Designed by a nine-specialist panel, attacked by an independent reviewer, then
revised. Every number here is a delta from something measured in week 1.
THE 50 PROGRAMME (v2, post-review)
Victor del Rosal, 17 August 2026 to 16 February 2027 (26 weeks)
Every target in this document is a delta from a number measured in week 1. Nothing here is an absolute pulled from the air. Where a number is a rule of thumb rather than a settled fact, it says so.
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1. THE THESIS
The trade is fewer hard sets, harder sets, and the recovery budget spent on the things that change how a man reads from across a room at 50. Weekly hard sets come down from 94 in the old plan to 67, delivered across four sessions of 16 to 18 sets instead of three sessions of 30-plus. The reasoning: per-session muscle growth response appears to flatten somewhere around 8 to 10 hard sets per muscle (a working heuristic from the training literature, not a settled constant), and a 49-year-old clears the damage from very high per-session volume more slowly than he did at 25 (direction well supported, magnitude not established to any precise figure). The volume he gets back is reallocated from what a shirt hides (chest, direct abs) to what it does not (side delts, upper back, neck, forearms, arms).
Fuelling runs build-first, reveal-second. Ten weeks above maintenance (weeks 6 to 15), five at maintenance before them, then nine weeks at roughly minus 500 kcal a day. Expect 82.6kg to about 85.0kg by week 15, then down to about 81kg on 16 February, with a bigger shoulder line and a smaller waist. Honest lean-tissue expectation across the build: 1.0 to 1.5kg, not 2.5kg. The rest of the scale movement is fat, glycogen and water.
Underneath it sits 150 minutes of Zone 2 a week (200 in Block C only) and one weekly 4x4. That is the whole aerobic allocation, because cardiorespiratory fitness and midlife blood pressure are the two strongest modifiable levers on the dementia risk his father's history puts on the table.
The conflicts, resolved in one line each.
- Volume: 67 hard sets, ramped from 52 over five weeks. One number, and it is the sum of the four session tables in section 3. Hard ceiling 70.
- Build vs cut: build first. A deficit held for 26 weeks produces a smaller version of the current shape, which is the exact failure mode for a man whose goal is to look strong.
- Aerobic dose: 150 minutes Zone 2 plus one 4x4 in Blocks A, B and D. 200 minutes in Block C, where the extra expenditure is useful. 150 is a floor and it never goes below that, including travel weeks.
- Deload cadence: weeks 5, 10, 15 and 20. Booked now. There is no week 25 deload; Block D's taper replaces it.
- Power work placement: always first in the session, never after lifting. If the day cannot hold both, the lifting loses a backoff set.
- Maximal-intent exposures: three a week, named honestly. Monday sprints and rotational throws, Wednesday 4x4, Saturday med ball and free swings. The old Tuesday depth landings are deleted, because that was a fourth exposure the document was pretending not to have.
- Hitting volume: one session a week through January, ramping to three from 17 February.
- Rest day (Sunday): no lifting, no sprinting, no cage. 50 minutes of easy Zone 2 walking is allowed and is counted in the training total.
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2. THE WEEK
| Day | Session | Duration | The session's job |
|---|
| Mon | Power block + Upper A (push and delts) | 90 min | Sprint and throw on fresh legs, then the heaviest pressing of the week. Side delt priority. |
| Mon PM | Nothing | | Protect the sleep. |
| Tue | Lower A (squat pattern) + Nordics | 85 min | Heavy squat, quad volume, hamstring eccentrics, patellar tendon loading, neck. |
| Wed | 4x4 intervals on the bike | 40 min | The single session that moves VO2max. Bike, not running, because Tuesday's legs are still there. |
| Thu | Upper B (pull and rear delts) | 70 min | Upper back width and thickness. The half of him other people see from behind. |
| Thu PM | Zone 2 | 50 min | Aerobic base, 10 hours clear of the morning lift. |
| Fri | Lower B (hinge pattern) | 80 min | Trap-bar pull, glutes, second delt block, forearms, neck, carries. |
| Sat | Med ball throws + hitting | 75 min | Rotational power and 60 quality swings. |
| Sat PM | Zone 2 | 50 min | Aerobic base. |
| Sun | No lifting + easy Zone 2 | 50 min | Walking or easy bike only. Adaptation happens here. |
| Daily | Mobility, 12 min | 84 min/wk | 90/90 hip switches 10/side, half-kneeling hip flexor 60s/side, quadruped t-spine rotations 10/side, side-lying windmills 10/side, 2 min breathing at 4 in / 6 out. |
Structured training: 590 minutes, 9 hours 50 minutes. Mobility adds 84 minutes. The honest all-in weekly cost, including walks, light exposure, blood pressure readings, commute and food prep, is 20 to 23 hours. That full arithmetic is in section 9 and it is not hidden.
Zone 2 lands Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, all of it 24 hours clear of a lower-body session. The 4x4 sits Wednesday, 24 hours after Tuesday legs and 48 before Friday. Wednesday is the least-bad slot rather than a clean one: the bike is chosen because it is non-eccentric and will not add to Friday's hinge cost.
The clock
Times assume a 09:45 work start and a 22:15 lights out. Blood pressure is always taken before caffeine, or the readings are noise.
| Time | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|
| 06:15 | Wake, morning gate (5 min) | same | same | same | same | same | same |
| 06:20 | BP, 2 readings | | BP, 2 readings | | BP, 2 readings | | |
| 06:30 | Caffeine 250mg + 60-80g carbs | Caffeine + carbs | Caffeine + 40-60g carbs | Caffeine + carbs | Caffeine + carbs | Feed 1 | Feed 1 |
| 06:45 | Travel to gym | Travel | Travel | Travel | Travel | | |
| 07:05 | Power block (20 min) | Power opener (8 min) | Warm-up 10 min | Upper B starts | Lower B starts | | |
| 07:25 | Upper A | Lower A | 4x4 (24 min) | | | | |
| 08:15 | | | Cooldown, done 07:50 | Session ends | | | |
| 08:35 | Session ends | Session ends 08:30 | | | Session ends 08:30 | | |
| 08:45 | Post-lift feed: 45g protein + 80-100g carbs | same | same | same | same | | |
| 09:45 | Work | Work | Work | Work | Work | | |
| 10:00 | | | | | | Med ball + hitting (75 min) | Easy Zone 2 walk (50 min) |
| 11:00 | Caffeine hard stop | same | same | same | same | same | Sunday review (10 min) |
| 13:00 | Feed 2 + 15-20 min daylight walk | same | same | same | same | Feed 2 + walk | Feed 2 + walk |
| 17:00 | Feed 3 | Feed 3 | Feed 3 | Feed 3 | Feed 3 | Zone 2 17:00-17:50 | Feed 3 |
| 18:15 | | | | Zone 2 18:15-19:05 | | | |
| 19:00 | Dinner | Dinner | Dinner | Dinner 19:15 | Dinner | Dinner | Dinner |
| 20:00 | Feed 4 (casein) | same | same | same | same | same | same |
| 21:30 | Screens off | same | same | same | same | same | same |
| 22:00 | In bed | same | same | same | same | same | same |
| 22:15 | Lights out | same | same | same | same | same | same |
Every hard effort finishes by 08:45 except Thursday's Zone 2, which ends 19:05 and is not a hard effort. Nothing collides with the 11:00 caffeine stop, because every caffeinated session starts at 07:05.
Morning outdoor light. On Monday to Friday the 06:45 walk to the gym plus the 13:00 post-meal walk covers it. From November to February, when 06:45 is dark, the 13:00 walk is the light exposure and it is not optional; 15 to 20 minutes outdoors, no sunglasses.
Where the December sprints happen. From 1 November to 28 February the 6x20m accelerations move indoors to a sports hall or an indoor 3G, booked as a standing slot, with the warm-up extended from 8 to 12 minutes. If no indoor surface is available that week, substitute 6 x 8-second bike sprints from a rolling start with 90 seconds between. Do not sprint outdoors on a cold, wet or unlit surface. That substitution is a downgrade and is accepted as one.
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3. THE SESSIONS
Universal rules.
- Compounds stop at 1 to 2 reps in reserve. Isolation last sets go to 0 to 1.
- Eccentric is 3 seconds on everything except the heavy hinge and the chin-up (2 seconds).
- Rest 3 minutes on main lifts, 2 on backoffs, 60 to 90 seconds on isolation.
- The 6-set warm-up ramp (bar, 40%, 55%, 70%, 80%, 88% of the day's top-set load) applies to the first barbell lift of the session only: Monday's bench, Tuesday's squat, Thursday's chin-up, Friday's trap-bar. It is never cut. Lateral raises and isolation get one light set of 15 and nothing more.
- Brace on a 70% breath, exhale through pursed lips on the way up, no breath-hold longer than 3 seconds, no maximal grinding singles.
- Add load only when every set hits the top of the rep range at the prescribed RIR, in the smallest increment available (1.25kg per side).
- Counting rule: a hard set is one working set taken to the prescribed RIR. A unilateral exercise counts as one hard set for both sides, and its time cost is doubled in the durations above. Warm-up ramps, external rotations, dead hangs and carries are not hard sets and are not counted.
- No velocity device is required. The old 0.30 m/s and 0.15 m/s floors and the weekly 120kg velocity check are deleted. They needed hardware that was never named and the 120kg check was a near-max single every week in a programme that says it does not do those. Judgement of bar speed comes from RPE and from filming the last set.
MONDAY: Power block + Upper A (90 min, 18 hard sets)
Power block, 20 min, before any lifting:
- 8-minute prep: bike 3 min, leg swings, A-skips, 3 build-up runs at 60/75/90%
- Accelerations from a two-point stance: 6 x 20m, walk-back recovery, 90s between reps
- Rotational med ball scoop toss side-on to a wall: 3 x 5 per side, 4kg, maximum intent, drop and retrieve, never catch off the rebound
Upper A:
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Hard sets | Intensity | Rest |
|---|
| Seated dumbbell lateral raise | 4 x 12-15 | 4 | 1s up, pause, 3s down. Last set 0-1 RIR | 75s |
| Flat barbell bench press | 3 x 6-10 | 3 | 1-2 RIR. This is the tested lift | 3 min |
| Strict overhead press: 1 top set of 5 at RPE 8, then 3 x 6 at 85% of that | 4 total | 4 | Autoregulated | 3 min |
| Weighted dip or deep-stretch cable fly | 2 x 10-15 | 2 | 1-2 RIR | 90s |
| Face pull | 2 x 15-20 | 2 | 0-1 RIR | 60s |
| Overhead cable triceps extension | 3 x 12-15 | 3 | 0-1 RIR | 60s |
| Cable external rotation at 90 degrees | 3 x 12 | not counted | 3s eccentric | 60s |
Flat bench replaces incline. The old plan tested a bench standard it never trained. Incline is a permitted swap in any week the flat bench is unavailable, but the tested lift is flat.
TUESDAY: Lower A, squat pattern (85 min, 16 hard sets)
Power opener, 5 min: 2 x 3 unloaded countermovement jumps, submaximal, for priming only. The old trap-bar jumps and 20cm depth landings are deleted: that was a fourth maximal-intent exposure and an unnecessary Achilles load.
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Hard sets | Intensity | Rest |
|---|
| Back squat: 1 top set of 3-5 at RPE 8, then 3 x 5 at 85% | 4 total | 4 | Autoregulated by RPE | 3 min |
| Bulgarian split squat or leg press | 3 x 8-12 | 3 | 1-2 RIR. Unilateral: both sides per set | 2 min |
| Romanian deadlift | 3 x 8 | 3 | 1-2 RIR, deliberate stretch | 2 min |
| Nordic hamstring curl or slider leg curl | 2 x 5 | 2 | 4s eccentric. Moved here from Friday | 2 min |
| Leg extension, 3s down / 1s pause / 3s up (or Spanish squat, see note) | 2 x 8 | 2 | Tendon block. RPE 8 | 2 min |
| Lying neck extension, plate on towel + neck lateral flexion | 2 x 15-20 | 2 | Start 2.5kg, add 1.25kg when 20 is easy | 60s |
| Farmer's carry | 3 x 40m | not counted | Start 2 x 32kg, +2kg/hand every 2nd week, cap 2 x 60kg | 90s |
Nordics moved to Tuesday. They were sitting the day before maximum-intent rotational throwing, which is the standard hamstring strain setup. Tuesday to Saturday is four days.
Spanish squat setup, if used: one 41mm (2.5in) heavy resistance band looped behind both knees and anchored to a squat rack upright at knee height. If that band and anchor are not both available, use the leg extension. Leg extension is the default so there is nothing to decide on the day.
WEDNESDAY: 4x4 (40 min)
10 min warm-up on the bike. 4 rounds of 4 minutes at 90 to 95% max heart rate with 3 minutes easy spinning between. 5 min cooldown. Pace round 1 by effort (RPE 8-9), rounds 2 to 4 by heart rate. Log average watts per round. If round 4 is more than 5% below round 1, the opening was too hard. Never on foot, never in the evening.
In weeks 1, 9, 17 and 26 the 4x4 is replaced by the 12-minute bike time trial (section 7).
THURSDAY: Upper B, pull and rear delts (70 min, 16 hard sets)
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Hard sets | Intensity | Rest |
|---|
| Cable lateral raise from behind the hip | 4 x 15-20 | 4 | 3s eccentric, last set 0-1 RIR | 75s |
| Weighted chin-up | 3 x 5-8 | 3 | 1-2 RIR, 2s eccentric | 3 min |
| Chest-supported row or seal row to sternum | 3 x 8-12 | 3 | 1s hold at contraction | 2 min |
| Straight-arm pulldown or dumbbell pullover | 2 x 12-15 | 2 | Full stretch at top | 90s |
| Reverse pec-deck | 2 x 15-20 | 2 | 0-1 RIR | 60s |
| Incline dumbbell curl, 3s eccentric | 2 x 10-12 | 2 | 0-1 RIR. Doubles as biceps tendon work | 60s |
| Dead hang | 2 x 30-45s | not counted | Add 5kg belt when 45s is easy | 60s |
| Bodyweight chin-up to failure, once a month only | 1 set | not counted | The rep-standard test. Last item of the session | |
Evening: Zone 2, 50 min, bike or incline walk, full sentences throughout.
FRIDAY: Lower B, hinge pattern (80 min, 17 hard sets)
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Hard sets | Intensity | Rest |
|---|
| Trap-bar deadlift: 1 top set of 3 at RPE 8, then 2 x 5 at 85% | 3 total | 3 | Autoregulated by RPE | 3 min |
| Hip thrust, 3s up / 1s pause / 3s down | 3 x 10 | 3 | 1-2 RIR | 2 min |
| Lean-away single-arm cable lateral raise | 3 x 12-15 | 3 | 0-1 RIR on last set. Unilateral: both sides per set | 60s |
| Copenhagen adductor plank | 2 x 8/side | 2 | Short lever to week 8, then long lever | 60s |
| Wrist flexion + reverse wrist curl superset | 2 x 12-15 each | 2 | 0-1 RIR. The only direct forearm work | 60s |
| Neck flexion | 2 x 15-20 | 2 | Slow, no jerking | 60s |
| Single-leg heel raise off a step, 3s up / 3s down | 2 x 8 | 2 | Achilles block. Also the capacity test | 90s |
| Farmer's carry | 3 x 40m | not counted | +2kg/hand every 2nd week, cap 2 x 60kg | 90s |
Friday's carry now has the same written progression as Tuesday's. The old plan said only "progressing to 2 x 60kg" and left the rate unstated.
SATURDAY: Med ball + hitting (75 min)
Step-behind rotational throw 4 x 5 per side (4kg) and half-kneeling shotput throw 3 x 5 per side (3kg), 60s between sets, every throw at maximum intent.
Then 60 swings. Solo default, because there is no partner most weeks: 20 off a mid tee working the one fix of the week, 25 alternating high tee and low tee, 15 free swings at full intent into a net. If a partner is there, the middle 25 become bucket toss. One fix per session, film every fourth session. If the swings go lazy, stop at 40.
Also here: 2 sets of ab wheel. Counted in the weekly tally as tendon and trunk work, not as a session block.
Evening: Zone 2, 50 min.
SUNDAY: No lifting + Zone 2 (50 min)
Easy walk, hike or bike at conversational pace. Mobility. Ten-minute review: 7-day rolling weight, 7-day blood pressure average, resting heart rate against the 14-day baseline, and the volume gate (formula in section 6, item 13).
THE WEEKLY TALLY
67 hard sets. This is the sum of the four session tables above, and it is the only set number in this document.
| Area | Sets | Where |
|---|
| Side delts | 11 | Mon 4, Thu 4, Fri 3 |
| Hamstrings and glutes | 11 | Tue RDL 3 + Nordic 2, Fri trap-bar 3 + hip thrust 3 |
| Quads | 9 | Tue squat 4, split squat 3, leg extension 2 |
| Back | 8 | Thu chin 3, row 3, pulldown 2 |
| Chest | 5 | Mon bench 3, dip/fly 2 |
| Arms | 5 | Mon triceps 3, Thu curls 2 |
| Overhead press | 4 | Mon 4 |
| Rear delts | 4 | Mon face pull 2, Thu pec-deck 2 |
| Neck | 4 | Tue 2 (extension + lateral), Fri 2 (flexion) |
| Copenhagen + heel raise | 4 | Fri |
| Direct forearm | 2 | Fri wrist superset |
| Total | 67 | Mon 18, Tue 16, Thu 16, Fri 17 |
Not counted, deliberately and stated once: warm-up ramps, cable external rotations, dead hangs, farmer's carries, the monthly bodyweight chin test, the Saturday ab wheel (2 sets), all mobility. Add those and the raw session count is about 79 movements; 67 is the hard-set number and it is what the ceiling of 70 refers to.
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4. THE PHASES
A deload keeps the same exercises, the same days and the same loads, halves the hard sets, and stops every set at least 3 reps short of failure. On the trap bar and squat, where the prescription is a triple or a five, a deload set is the same load for a double. Zone 2 stays at full volume through a deload. Do not deload by dropping the weight.
Deload weeks: 5, 10, 15 and 20. There is no week 25 deload. Block D's taper is the fifth deload and the old document booked both, which was a contradiction.
BLOCK A: RAMP. Weeks 1 to 5 (17 Aug to 20 Sep). Single priority: get to 67 sets without breaking anything, and get every baseline on paper. Weekly hard sets 52, 56, 60, 64, then deload at 32. All top sets at RPE 7, backoffs at 80%.
Week 1 is the baseline week and it is the load-bearing week of the whole document. See the full week 1 protocol at the end of this section. Calories at estimated maintenance, 3,100. Book the sleep study. Establish measured max heart rate on the bike in week 4, pending the clinician answer in section 8.
BLOCK B: THE BUILD. Weeks 6 to 15 (21 Sep to 29 Nov). Single priority: add muscle to the shoulder line and upper back. Hard sets held at 67. Intensity waves on a five-week cycle: wave week 1 top sets at 78-82% of estimated 1RM, week 2 at 83-86%, week 3 at 87-90%, week 4 top triple at RPE 8.5, week 5 deload. Two waves in this block. Calories 3,500 on lifting days, 3,150 otherwise. Expect 82.6kg to about 85.0kg. Retest in week 14: RPE 8 triples on all four lifts, same protocol as week 1. No true max, at any point in the 26 weeks. That resolves the old week 14 double-booking, where the wave's heavy single and the 1RM test sat on the same week.
BLOCK C: THE REVEAL. Weeks 16 to 24 (30 Nov to 31 Jan). Single priority: strip fat without giving back the muscle. Calories 2,800 on lifting days, 2,400 otherwise. Hard sets drop to 58 by cutting one backoff from each main lift and one set from each isolation, not by cutting exercises. Every top set stays heavy. Protein 190g held. Zone 2 goes to 4 x 50 minutes, 200 minutes. Deload at week 20. Expect about 85.0kg down to about 81kg. Two consecutive drops in the top-set load on any of the four lifts triggers an immediate +250 kcal a day, no discussion.
Weeks 19 and 20 (21 Dec to 3 Jan) run the Christmas template, not the Block C prescription. See section 4b.
BLOCK D: THE SHARPEN. Weeks 25 to 26 plus 15-16 Feb (1 to 16 Feb). Single priority: shed fatigue so the work shows. Calories return to maintenance, 3,100, on day one of week 25. No further deficit, no water manipulation, no depletion. Week 25 at 60% of hard sets (40), week 26 at 40% (27), loads held. Last hard session Tuesday 10 February. Retest the four lifts (RPE 8 triples), the bike time trial, grip, jump and all circumferences during 8 to 12 February. Hitting stays at one session a week until 17 February, then ramps to three sessions of 80 swings.
Week 1: the baseline week (17 to 23 Aug)
Nothing in section 7 has a target until these numbers exist. Run week 1 at 52 hard sets with the same session structure, and fit the tests in as written.
| Day | Baseline test | Protocol |
|---|
| Mon | Flat bench press and strict overhead press estimated 1RM | Ramp as normal, then one top triple at RPE 8. Stop. Estimated 1RM = load / (1.0278 - 0.0278 x reps), using reps-to-failure implied by the RPE (RPE 8 triple = 5 reps in the formula). Record load, reps, RPE. |
| Mon | Shoulder circumference at widest delts, relaxed, and neck at Adam's apple | Before training, standing, unflexed, tape level. Two readings, record the mean. |
| Tue | Back squat estimated 1RM | Same top-triple-at-RPE-8 protocol. |
| Tue | Grip, both hands | Hand dynamometer, seated, elbow at 90 degrees, best of 3 per hand. If no dynamometer is available, the substitute is a two-hand dead hang for time and that becomes the tracked number instead; pick one on day one and never switch. |
| Wed | 12-minute bike time trial | Replaces the 4x4. Same bike, same resistance mode. Record average watts. Estimated VO2max = (11.0 x watts / bodyweight kg) + 7. Treat this as a tracking number, not a laboratory value. |
| Thu | Weighted chin-up estimated 1RM, plus bodyweight chins to failure | Top triple at RPE 8 with belt load, then the bodyweight max-rep set at the end of the session. |
| Fri | Trap-bar deadlift estimated 1RM | Same top-triple-at-RPE-8 protocol. |
| Fri | Waist at navel, forearm at widest relaxed, both thighs | Morning, fasted, unflexed, same tape, two readings each, record the mean. |
| Fri | Countermovement jump | Chalk jump-and-reach against a wall: standing reach mark, then best of 3 jump marks. Record the difference in cm. Accuracy is roughly plus or minus 2cm and that is accepted; it is a trend instrument. |
| Sat | 20m sprint from a two-point stance | Best of 3, same surface, phone timer or gates. |
| Mon (before all of the above) | Bodyweight, fasted | Four fasted morning weigh-ins across week 1, take the mean. |
| Mon | Labs, blood pressure cuff, HRV/RHR baseline start | Section 7. Lab-week protocol below. |
| Any | Photos | Front, side, back, same light, same spot, same time of day. Repeat monthly. |
No maxes. Ever. Every strength number in this programme, in week 1, week 14 and February, comes from an RPE 8 triple. The old plan's two true 1RM tests are deleted.
Lab weeks (1, 13, 25) need 48 hours clear of resistance training, fasted, drawn 08:00 to 09:00. The only draw that works is Monday morning. On lab weeks: no Saturday med-ball session that weekend, draw at 08:00 Monday, and Monday's lifting session moves to 17:00 that day. No caffeine before the draw. This is stated here so it is not being worked out at 07:30 on the day.
Body fat percentage is not measured and therefore is not claimed anywhere in this document. The old plan asserted 9%, 10%, 11% and 12% with no instrument capable of producing any of them. If he wants a lean-mass number, one DEXA in week 1 and one in week 26 will do it. It is optional, it changes no prescription, and its cost should be checked locally rather than taken from this page.
4b. THE CHRISTMAS TEMPLATE (weeks 19 to 20, 21 Dec to 3 Jan)
This fortnight is certain. Planning for it is not a concession, it is the plan.
| Item | Christmas prescription |
|---|
| Calories | Maintenance, 3,100 a day, both weeks. The Block C deficit is suspended. |
| Goal | Hold weight within 1kg. Do not try to lose. Do not try to gain. |
| Lifting | Two sessions a week: one full-body push-lead (Upper A trimmed to 12 sets), one full-body hinge-lead (Lower B trimmed to 12 sets). 24 hard sets a week. |
| Week 20 | This is the booked deload anyway, so week 20 runs at 12 sets total, one session. |
| Zone 2 | 150 minutes held. Walks with family count. This is the easiest thing to protect and the one that keeps the block alive. |
| 4x4 | One, on whichever day is quiet. Skip it if the day is not there. |
| Alcohol | Not zero. Up to 4 drinks across the fortnight, none in the 3 hours before bed, none on a day before a lifting session. The old "zero through Block C" was stated once and never made survivable, which is how a plan gets abandoned rather than adjusted. |
| Protein | 190g held. This is the single item that carries the fortnight. |
| Sleep | Wake time holds at 06:15 plus or minus 45 minutes. Everything else can move. |
| Re-entry | Week 21 (4 Jan) returns to full Block C calories and 58 sets on day one. No ramp, no penance week, no compensatory deficit. |
Expect to come out of it at the same weight, not lower, and to have lost nothing. The deficit resumes 4 January and there are four Block C weeks left after it, which is enough.
4c. THE 45-MINUTE TRAVEL SESSIONS
For hotel gyms in Mexico and Spain. Dumbbells, a cable or bands, a bench, and a pull-up bar if one exists. Each is 45 minutes including warm-up, 12 to 13 hard sets, and each keeps its session's priority intact. Two of these in a week plus 150 minutes of walking is a maintained week, not a lost one.
TRAVEL A (replaces Monday), 13 hard sets
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Notes |
|---|
| Dumbbell lateral raise | 4 x 12-15 | The priority. Do these first if time runs out. |
| Dumbbell flat or incline press | 3 x 8-12 | 1-2 RIR |
| Seated dumbbell shoulder press | 3 x 8-10 | 1-2 RIR |
| Band or cable face pull | 2 x 15-20 | 0-1 RIR |
| Overhead dumbbell triceps extension | 1 x 12-15 | 0 RIR |
| Band external rotation | 2 x 15 | not counted |
TRAVEL B (replaces Tuesday), 12 hard sets
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Notes |
|---|
| Goblet or dumbbell front squat | 4 x 8-12 | Heaviest dumbbell available, slow eccentric |
| Bulgarian split squat, dumbbells | 3 x 10-12 | Both sides per set |
| Dumbbell RDL | 3 x 10 | Deliberate stretch |
| Slider or towel leg curl | 1 x 6 | 4s eccentric |
| Lying neck extension, hand resistance | 1 x 20 | Self-resisted, slow |
TRAVEL C (replaces Thursday), 12 hard sets
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Notes |
|---|
| Cable or band lateral raise | 3 x 15-20 | |
| Pull-up or lat pulldown | 3 x 6-10 | If no bar: one-arm dumbbell row 3 x 10 |
| One-arm dumbbell row | 3 x 10-12 | Both sides per set |
| Band or machine reverse fly | 2 x 15-20 | |
| Dumbbell curl, 3s eccentric | 1 x 10-12 | |
TRAVEL D (replaces Friday), 13 hard sets
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Notes |
|---|
| Dumbbell or barbell hip thrust off a bench | 3 x 10-12 | |
| Dumbbell RDL or single-leg RDL | 3 x 8-10 | |
| Lean-away dumbbell lateral raise | 3 x 12-15 | Both sides per set |
| Copenhagen plank, short lever | 2 x 8/side | |
| Wrist curl + reverse wrist curl, dumbbells | 1 each | |
| Dumbbell suitcase carry | 3 x 40m | not counted |
Travel week rules. Zone 2 floor of 150 minutes holds and is met with walking. Protein floor 150g, met with whey in the bag and restaurant protein. No sprinting and no maximal-intent throwing in the 48 hours after a flight over 6 hours. The flight protocol in section 5 applies.
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5. FUELLING
Maintenance is estimated at 3,100 kcal, not 2,850. The old figure was too low for an 82.6kg man doing close to 10 hours of hard training a week. It is an estimate and week 1 to 3 is the measurement: hold 3,100 flat, weigh fasted four mornings a week, and if the 7-day mean moves more than 0.3kg in either direction across weeks 2 and 3, adjust maintenance by 150 kcal and re-run. Every number below moves with it.
The arithmetic, in one line each.
- Block B. 4 lifting days at 3,500 and 3 other days at 3,150 = 23,450 kcal a week, 3,350 a day, a surplus of 250 a day and 1,750 a week. At roughly 7,000 to 8,000 kcal per kg of mixed tissue gain, that is 0.22 to 0.25 kg a week, so 2.2 to 2.5kg across the 10 weeks: 82.6kg to about 85.0kg, of which 1.0 to 1.5kg is honestly lean tissue.
- Block C. 4 lifting days at 2,800 and 3 other days at 2,400 = 18,400 kcal a week, 2,629 a day, a deficit of 471 a day and 3,297 a week. At 7,700 kcal per kg of fat that is 0.43 kg a week, so 3.9kg across the 9 weeks, less the two Christmas weeks held at maintenance. Net: about 85.0kg down to about 81.2kg. Round the promise to 81, not 80.
- Blocks A and D. 3,100 flat. No intended weight change.
The old plan's Block B surplus was 164 kcal a day against a promised 1.9kg, and its Block C deficit was 307 against a promised 4kg. Neither arrived. These do.
Hard floor: no day below 2,400 kcal. Never run four low days a week to hold a weekly average.
Protein. 190g a day, every day including rest days, all blocks. Four feeds of 45 to 48g at 07:00, 12:30, 17:00 and 20:00. Feed distribution matters as well as the total; the frequently quoted 35g-per-feed threshold at 50 is a reasonable working target, not an established cut-off.
Corrected feed options, each actually delivering 45g and roughly 3.5 to 4g leucine:
| Option | Protein |
|---|
| 145g cooked chicken breast | ~45g |
| 190g cooked white fish | ~44g |
| 55g whey powder (check the label; most are 75 to 80% protein by weight) | ~44g |
| 250g 0-2% Greek yoghurt + 25g whey | ~45g |
| 400g 0-2% Greek yoghurt + 1 egg | ~46g |
| 200g cooked lean beef mince (5%) | ~46g |
The 20:00 feed is 55g casein powder or the 400g yoghurt option. The old plan's 40g whey (about 32g protein) and 250g yoghurt plus an egg (about 31g) both missed the stated 45g and are corrected above.
Carbohydrate and fat, tagged by the session in the day.
| Day type | Block A/B/D | Block C |
|---|
| Lifting day | 380-410g carbs, fat 90-110g | 300-330g carbs, fat 75-85g |
| 4x4 or Zone 2 only | 250g carbs, fat 90-100g | 220g carbs, fat 75-80g |
| Genuine off day | 200g carbs, fat 90-100g | 200g carbs, fat 70-80g |
Fat never goes below 0.85 g/kg, about 70g a day. The old Block C prescription left 25 to 43g of fat a day sitting underneath a free-testosterone target, which is not a prescription anyone can hold. Block C carbohydrate comes down on lifting days so the fat floor survives. Check: 2,800 kcal minus 190g protein (760) minus 80g fat (720) leaves 1,320 kcal, which is 330g of carbohydrate. It closes.
Around the lift: 60 to 80g carbohydrate 90 minutes before, 80 to 100g plus 45g protein within two hours after. Wednesday's 4x4 gets 40 to 60g carbohydrate in the 90 minutes before it. Dinner carries 30 to 50g of slow carbohydrate every night including rest days.
Hydration. 35 ml/kg baseline, so 2.9L, plus 500 to 750 ml per training hour. Sweat test, once, on the Tuesday session of week 2: weigh nude before, drink a measured volume during (write it down), weigh nude after. Loss = (pre-weight minus post-weight in kg) + litres drunk. Replace 125 to 150% of that loss over the following four hours. In heat, 500 to 700 mg sodium per litre. On flights: 250 ml per hour in the air, no alcohol, stand and walk 5 minutes every hour, 20 calf pumps every 30 minutes seated.
Alcohol. Zero through Block C except the Christmas fortnight, which allows 4 drinks across the two weeks. Up to two drinks a week in Blocks A, B and D. The cost is deep sleep on the night he most needs it. That is a preference set deliberately, not a calculated number.
Supplements, five items.
- Creatine monohydrate, 5g daily, any time, no loading phase. The highest-value item on the list and the only one serving both the muscle goal and the cognitive goal.
- Vitamin D3, dosed to bring 25-OH into 30 to 50 ng/mL and then re-measured, not dosed by habit. At Irish latitude, October to March, 2,000 IU is often not enough.
- Whey or casein, treated as food, to land the four feeds at the corrected weights above.
- Caffeine, 3 mg/kg (250mg), 45 minutes before a hard lift at 06:30, never after 11:00. Blood pressure is always taken before the caffeine, at 06:20.
- Electrolyte tablets, tournament and heat days only.
Optional and cheap: 15g hydrolysed collagen plus 50mg vitamin C, 45 minutes before Tuesday and Friday, for the tendon blocks. Moderate evidence, about 60 kcal, insurance rather than cornerstone. It is on the section 8 list, which it was not before.
Dropped: glutamine, resveratrol, lion's mane, bacopa, phosphatidylserine, ginkgo, zinc without a documented deficiency, standalone B-complex, boron, garlic. Held pending the clinician conversation in section 8: high-dose fish oil and any vitamin K2 tablet. B-complex comes back only if homocysteine reads above 10 micromol/L.
Tell whoever reads the blood panel that he takes creatine. It raises serum creatinine with no change in kidney function and reliably triggers an unnecessary renal workup.
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6. RECOVERY AND SLEEP
- Fixed wake time, 06:15, seven days a week, within a 30-minute window, including weekends and travel days. Lights out 22:15, in bed 22:00, screens off 21:30. Wake time is the circadian anchor, not bedtime.
- Eight hours in bed for 7.5 asleep. Bedroom 17 to 19C, blacked out to the point where he cannot see his hand, phone charging in another room.
- Ten to twenty minutes of outdoor light daily, no sunglasses, Irish cloud included. Morning where the clock allows it, the 13:00 walk from November to February.
- Caffeine hard stop at 11:00. In practice it is taken at 06:30 on the four lifting days and nowhere else.
- Last hard effort finishes 3 hours before lights out. Every hard effort in this programme finishes by 08:45. After any evening Zone 2: 10 minutes cooling, 500ml electrolyte fluid, food, then 5 minutes of nasal breathing at 6 breaths per minute.
- The morning gate, 5 minutes, before getting out of bed. RHR, HRV and a 1-to-10 readiness score. Build a 60-day baseline before acting on anything, then decide on 7-day rolling means, never single nights. Green: run the session as written. Amber (7-day HRV more than 1 SD down, or RHR up 4 to 6 bpm, or under 6 hours sleep): same exercises, same loads, cut working sets by one third. Red (RHR up 7+ bpm two mornings running, or HRV 2 SD down, or fever): 30 minutes of Zone 2 and bed 45 minutes early. Amber and red days count their actual sets, not the prescribed ones. With the expected one amber day a week, a real Block B week runs about 61 to 63 hard sets against 67 prescribed. The 70 ceiling applies to what is written, not to what is performed.
- Deloads are booked, not earned. Weeks 5, 10, 15, 20. Block D's taper is the fifth.
- Sauna and hot baths finish 90 minutes before bed, never inside the last hour, and not at all until the section 8 question about heat immersion is answered.
- No NSAIDs for routine training soreness. They blunt the collagen synthesis the tendon blocks exist to produce, and there is a separate clinical question in section 8.
- Post-meal walk, 15 to 20 minutes, within 30 minutes of the largest meal, every day, training or not. Roughly 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day as a weekly average. This is 105 to 140 minutes a week and it is counted in section 9's total.
- The four-signal tissue check, logged Monday and Friday in the same sheet as everything else:
- minutes of morning stiffness in the worst joint
- single-leg heel raises to failure per side (Friday's set doubles as the test)
- grip: dead-hang time to failure, once a fortnight. Grip is the bottleneck tissue in this programme (8 carry sets, 2 hangs and 8 pulling sets a week) and the old plan monitored everything except it.
- session RPE times minutes, summed for the week
Any localised tendon pain above 3/10 still present 24 hours after a session means that site drops to isometrics for a week. Soreness that settles inside a day is adaptation; soreness worse the next morning is accumulation.
- One tracker, not five. Weight, waist, RHR, HRV, sleep hours, blood pressure, hard sets, top-set loads, stiffness, heel-raise capacity, hang time. One sheet, reviewed Sunday for ten minutes.
- The volume gate, defined. The old plan said "set next week's volume gate" and never said what a gate was. It is this, run in order on Sunday, first match wins:
- Any red morning in the last 7 days, or weekly session-RPE load above 1.3 times the 4-week rolling mean, or heel-raise or hang capacity down more than 10% from the 4-week best: cut 30% of hard sets for the coming week.
- Any lift where the top-set load has dropped two sessions running: hold sets flat and add 250 kcal a day.
- Two clean weeks in a row where every set hit the top of its rep range at the prescribed RIR: add 2 hard sets, capped at 70.
- Otherwise: repeat the block's prescribed number.
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7. THE NUMBERS
Every target below is a delta from a week 1 measurement. The baseline column is filled in during week 1 and the target column is arithmetic on it, not an aspiration. Nothing is claimed here that week 1 cannot measure.
Strength, all from RPE 8 triples, never maxes
Estimated 1RM = load / (1.0278 - 0.0278 x r), where r is the reps the RPE says were left in the tank plus the reps performed. Tested week 1, week 14, and 8 to 12 February.
| Lift | Baseline (week 1, measured) | 16 Feb target | Why this delta |
|---|
| Trap-bar deadlift, est. 1RM | ____ kg | +18 to +25% | The most trainable of the four over 26 weeks at this age with 3 hard sets a week |
| Back squat, est. 1RM | ____ kg | +15 to +20% | 4 sets a week, one heavy top set |
| Flat bench press, est. 1RM | ____ kg | +10 to +15% | 3 sets a week. Modest volume, modest claim |
| Strict overhead press, est. 1RM | ____ kg | +12 to +18% | 4 sets a week and the highest-priority press |
| Weighted chin-up, est. 1RM | ____ kg | +15kg on the belt | From 3 hard sets a week |
| Bodyweight chin-up, max reps | ____ reps | +4 reps | Tested monthly, last item of Thursday |
| Farmer's carry, 40m unbroken, no straps | ____ kg per hand | +2kg per hand every 2nd week, capped at 60kg | Written progression, both days |
| Grip, dynamometer (or hang time if no dynamometer) | ____ kg per hand | +15% | Fortnightly |
| Countermovement jump, chalk jump-and-reach | ____ cm | +3cm (instrument accuracy is about 2cm, so anything under +3 is noise) | Fortnightly |
The old plan's absolutes (200kg trap bar, 140kg squat, 110kg bench, 65kg press, bodyweight +40kg chin, 60kg grip, 45cm jump) are deleted. Not one of them had a baseline behind it, so nobody could say whether they were a 10kg jump or a 60kg jump. The 110kg bench standard survives in delta form only because flat bench has been added to Monday. A standard for a lift the programme never trains is not a standard.
Conditioning
- VO2max via a 12-minute maximal bike time trial, weeks 1, 9, 17 and 26, in place of that week's 4x4. Same bike, same resistance mode, same time of day. Estimated VO2max = (11.0 x average watts / bodyweight in kg) + 7. This replaces the 12-minute Cooper run: a bike-trained athlete measured by a running field test under-reads badly, and the old plan had no legal day to run it on anyway.
- Target: +12 to +18% on average watts by 16 February, from the week 1 baseline. The old "52 ml/kg/min" was an absolute measured with the wrong instrument.
- Resting heart rate: 7-day rolling mean, expect a 5 to 10 bpm drop over 26 weeks.
- 60-second heart rate recovery after the final 4x4 interval: baseline in week 1, target +10 bpm on that baseline.
- Average watts per 4x4 interval, logged every session. This moves before estimated VO2max does.
- 20m sprint from a two-point stance, every 6 weeks, same surface. Should hold or improve at a lower bodyweight.
Body composition, the silhouette numbers
Measured monthly, same time of day, unflexed, two readings averaged, plus front/side/back photos in the same light.
| Measure | Baseline (week 1, measured) | 16 February target |
|---|
| Bodyweight | 82.6kg (confirm with 4 fasted weigh-ins) | 81kg plus or minus 1, via about 85.0kg at week 15 |
| Waist at navel | ____ cm | minus 4 to 6cm |
| Shoulder circumference at widest delts, relaxed | ____ cm | plus 2.5 to 3.5cm |
| Shoulder-to-waist ratio | ____ (compute from the two above) | plus 0.10 to 0.14 on the measured baseline |
| Neck at Adam's apple | ____ cm | plus 1.5 to 2cm |
| Forearm at widest, relaxed | ____ cm | plus 0.5 to 1cm |
The 1.62 ratio target is deleted. It was the golden ratio wearing a lab coat. On plausible starting measurements the plan's own deltas land somewhere around 1.39 to 1.51, which means the headline promise was unreachable by the programme printed under it. The replacement, plus 0.10 to 0.14 on his own measured ratio, is what the shoulder and waist deltas above actually produce, and it can be checked in February.
The forearm target has come down from plus 1.5cm to plus 0.5 to 1cm, because there are 2 direct forearm sets a week and isometric carries thicken very little. That is the honest number for that dose.
Rate of loss in Block C is capped at 0.4 to 0.6kg a week on a 7-day rolling average of four fasted morning weigh-ins. Waist must fall faster than bodyweight; that is the signal that fat is going and muscle is staying.
Labs, week 1, week 13 and week 25
Fasted 12 hours, drawn 08:00 to 09:00 on the Monday, with 48 hours clear of any resistance training (see the lab-week protocol in section 4) and 72 hours clear of alcohol. Ask for numeric values, not the lab's normal/abnormal flags.
Full lipid panel plus ApoB and Lp(a) (Lp(a) once, it is genetically fixed), fasting glucose, fasting insulin, HbA1c, hs-CRP, full blood count, ferritin, renal panel with eGFR and cystatin C, liver panel, TSH with free T4 and free T3, total and free testosterone with SHBG and LH, oestradiol, vitamin D 25-OH, B12, folate, homocysteine, magnesium.
| Marker | Target |
|---|
| ApoB | Below 80 mg/dL |
| Home blood pressure, 7-day morning average | Below 120/75 mmHg |
| Fasting insulin | Below 6 mIU/L, HOMA-IR below 1.5 |
| HbA1c | Below 5.4% |
| Triglyceride-to-HDL ratio | Below 1.5 (mg/dL units) |
| hs-CRP | Below 1.0 mg/L |
| Free testosterone | Upper third of the age-adjusted range, from two morning draws a week apart |
| Homocysteine | Below 9 micromol/L |
| Vitamin D 25-OH | 30 to 50 ng/mL |
| Ferritin | 50 to 150 ng/mL |
Blood pressure is measured at home: validated upper-arm cuff, sit 5 minutes, two readings a minute apart, morning and evening, three non-consecutive days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). Morning readings are taken at 06:20, before the 06:30 caffeine, or the numbers are noise. Log the average of the two, never a single reading. A 7-day average at or above 130/80 is a GP appointment, not a training adjustment. This costs about 60 minutes a week and it is counted in section 9.
Sleep apnoea: one completed home sleep study on file, with a result, within 60 days. Not a partner questionnaire. Every recovery prescription above assumes the airway stays open.
Compliance metrics: prescribed hard sets per week (67 in Block B, ceiling 70), protein hit rate (6 days of 7 at four feeds of 45g or more), Zone 2 minutes (floor 150 including travel and Christmas weeks), days below the 2,400 kcal floor (target zero), sleep 7.5 hours on at least 6 of 7 nights.
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8. MEDICAL CHECKPOINTS
One appointment, before Block A's first heavy week, covers most of this. Take the whole programme with him. Nothing below is a directive about medication; each is a question for his treating clinician to answer.
- The umbrella question. "I'm starting a 26-week programme: four resistance sessions a week at 6 to 20 reps, one weekly high-intensity interval session at 90 to 95% of max heart rate, 150 to 200 minutes of Zone 2, and competitive slowpitch softball. Given my PE history and current anticoagulation, are there activity restrictions or monitoring changes you'd want in place?"
- Loading and bracing. "My working sets are 3 reps or higher, at 1 to 2 reps in reserve, with no maximal singles and no long grinding attempts. I brace on about a 70% breath and cap breath-holds at 3 seconds. Is there a load, a rep range, or an intra-abdominal pressure pattern you'd want me to stay under? Would you like a baseline resting blood pressure, and possibly an exercise blood pressure reading, before I start the 87 to 90% weeks?"
- The maximal effort test. "I want to establish my real max heart rate with one all-out effort on a bike in week 4, and then train at 90 to 95% of it weekly. I also want to repeat a 12-minute all-out bike time trial in weeks 1, 9, 17 and 26. Given my history, would you prefer a submaximal protocol, or would you want the first of those efforts supervised?"
- Collision exposure on the diamond. "I play competitive slowpitch for Ireland, including sliding, diving for balls, base collisions, and getting hit by a batted or thrown ball. Given my anticoagulation, what impact exposure are you comfortable with, what protective equipment would you want, and specifically what should send me to A&E after a blow to the head or torso rather than wait and see?"
- Long-haul travel. "I fly to Mexico and Spain several times a year, 8 to 11 hours, and I train hard around those flights. Given my history, what do you want me doing for hydration, movement cadence and compression in the cabin, and is there anything you'd want changed in the 24 hours either side of a flight?"
- Supplements and interactions. "Here's the full list: creatine 5g daily, vitamin D3 titrated to blood level, whey and casein protein, caffeine 250mg pre-session four mornings a week, electrolyte tablets on hot days, and 15g hydrolysed collagen with 50mg vitamin C before two sessions a week. Separately, my nutrition plan suggested 2 to 3g of combined EPA and DHA daily and a 100 to 200 mcg vitamin K2 tablet, and I've held both pending your view. Does any of this interact with what I'm on, and does the consistency of my dietary leafy greens matter week to week?" (Hold the fish oil and the K2 tablet until this is answered; take EPA/DHA from two portions of oily fish a week in the meantime.)
- Pain relief. "What do you want me using for ordinary muscle soreness, including topical anti-inflammatories, given the anticoagulation?" Worth a pre-agreed answer so he is not deciding it at 22:00 with a sore shoulder.
- Sleep study. "I'm 49, male, 82.6kg with a heavily muscled upper body, and this whole programme depends on deep sleep. My STOP-BANG score is [X]. Given my father's dementia and my own PE history, I'd like a home sleep study to rule out obstructive sleep apnoea rather than assume I'm fine because I'm fit."
- Sauna and hot-water immersion. "My recovery plan includes sauna or a hot bath in the evening, sometimes on the same day as a high-intensity interval session or 50 minutes of Zone 2. I understand heat immersion causes marked peripheral vasodilation, plasma volume shift and fluid loss, and carries a fainting risk on standing. Given my PE history and anticoagulation, is heat immersion something you're comfortable with at all, and if so, what duration, what temperature, what rehydration, and should I avoid it on days I've already lost fluid to training?" Until this is answered, no sauna and no hot baths.
- Maximal sprinting. "The programme includes 6 x 20m maximal accelerations every Monday for 26 weeks. That is the highest soft-tissue injury exposure in the whole plan, and I understand that on anticoagulation a hamstring or calf tear can mean a deep intramuscular bleed rather than a simple strain. Are you comfortable with maximal sprinting at all? If so, is there anything you want in place around it, and is there a warm-up standard or a surface restriction you'd set?"
- The calf ambiguity, and this one needs a pre-agreed answer. "An acute calf tear and a DVT can present the same way, and my escalation rule already lists unilateral calf pain or swelling as same-day care. If I feel a sudden painful pull in a calf during a sprint or a carry, what exactly do you want me to do: do I present the same day regardless, do I have a self-assessment that distinguishes them, and is there a threshold below which I can treat it as a muscle injury and manage it myself? I'd rather have your answer written down now than be deciding it on a Monday morning at the track."
The escalation rule, which overrides every training decision in this document. New or worsening breathlessness, chest pain (particularly on inspiration), coughing blood, unilateral calf pain or swelling, a resting heart rate 15 bpm above baseline for more than 48 hours, sudden unexplained tachycardia, fainting, unusual or prolonged bleeding, a bruise that keeps expanding, or blood in urine or stool: same-day medical care, immediately. Not a deload decision, not an overtraining conversation, not a note in the log.
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9. WHAT THIS PROGRAMME DELIBERATELY DOES NOT DO
It does not run 94 sets a week, and it never will. Sixty-seven well-distributed hard sets at genuine intent will build more visible muscle in six months than 94 sets performed tired. Honest cost: at 67 sets he will build slightly less total arm and chest size than a fresh 30-year-old would at 94.
It does not give arms the 8 to 10 sets they deserve. Five direct arm sets a week: 3 triceps, 2 biceps, on top of the 8 pulling and 5 pressing sets that hit them indirectly. The reviewer was right that in a t-shirt the arm is the most visible muscle a man owns, and right that 8 to 10 would grow it faster. It is not there because the set budget is capped at 67 and side delts and upper back won the argument. This is a named trade, not an oversight. If the four-signal check stays green through Block B, the volume gate's "+2 sets" goes to arms first.
It does not chase visible abs. Two sets a week. This document no longer names any body fat percentage, because it prescribes no instrument that can measure one. The old plan asserted four different figures with nothing behind them. What it does claim: a waist 4 to 6cm smaller, a defined but not shredded midsection, and a visibly bigger shoulder line.
It does not train chest hard. Five sets a week. A shirt hides the chest. Flat bench is in because the programme tests it, not because chest is a priority.
It does not diet for 26 weeks. Ten weeks are spent above maintenance and five at maintenance. That is the biggest departure from the old plan and the one most likely to feel wrong in October when the scale is going the wrong way. The reveal in Block C only works because there is something under the fat to reveal.
It does not test a true 1RM at all. Every strength number comes from an RPE 8 triple, in week 1, week 14 and February. The old plan tested twice; a max costs quality training days and buys little adaptation, and every target here is a delta, so a max was never needed.
It does not add a third high-intensity modality, and it now counts them honestly. Three maximal-intent exposures a week: Monday sprints and throws, Wednesday 4x4, Saturday med ball and free swings. The old plan claimed two and scheduled four. The Tuesday depth landings are gone.
It does not run hitting at three sessions a week until 17 February. One session, 60 quality swings, September through January, with the med ball work carrying the power side. The ramp to three sessions of 80 swings starts the day after his birthday.
It does not do a photo-week peak. No depletion, no water manipulation, no final aggressive cut. Calories go back to maintenance on 1 February and stay there.
It does not pretend Christmas is not happening. Weeks 19 and 20 have their own written prescription at maintenance calories, 24 sets a week and a drinks allowance.
It does not treat him as fragile. There is no rehab work in this document. The tendon blocks, the Copenhagens and the Nordics are training, prescribed because tendon adapts more slowly than muscle. The medical flags in section 8 are questions to ask once, get answered, and then stop thinking about.
What it actually costs, all of it
The old plan said 13 hours and left out the walks, the light, the blood pressure, the gate and the commute.
| Item | Minutes per week |
|---|
| Structured training (9 sessions, real durations) | 590 |
| Mobility, 12 min daily | 84 |
| Post-meal walks, 15-20 min daily | 105-140 |
| Morning outdoor light not covered by the walk | 0-70 |
| Blood pressure, 3 days, morning and evening | 60 |
| Morning gate, 5 min daily | 35 |
| Commute and shower, 6 gym or cage trips | 120-180 |
| Food prep and shopping | 180 |
| Measurement, photos, Sunday review | 35 |
| Total | 1,209 to 1,374 minutes, 20 to 23 hours |
Twenty to twenty-three hours a week. That is the real number and it is on the page so the decision to start is made against it.
If a week has to shrink, the cut order is fixed and not renegotiated in the moment:
- Saturday hitting session
- Saturday med ball block
- One lifting session, replaced by its 45-minute travel version
- Two lifting sessions, replaced by their travel versions
Zone 2 is not in the cut order. The old plan put "one Zone 2 session" at step two and then named the 150-minute floor as one of the last four things to go, which took him to 100 minutes at step two of four. The floor is the floor. The Sunday no-lifting day, the daily mobility, the 150-minute Zone 2 floor and the sleep window are the last four things to go, and realistically they never go.
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10. WHAT CHANGED AFTER REVIEW
The reviewer was right about more than he was wrong about. What he caught, and what happened:
1. No baseline for a single lift, and targets pulled from the air. He was right that this was the largest structural hole. Week 1 is now a written baseline week (section 4) testing all four lifts by RPE 8 triple, plus shoulder, waist, neck, forearm, thigh, grip, jump, sprint and a 12-minute bike time trial. Every strength, conditioning and silhouette target in section 7 is now a delta from a measured number with a blank baseline column to fill in. No absolutes remain.
2. The 1.62 shoulder-to-waist ratio was unreachable by the plan printed under it. Deleted. Replaced with plus 0.10 to 0.14 on his own measured ratio, which is what the shoulder and waist deltas actually produce.
3. Bench press was tested but never trained. Flat barbell bench now replaces incline as Monday's horizontal press. The standard survives, in delta form. The bodyweight chin-up standard was untrained too; a monthly max-rep set is now the last item on Thursday.
4. The set count did not match the sessions. He counted 78 in the tables against 66 claimed, 67 tallied, 70 self-summing and a 70 ceiling. Five numbers for one quantity. Cut 11 sets, from Tuesday and Friday mostly, plus one from Monday and Thursday: Monday 18, Tuesday 16, Thursday 16, Friday 17. One published number: 67. It is the sum of the four tables and nothing else in the document contradicts it. Every non-counted item is listed once, explicitly.
5. Nordics sat the day before maximum-intent rotational throwing. Moved to Tuesday. Four days of clearance instead of eighteen hours.
6. The fuelling maths did not produce the fuelling outcomes. Maintenance raised from 2,850 to 3,100, which is where an 82.6kg man doing ten hours of hard training probably sits. Block B is now 250 kcal a day over, which is 1,750 a week, which at 7,000 to 8,000 kcal per kg is 0.22 to 0.25 kg a week and 2.2 to 2.5 kg over the block. Block C is 471 a day under, which is 3,297 a week, which at 7,700 per kg of fat is 0.43 kg a week. The arithmetic is printed in one line each in section 5. The muscle claim came down from 2.5kg to 1.0 to 1.5kg of lean tissue, which is the honest ceiling at 49.
7. Two protein feeds delivered 31 to 32g against a stated 45g. Corrected: 55g whey, or 250g yoghurt plus 25g whey, or 400g yoghurt plus an egg. Six options, all actually landing 44 to 46g.
8. Block C's macros crushed dietary fat under a testosterone target. Lifting-day carbohydrate in Block C comes down to 300-330g and there is now a hard fat floor of 0.85 g/kg. The arithmetic closes at 2,800 kcal.
9. Thirteen hours was a marketing number. The real cost is itemised at the end of section 9: 20 to 23 hours including walks, light, blood pressure, the morning gate, commute and food prep. Session durations were corrected upward (Tuesday 70 to 85, Friday 65 to 80) to account for unilateral work and the warm-up ramp.
10. No clock times, and four constraints that over-determined the day. Section 2 now carries a Monday-to-Sunday timetable. Every hard session starts at 07:05, caffeine at 06:30, blood pressure at 06:20 before the caffeine, Thursday's Zone 2 at 18:15 which is ten hours clear of the morning lift and ends 3 hours 10 minutes before lights out. Nothing collides.
11. Where the December sprints happen. Indoors, in a booked sports-hall slot, from 1 November to 28 February, with a 12-minute warm-up. If no indoor surface, 6 x 8-second bike sprints. Named as a downgrade.
12. No travel provision. Four 45-minute hotel sessions written out (section 4c), 12 to 13 hard sets each, dumbbells and bands only, each keeping its session's priority. Plus travel-week rules on protein, Zone 2 and post-flight restrictions.
13. Christmas was certain and unplanned. Weeks 19 and 20 now have their own template: maintenance calories, two sessions a week, 24 sets, a four-drink allowance, protein held, and a re-entry rule with no compensatory deficit.
14. Three missing clinician questions. Sauna and hot-water immersion, maximal sprinting, and the calf-tear-versus-DVT ambiguity are now items 9, 10 and 11 in section 8, phrased as questions. Sauna is suspended until the answer comes back. The Cooper-test supervision gap is folded into item 3.
15. Cheap fixes he named that are now done. Velocity floors and the weekly 120kg velocity check deleted (hardware never named, and it was a near-max single every week). Countermovement jump given an actual method and an honest 2cm accuracy. Bucket toss given a solo default. Spanish squat given a band spec, with leg extension as the default. Deload defined so it works on a triple. The volume gate given a formula. Amber days stated to count their actual sets. Lab-week timing written out so it is not solved at 07:30 on the day. Friday's carry given the same written progression as Tuesday's. The sweat test given a session, a formula and fluid accounting. Collagen added to the section 8 supplement list. Mobility stated once as 12 minutes daily and 84 a week. Sunday relabelled from "full rest" to "no lifting". Zone 2 given one position: 150 minutes, a floor, 200 in Block C only, and removed from the cut order. Week 25's double booking resolved by deleting the fifth deload. Week 14's double booking resolved by deleting true 1RM testing entirely. "15 weeks above maintenance" corrected to 10. Grip added to the tissue check as a fourth signal. All body fat percentages removed. Contested claims (MPS saturation, 24-48 hour recovery gap, the 35g feed threshold, the 75th percentile line, "7 to 10 days per max", the alcohol allowance) either softened, labelled as heuristics, or deleted.
What was not fixed, and why. Arms stay at 5 direct sets rather than the 8 to 10 he wanted, because the set budget is capped and side delts and upper back won. It is named as a trade in section 9 and arms are first in line for the volume gate's "+2 sets". Wednesday's 4x4 stays 48 hours before the Friday hinge; the bike keeps it non-eccentric and there is no better day in the week. He also praised the escalation rule at the end of section 8 and said keep it exactly as it is. It is unchanged.
The 50 Programme · to 16 Feb 2027
