that climbs through a four-week cycle and finishes with a set taken to as many reps as you have. Slow, unglamorous, and it keeps working for years. Free, no sign-up.
- Days / week
- 4
- Block length
- 4 weeks
- Cost
- Free
Your numbers
Enter what you can lift and every percentage below becomes a real weight, rounded to what you can actually load on the bar. Nothing is sent anywhere — it stays in this page.
The week
Overhead press
- Overhead press3×5 / 5 / 5+65-85% TM
- Dip5×10RPE 8
- Dumbbell row5×10RPE 8
- Hanging leg raise3×10-15RPE 8
Deadlift
- Deadlift3×5 / 5 / 5+65-85% TM
- Leg press5×10RPE 8
- Back extension4×12RPE 7
- Ab wheel rollout3×8-12RPE 8
Rest
Bench press
- Barbell bench press3×5 / 5 / 5+65-85% TM
- Incline dumbbell press5×10RPE 8
- Lat pulldown5×10RPE 8
- Triceps pushdown3×12-15RPE 8
Squat
- Back squat3×5 / 5 / 5+65-85% TM
- Romanian deadlift5×10RPE 8
- Walking lunge4×10-12RPE 8
- Plank3×45-60 s
Rest
Rest
The week adds up to
- Sessions
- 4
- Working sets
- 62
- Rest days
- 3
Most sets
- Dip5
- Dumbbell row5
- Incline dumbbell press5
- Lat pulldown5
The coach holds your training maxes, runs the wave arithmetic every week, and resets them when the top-set reps say it is time.
Who this is for
Intermediate and advanced lifters who have stopped being able to add weight weekly, let alone every session. The defining feature is patience: you deliberately train below your true maximum for most of the cycle so that the top sets stay repeatable. Beginners should not run this — they can still progress far faster on a 5×5, and spending that window here wastes it.
How it works
Everything is calculated from a training max — about 90% of your true one-rep max, which keeps every prescribed weight comfortably achievable. Each week takes the main lift through three ascending sets, from roughly 65% to 85% of that training max, and the last set is taken for as many quality reps as you can manage. One main lift per day, then accessory work in the 10-rep range to build the volume the main lift no longer supplies.
How to progress
At the end of each four-week cycle add 2.5 kg to your upper-body training maxes and 5 kg to your lower-body ones — then start the wave again. That is roughly 15 kg a year on the squat, which sounds slow until you compare it with the third time you have restarted a linear program at the same weight. Judge a cycle by the rep count on the final set, not by the top weight.
What to do when you stall
If the last set drops to three reps or fewer, your training max is too high — reset it to 90% of what you can currently do for a genuine triple and continue. This is the built-in correction and using it is not a setback; a training max that has drifted above your real strength is the single most common way this program stops working.
Swapping exercises
The four main lifts are the program and should stay put for at least a full cycle — the whole method depends on comparing the same lift across weeks. Accessory work is the opposite: change it whenever it gets stale, as long as you keep pushing, pulling and hinging in roughly the volumes shown.
This is a training template, not medical advice. Loads are starting points, not prescriptions — scale them to your own experience, and talk to a qualified clinician before starting a new program if you have an injury or a health condition.