Strength Training – 5-Day Strength and Hypertrophy

About the plan

12-week strength training plan that trains strength and hypertrophy as separate qualities within the same week instead of trying both in the same session. Monday and Tuesday are the strength days: few exercises, many sets of three to five reps and long rest on bench press, row, squat and deadlift. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the hypertrophy days, split into back and shoulders, legs, and chest and arms, with seven exercises per session, rep ranges from eight to fifteen and short rest. Each muscle group therefore gets two stimuli a week with different purposes — the heavy day builds the capacity to generate tension and the volume day builds the tissue. Progression is also dual: on strength days you add load as long as the reps come out clean, and on hypertrophy days you raise the load when you reach the top of the rep range on all sets. There are three blocks with deloads in weeks 4 and 8, a taper in week 11 and an assessment in week 12. It is a plan that demands a lot of time and recovery: five weekly sessions only pay off if sleep and nutrition are in order.