Workout of the Week #40

Hello and welcome to this Workout of the Week, number 40. This time we have a four-day-a-week upper-lower push-pull program with a goal of strength and size—so strength and muscular hypertrophy.

What’s the training goal? Well, I just said it. We want to maximize strength and build muscle mass.

Let’s have a look at our training variables. The training intensity for our muscle-building part will be 72.5% to 80% of the one-rep max, and for strength we work at 85% to 92.5% of the one-rep max. The rep ranges for muscle building are 6 to 8, and for strength, 2 to 4.

The training exertion is hard to near maximum, and the training effort is repeated effort for the hypertrophy (the muscle building) and maximum effort for the strength.

Let’s have a look at the exercises. What are we going to do? It’s based on fundamental movements: hinging, squatting bilaterally and unilaterally (so double-legged and single-legged), pushing, pulling, and we also have some single-joint isolation movements. The exercise order goes from most complex to least complex.

Looking at more training variables: The training frequency is four times a week. The organization is station training and includes some complexes. The training split is an upper-lower and a push-pull. So think about upper and lower, but also think about push and pull. We have an upper body push and we have an upper body pull. We have a lower body push and a lower body pull. Then we have our different sessions for the strength development and the muscle building.

We have upper body push for strength, lower body push for strength, upper body pull for strength, lower body pull for strength, and the same is true for the hypertrophy.

In session number one, we combine a lower body push with an upper body pull. In session number two, we combine a lower body pull with an upper body push. In session number three, we do an upper body pull and a lower body push. And in session number four, upper body push and lower body pull.

So how does it look? Let’s have a look at the program and jump inside.

Here we are inside our program. You can see an overview of the program, the table of contents, and then you can see we have Workout Number One, Workout Number Two, then one day of rest, and then Workout Number Three and Workout Number Four. You can also see the emphasis of each workout here in this overview.

Let’s have a look at Workout Number One, which is focused on lower body push for strength and upper body pull for hypertrophy. How does it look? This is what I meant with our complexes. We combine a front squat with a pull-up as a complex, and then you can see here the intensities and the repetitions. The front squat is aimed at strength development. The pull-up is aimed at muscle building.

Then the same is true for the next complexes. We have the Bulgarian split squat (a single-leg squat variation) combined with a bench row, and then we have the leg press and the dumbbell curls alternating. You can see the upper body pulling is done for hypertrophy. If we look at the intensities, they are lower—72.5% for eight repetitions. For the strength development, we have higher intensities: 85%, 87% for 2 to 3 repetitions.

If we go to Workout Number Two, now we have the lower body pull for strength (aimed at strength development) and the upper body push for hypertrophy. Same thing here—we have our complexes: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B. Then we see deadlift, RDL, and leg curls are aimed at strength development if we look at the intensities in a second. The pushing—the dumbbell incline bench press, the dumbbell shoulder press, and the French press—is aimed at building muscle mass.

Again, here we can see that: three sets of two at 87.5%, three sets of three at 85%, and three sets of four at 82.5%. For our muscle building, we stick to three sets of eight at 72.5%.

If we go to Workout Number Three, lower body push for hypertrophy and upper body pull for strength. Again, we see complexes: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, and so on. But now we can see the first exercise here is the bench row. Now we start with the pulling since the strength emphasis is the pulling, and then we have our lower body push (the squatting). We see here similar sets and reps as in the previous workouts: three sets of two at 87.5% for the strength development, three sets of three at 85%, and three sets of four at 82.5%. For our muscle building, we stick to three sets of eight at 72.5%.

For the last workout, Workout Number Four, the lower body pull for hypertrophy and the upper body push for strength. We see similar to Workout Number Two, but now it’s reversed. We start with the pushing since we work on strength—we start with the strength work and then do the muscle-building work. Again, our complexes and our reps, sets, and intensity: three sets of two at 87.5%, three sets of eight at 72.5% for the muscle building.

Then, if you download this workout, you can see a glossary explaining the terms, you can read a bit about myself, you can read what other people have to say about me, and last but certainly not least, you can join the membership.

So let’s move back and finish this workout. What are the next steps?

Number one: you download that PDF and follow it.

Number two: you join the membership. What’s the membership? The membership is basically where you get the full training program. So this was the first week of the four-week training program. In the membership, you get the four-week training program where it’s periodized. Considering we are at Workout Number 40, you’ll get another 39 training programs—39 training programs of four weeks in length.

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