Progressive overload and double progression
What it solves
Strength and muscle
How the plan uses it
The engine advances suggested loads only after controlled logs; otherwise it retains the dose or progresses repetitions.
How your week is decided
A week that can recover.
The planner sets a priority, spaces costly work and adapts when recovery changes.
How your week is decided
Three decisions, every week.
- 01
Set the priority
Your main goal leads. Support work earns its place only when the week can recover from it.
- 02
Space the cost
Heavy lower-body work, fast running and hard conditioning are placed with recovery in mind.
- 03
Adjust to reality
Fatigue, a missed session or limited kit changes the dose before it breaks the whole plan.
Methods by training context
Go deeper when it helps.
Each guide explains the training principle, how the plan uses it and when not to add more.
Undulating periodisation
What it solves
Strength while managing mixed training
How the plan uses it
Strength exposures alternate their emphasis while the schedule protects hard lower-body work from high-intensity running.
RPE and RIR autoregulation
What it solves
Consistent high-quality strength work
How the plan uses it
Prescriptions keep RPE and RIR ranges visible, and fatigue signals lower both load and volume.
The knowledge base
Every prescription resolves to a record, and every record to a source.
335 training methods across nine sports, 144 decision rules, 48 tests and 145 curated sources. 224 are prescribed automatically once they suit you, and 40 more once you have earned them — those ask for things like established mileage or a tolerated history before they appear. Another 58 never show up as a session at all: they decide how your blocks are shaped, how your load is chosen and where your sessions sit in the week. 13 are held back for a coach, because they need something we cannot check from here. Compiled 2026-10-14.
Of those 335, 32 have had their actual prescription — the sets, the loads, the rest, the progression — read and reviewed by a person. 335 more meet every automated programming check without having been read. None has yet been reviewed by an external coach, and none has been validated against an athlete's outcome; when either becomes true this sentence will change.
| Sport | Methods | Sources | Tests | Synthesised or controlled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Powerlifting | 44 | 38 | 6 | 52% |
| Bodybuilding | 39 | 34 | 5 | 85% |
| Weightlifting | 34 | 26 | 5 | 47% |
| Hyrox | 37 | 24 | 6 | 38% |
| Functional Fitness | 35 | 30 | 5 | 100% |
| Hybrid athlete | 31 | 34 | 4 | 97% |
| Calisthenics | 34 | 22 | 5 | 74% |
| Running | 43 | 28 | 6 | 77% |
| Trail Ultra | 38 | 19 | 6 | 50% |
What the grades mean
A practitioner model is never presented as a research finding. Where a method rests on documented coaching practice rather than on trials, the record says so, and where the evidence is contested the method is kept for completeness and excluded from automatic prescription.
- S — Official position or governing standard
- 43 methods, 9 sources
- A — Synthesised evidence
- 176 methods, 107 sources
- B — Controlled primary evidence
- 9 methods, 9 sources
- C — Observational and descriptive evidence
- 50 methods, 15 sources
- D — Documented practice
- 23 methods, 5 sources
- P — Practitioner model
- 31 methods, 0 sources
- E — Experimental or contested
- 3 methods, 0 sources
The sources with the most authority
American College of Sports Medicine / Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2026 · Strength is enhanced by loads at or above 80% 1RM, full range of motion, 2-3 sets, placement early in the session and at least two sessions per week; hypertrophy by higher weekly volume (10+ sets) and eccentric overload; power by moderate loads 30-70% 1RM with low-to-moderate volume and fast concentric intent. Training to momentary failure, equipment type, set structure, time under tension, blood flow restriction and periodization did not consistently change outcomes.
Limitations: Overview of reviews in general healthy adults, not competitive athletes; few prescription variables showed consistent effects, so absence of effect partly reflects heterogeneity.
ACSM Position Stand: Progression Models in Resistance Training for Healthy Adults
American College of Sports Medicine / Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2009 · Established the progression framework still used in practice: multi-joint before single-joint, large before small muscle groups, higher intensity before lower, with novice, intermediate and advanced loading and frequency bands that differ by training status.
Limitations: Superseded on prescription specifics by the 2026 overview of reviews; retained because the exercise-sequencing and training-status framing remains the shared vocabulary of the field.
NSCA Position Statement on Weightlifting for Sports Performance
National Strength and Conditioning Association / J Strength Cond Res, 2023 · Weightlifting movements and their derivatives produce the highest reported force, rate of force development and power outputs, and load can be manipulated across the derivative range to emphasise different parts of the force-velocity curve; derivatives are endorsed for athletes who do not need the full competition lifts.
Limitations: Addresses weightlifting as a training means for other sports rather than weightlifting as a contested sport.
ACSM / Exercise and Sport Science Australia / Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2025 · Proposes standardised intensity terminology across ages, sexes, abilities and activities, on the basis that inconsistent intensity language is a primary barrier to applying exercise recommendations.
Limitations: A terminology standard rather than a training-effect finding; adopted here for vocabulary, not dosage.
J Sport Health Sci, 2025 · Consensus that stretching improves range of motion and reduces muscle stiffness, but does not meaningfully contribute to muscle growth, does not work as a general injury-prevention strategy, does not improve posture, and does not acutely aid post-exercise recovery.
Limitations: Expert consensus rather than pooled effect estimates; reduced stiffness is not always a desirable outcome for a given sport.
NSCA Position Statement: Resistance Training for Older Adults
National Strength and Conditioning Association / J Strength Cond Res, 2019 · Progressive resistance training remains the primary countermeasure to age-related losses of muscle mass, strength and function, with prescription bands given for the older adult population.
Limitations: Population is older adults generally rather than masters competitors; used here only to inform masters-athlete modifications.
Position Statement on Youth Resistance Training: the 2014 International Consensus
UKSCA and endorsing bodies / Br J Sports Med, 2014 · Supervised, appropriately prescribed resistance training is safe and effective for youth and should be built around technical competence and long-term development rather than maximal loading.
Limitations: Youth population; used here only to bound the youngest athlete the engine will prescribe for.
Consensus Statements — Optimizing Performance of the Elite Athlete
International Consensus Conference / Scand J Med Sci Sports, 2025 · Consensus emphasises individualised, sport-specific training and nutrition and the deliberate integration of concurrent training modalities to build endurance, resilience and efficiency, rather than treating modalities as competing.
Limitations: Consensus across broad themes; individual statements vary in the strength of evidence behind them.
HYROX Official Rulebooks 26/27 — Single, Doubles and Team Relay
HYROX, 2026 · Defines the competition format and every station load by division for the 26/27 season: eight 1 km runs; SkiErg and row 1000 m; sled push 102/152/202 kg and sled pull 78/103/153 kg including sled over 50 m; burpee broad jumps 80 m; farmers carry 2x16/24/32 kg over 200 m; sandbag lunges 10/20/30 kg over 100 m; 100 wall balls at 4/6/9 kg to 2.70 m for women and 3.00 m for men. Loads fall into three tiers, with Women Pro and Mixed Doubles sharing the Men Open tier.
Limitations: Season-versioned. Loads and standards have changed between seasons, so this record is a snapshot tied to rule_version 26/27 and is stale the moment a new rulebook is published.
British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2023 · Every prescription beat no training for both outcomes. Strength was maximised by higher loads above 80% 1RM, multiple sets and three sessions weekly; hypertrophy was promoted comparably across load prescriptions provided multiple sets were used.
Limitations: Mostly non-athlete populations; many prescription contrasts had overlapping credible intervals.
Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2021 · Hypertrophy appears largely load-independent across the usable load spectrum, whereas maximal strength gains are superior with high-load training; trained participants needed more sessions to gain, untrained gained more readily.
Limitations: Modest study count; load categories are coarse and effort was not always equated.
J Exerc Sci Fit, 2025 · Autoregulated approaches — APRE, velocity-based and RPE — outperformed fixed percentage-based training for maximal strength, with APRE ranked first for both back squat and bench press 1RM.
Limitations: No moderate or large effect sizes separated the autoregulated methods from each other for squat; SUCRA rankings are probabilistic and should not be read as decisive superiority.
Evidence and scope
Public evidence, applied with limits.
The method cards translate public research and professional guidance into general planning rules. They do not reproduce coaching courses, diagnose symptoms or replace an appropriately qualified professional.