HIGH-FREQUENCY BLOCK PROGRAM

HIGH-FREQUENCY BLOCK PROGRAM
By Shane Robert

I want to share a program with you that I have used successfully with many clients. This program works great for late beginners to early intermediates, or anyone who needs more practice with their main lifts, perhaps after some time away or coming off of lower frequencies. In this case, the main lifts will be the time-tested big 4 of squat, bench, deadlift, and overhead press (or close variations), but you can replace them with any lift(s) that you want to prioritize. You can also drop the overhead movement if you are a pure powerlifter or have shoulder pain from overhead movements. If you do, include some kind of shoulder movement as part of your assistance work.   

This is a high-frequency program but none of the starting percentages are too high so the frequency should be manageable for most people, even if they aren’t acclimated to high frequency.  

My recommendation is to start with a training max, not a true hyped-up, balls-out max. Everyone I have put through this program has made significant progress to their 1RM even with using a training max. 

BLOCK 1 (weeks 1-4)

This is a hypertrophy block. Try to keep the rest low, less than 2 minutes between sets, or even superset if you have the equipment to do that. The assistance work is set up in such a way that it should be easy to do as a circuit.

There is one day per week for each main movement with variations all of the other days. Feel free to substitute different exercises from those I show, if you find them more useful for you. Just keep in mind that they need to be variations that are harder, not easier. For example, don’t have your main squat day be high bar squats and then do low bar squats on a secondary day. 

For progression, we are simply adding 2.5% each week to each lift. The sets/reps and exercises stay the same. For example, the first movement each day progresses from 70% to 72.5%, 75%, and ends with 77.5%. Assistance movements will increase in sets each week, ending with 5 sets in the final week. Yes, this is a lot of work. That’s kind of the point.  

BLOCK 2 (weeks 5-8)

This block is the strength block. All of the lifts are shifting into the 80-90% zone and the weights will stay the same for all 4 weeks, but you will add 1 rep to each movement each week. For example, the first movement of each day will go 5x1 the first week, then 5x2, the second, 5x3 the third and ends with 5x4. The other movements follow the same progression, so your final week ends with 5x4, 5x6, 5x8, and 5x9.

The assistance work movements will stay the same as the last block but the reps will be lower and the sets will stop increasing and the RPE (rate of perceived exertion) will go up each week, starting with RPE 7 then 8, 9 and finishing the last week with 10 or zero reps in reserve, however you want to view it. 

The total volume is significantly lower, but the effort is still quite high. Make sure to take your recovery seriously. 

BLOCK 3 (weeks 9-12)

This final block is the peaking block. The weights will be going up but the volume will be going down. It is a gradual volume taper with the final week being a max out week spread across the days. If you have a meet and will be maxing the three main lifts on one day, follow the second option. 

Assistance work is up to you. I typically include the same movements for 1-2 sets at about a 6 RPE. This block is all about peaking, which means bringing fatigue WAY down. It should be pretty high going into this block, so don’t feel guilty if you aren’t an assistance work hero. 

WEEK 4 MEET WEEK OPTION