Strength & physique
Hypertrophy program built on volume landmarks
phase.fitness writes a hypertrophy block from the volume landmarks its generator reads: start each muscle near its minimum effective volume, climb toward the adaptive range across the block, and deload before the maximum recoverable volume becomes a problem.
Updated
- Level
- All levels
- Length
- 5–8 weeks
- Days per week
- 4–6
- Modalities
- Strength
- Equipment
- A gym with barbells, dumbbells, cables and machines; a rack and dumbbells at home work at lower frequencies
- Sessions go to
- Hevy, Liftosaur, Garmin
The short answer
A hypertrophy program in phase.fitness prescribes weekly sets per muscle group from the volume-landmarks document: large muscles start at 8–10 sets (MEV) and climb to 12–20 (MAV); medium muscles 6–8 to 10–16; small muscles 4–6 to 8–14. Working sets are 6–12 reps at 65–85% 1RM with 1–3 minutes of rest, each muscle trained 2–3 times a week, most sets at RPE 7–8. Volume rises through the block while performance holds; when soreness persists, sleep and motivation fall and performance drops — the signs of exceeding MRV — the block ends with a deload at maintenance volume. Loads and reps come back from Hevy or Liftosaur and set the next block's starting volume.
Volume is the dose, and the dose has landmarks
The volume-landmarks document phase.fitness reads describes four numbers per muscle: maintenance volume, the minimum effective volume that produces measurable growth, the maximum adaptive volume where most growth happens, and the maximum recoverable volume beyond which performance falls. The dose-response is monotonic with diminishing returns — more sets keep helping, less and less — so MAV is not a ceiling; it is the point where more growth stops being worth more fatigue. The ceiling is MRV, and it is a recovery question.
That is the shape of a phase.fitness hypertrophy block: start near MEV, add sets while the last set stays at RPE 8–9 and performance holds, and deload when the signs of exceeding MRV appear. Frequency follows from volume: 12–20 weekly sets for the quads are three sessions of 4–6, not one of 18.
What do MEV and MAV mean in training?
They are the volume landmarks a phase.fitness hypertrophy block is built on: the minimum effective volume a muscle needs to grow, and the top of the range it can still recover from. Large muscles start at 8–10 weekly sets and climb toward 12–20, medium 6–8 to 10–16, small 4–6 to 8–14.
How do you know if you are doing too much volume?
By the signs the volume document names: soreness that persists, sleep and motivation falling, and performance dropping in the session. When phase.fitness sees that pattern, the block ends and a deload at maintenance volume starts, rather than adding the next set that would have been scheduled.
What phase.fitness builds
A program is a sequence of phases, each with a job. These are the phases phase.fitness writes for this case, with the bands the generator has to respect — transcribed from the document it reads, not invented for this page.
Start at MEV
1–2
Climb to MAV
3–5
Deload
1
| Phase | Weeks | Job | Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start at MEV | 1–2 | Establish the baseline volume | Large muscles 8–10 sets/week, medium 6–8, small 4–6; 6–12 reps at 65–85%; RPE 7–8 |
| Climb to MAV | 3–5 | Add sets while performance holds | Large 12–20, medium 10–16, small 8–14; +1 set per muscle per week while the last set stays at RPE 8–9 |
| Deload | 1 | Recover before the next block | Maintenance volume: large 4–6, medium 4–6, small 2–4 sets; loads kept |
Prefer to start from something written by hand? The template library holds Push / Pull / Legs 6× — 6 weeks, importable into a phase without spending AI credits.
A sample week
One week from the first phase, as it would sit on the calendar. Your own week follows the days you say you have — 4–6 here — and the equipment you list.
- SStrength
- Rest
| Day | Modality | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | S | Push: bench 4 × 6, incline dumbbell press 3 × 10, overhead press 3 × 8, lateral raises 3 × 15, triceps 3 × 12 |
| Tue | S | Pull: pulldown 4 × 8, barbell row 4 × 8, seated row 3 × 12, face pulls 3 × 15, curls 3 × 12 |
| Wed | S | Legs: squat 4 × 6, RDL 3 × 10, leg press 3 × 12, split squat 3 × 10, hip thrust 3 × 12 |
| Thu | Rest | — |
| Fri | S | Push B: dips, flat dumbbell press, machine press, delts, triceps |
| Sat | S | Pull B + legs B: pull-ups, rows, leg curls, calves, biceps |
| Sun | Rest | — |
S = strength · C = cardio · K = calisthenics. The order is the point: hard days are kept apart and the long session gets the clean slot.
How it adapts when a phase ends
phase.fitness counts your weekly sets per muscle from the logged sessions in Hevy, Liftosaur or the watch and compares them with the landmarks. Within a block, each week's sets and rep targets are planned when the block is written. Between blocks, the AI reads the pattern: a muscle whose performance kept rising at the top of MAV starts the next block higher; one that stalled with persistent soreness starts lower, because it found its MRV. Sessions that were skipped are read as a frequency problem and the split is reconsidered before the volume is.
Where the sessions go
phase.fitness plans; you train in the app or on the watch you already use, and the completed session comes back. For this program:
What phase.fitness does not do here
phase.fitness writes the block and counts the sets; it does not plan nutrition, and growth without a surplus is slow. The landmarks are population ranges — the document says individual tolerance moves with sleep, nutrition and life stress — and the plan finds yours by reading your logs, not by assuming.
The evidence
The documents this page is built from
These are the knowledge-base documents the phase.fitness generator reads for this case. The phases, bands and weekly numbers above are transcribed from them.
- Volume Landmarks for Hypertrophy — updated 2025-01-18
- Training Frequency Guidelines — updated 2025-01-18
- Strength Training Basics — updated 2025-01-07
- Deload Protocols and Recovery Strategies — updated 2025-01-18
Frequently asked questions
How many sets per muscle per week?
From the volume-landmarks document: large muscles start at 8–10 weekly sets and climb to 12–20; medium muscles 6–8 to 10–16; small muscles 4–6 to 8–14. phase.fitness starts a block near the lower figure and adds sets while performance holds.
How often is each muscle trained?
Two or three times a week. The frequency document phase.fitness reads recommends spreading weekly volume across sessions — an upper/lower four-day split or a push/pull/legs six-day split — so no session carries more sets than it can recover from.
When does the program deload?
phase.fitness deloads at the end of the block, at maintenance volume with loads kept, and earlier if three signs of exceeding MRV appear together: performance dropping, soreness that persists, sleep or motivation deteriorating.
Is there a ready-made template?
Yes: the phase.fitness library holds Push / Pull / Legs 6× — 6 weeks, four weeks at the top of the adaptive range adding a set per muscle per week, then a deload and re-test. It imports into a program without AI credits.
The only app that plans strength, cardio and calisthenics together
For a physique athlete the calisthenics day is the straight-arm work the split leaves out — support holds, L-sits, lever steps — trunk and scapular strength that shows in every heavy set and adds no junk volume.
Right now, phase.fitness is the only training app that writes strength, cardio and calisthenics into one periodized program — same calendar, same phases, same recovery budget.
You choose the mix. A calisthenics-only plan, a cardio-only block, strength plus cardio, or all three: the phases, the end-of-phase analysis and the sync work the same way with one modality or three.
Why calisthenics is in the plan
Bodyweight skill work is strength training in a different shape. Straight-arm work, levers and handstands build scapular control, tendon capacity and relative strength that barbell and machine work leave untouched, and they transfer because they are closed-chain, whole-body patterns. Treated as a modality rather than a warm-up, they get sets, holds and progressions like a squat does.
No exercise catalogue on the market contains a tuck front lever, so those sessions run in the phase.fitness built-in player; strength goes to Hevy, Liftosaur or a Garmin watch, cardio to Garmin and Intervals.icu. How the skill work is programmed.
Free to start, no card. The first phase is yours to keep whatever you decide.
