For those of you who have already picked up my power building program, you already know the basic principles I adhere too when designing a hypertrophy focused training program. One of those principles is the Direct / Indirect principle for designing your training week. Basically what this means is that I like to have one day per week where my trainee really really hammers a particular muscle group, and then later in the week we hit that muscle “indirectly” or just with overall less stress. For instance, you might hit the chest really hard on Monday with Bench Presses, Incline Presses, and Cable Flys, and then later in the week you hit the chest again when training your triceps with an exercise such as Dips or Close Grip Benches. So the chest gets hit 2x/week, but once with lots of volume and the second time we kinda just touch on it and then move on.
The biggest complaint with my KSC Method for Power-Building program is that it’s a 5-day split……and many of you just don’t have 5 days to train.
Often times, your training split is a trade off with your schedule. Some guys do better to train more often, but with shorter training sessions, and others do better to train less frequently but with longer workouts. So go with whatever schedule is going to help you stay consistent with your program.
If you can train 4 days per week you can still put together a very similar program to my 5-day Power Building program. It may even work better for many of you that do better with more days of recovery in your week.
In the 5-day program I have 2 full dedicated lower body days….one is more quad focused, and the other is more focused on hamstrings, glutes, and low back. I also have a dedicated day in there for Back Training (lats, traps, rear delts, etc). So this is the day we do lots of pull ups, pulldowns, rows, shrugs, facepulls, etc.
For the 4-day program, I usually just split up the hamstring focused lower body day and the upper back day and spread load some of that work load across the week.
The basic skeleton of the program starts pretty standard:
- Monday: Bench
- Tuesday: Squat
- Thursday: Overhead Press
- Friday: Deadlift
Now I’ll walk you through how I organize the assistance template, capping each day at 6 total exercises for an average of 3 work sets per exercise, a pretty good workload for most.
For the lower body work, I focus the direct quad work on the Squat Day since we’re already warmed up. If we start with heavier squats then I like the second exercise to be something like leg presses, hack squats, paused high bar squats, etc for work in the 10-ish rep range. Then we’ll usually finish with some metabolic stress high density work using the leg extension machine for 3 sets in the 15-ish range, using short rests, or even no rests using drop sets.
Later in the week we’ll hit the quads again with some light Squats and Deadlifts, but it’s relatively low stress compared to Tuesday.
For the Hamstrings, I’ll usually but a knee flexion exercise (Leg Curls or Glute Ham Raises) on Tuesday after the quad work and then something like RDLs for higher reps or Weighted 45 Degree Back Extensions on Friday after Deadlifts.
So now our lower body training is like this:
Tuesday:
- Squat
- Leg Press / Hack Squat / High Bar Paused Squat / etc
- Leg Extensions
- Leg Curls or Glute Ham Raise
- Abs
- Calves
Friday:
- Light Squat
- Deadlifts
- RDLs or Weighted Back Extensions
For the Back Work, I generally split that up between Monday and Friday. On Friday’s is where I stick the heavy rowing variations that produce fatigue in the low back. If we are gonna work the back on Monday, which is the day before squats, don’t be an idiot and do something like heavy barbell or t-bar rows which are gonna fatigue the lower back the day before heavy squats. So on Monday, I usually program in Chins or Pull Ups, and also some Rear Delt work. On Friday, I plug in some heavier rows, shrugs, and maybe another pulldown or row variation for higher reps.
So now our skeleton program looks like this with the Back Work included:
Monday:
- Bench Press
- Chins or Pull Ups
- Rear Delt Raises or Face Pulls
Friday:
- Light Squat
- Deadlifts
- Barbell or T-Bar Rows
- Lat Pulldowns
- DB Shrugs
- 45 Degree Back Extensions
The rest of the program generally looks the same as the 5-day split. On Monday, after we Bench, we’ll throw in two more exercises for the chest, usually a barbell or dumbbell incline press and then either a fly variation or dips. We’ll also hit the biceps Monday. Thursday would be exactly like the 5-day split – a focus on Overhead Pressing, delts, and triceps.
The full program outline looks like this (as an EXAMPLE…not prescriptive for any one person)
Monday
- Bench Press
- DB or BB Incline Press
- Chins or Pull Ups
- Dips
- Rear Delt Raises
- Bicep Curls
Tuesday
- Squat
- Leg Press or Hack Squat
- Leg Extension
- Lying Leg Curl
- Calves
- Abs
Thursday
- Overhead Press
- Dumbbell Press
- Side Delt Raise
- Close Grip Bench
- Lying Tricep Extension
- Cable Pressdown
Friday
- Light Squat
- Deadlifts
- Barbell Row
- Lat Pulldown
- Shrugs
- 45 Degree Back Extension
OR
- Light Squat
- Deadlifts
- RDL
- Dumbbell Row
- Lat Pulldown
- Shrugs
If you are interested in the full 5-Day power building program, you can pick that up here:
KSC Method for Power Building.
Limited Time Online Coaching Offer Below……
If you are interested in fully customized online coaching for a 4 or 5 day power building routine….I am currently accepting 5 NEW CLIENTS onto my roster.
This is a 12-week program. The program is fully customized to you. We’ll share a Google Doc Spreadsheet where I will continually adjust your program as we progress. And you’ll have unlimited email access during the course of the program for q&a and video form checks.
If you are interested or have additional questions email me at KingwoodStrength@gmail.com with “POWER-BUILDING” in the subject line, and I will send you rates, additional details, and a questionnaire to fill out so that I can design your initial program outline.
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