BUILD · MODULE 01 · TRAINING BY SCIENCE

OVERLOAD

The algorithm sells you complexity because complexity keeps you watching. The truth is smaller and more boring: a handful of levers, pulled consistently, build the body. Everything here is decided by research and cited at the bottom — so you can spend your hours under the bar instead of in the comments.

You don't need more workouts. You need progressive overload, done for long enough to matter.

YOUR PROGRAM — derived from what you entered

01 The starting point

Read this once

Three levers move almost everything: how much you do (volume), how hard (effort), and eating enough protein. Rest, frequency, and exercise choice matter — but far less. This app orders itself around that hierarchy, so you don't waste effort optimizing things that barely move.

Lever 01 · biggest

Volume

Weekly hard sets per muscle. More grows more, with diminishing returns — beginners grow on far less than the internet claims.

Lever 02

Effort

Training close enough to failure. You don't need to hit failure every set — you need to stop leaving 5 reps in the tank.

Lever 03

Protein

Roughly 1.6–2.2 g per kg of bodyweight, daily. Without it, the training stimulus has nothing to build with.

02 The effort dial

RPE & RIR

RIR = Reps In Reserve — how many reps you had left when you stopped. RPE = the same idea on a 1–10 scale (RPE 8 = 2 reps left). This is the language of effort. You don't have to nail it on day one — the logbook translates your real numbers for you. But here's what each rung feels like:

Why beginners get pre-filled weights

Research (Zourdos 2016) shows novices badly misjudge how close to failure they are — they almost always stop too early. So we don't make you guess. Your starting loads are seeded for you; you log what you actually did, and the app takes over from there.

03 The map

What we're building

The V-taper — wide lats and shoulders tapering to the waist — is the default emphasis, because it reads as "athletic" from across the room. Tap a muscle to see how it's trained. Priority isn't about ignoring anything; it's about where the extra sets go.

Lead ★★ Priority ★ Trained
select a muscle

Muscle dossier

Tap any region on the figures or a chip to open its file — what it does, how it's trained, which days hit it, and your weekly set dose.

04 The program

The week

A 3-day split (optional 4th) hitting each muscle about twice a week — the sweet spot for spreading volume. Sets, reps, rest, and your target effort are filled in from your profile. Tap any lift to open form cues, the one mistake that matters, and your logbook.

05 Progression

How you add weight

Method · your default

When it stalls

Spot the plateau

Miss your target reps two sessions in a row on a lift? That's a stall. Switch that lift to double progression: add reps within the range first, and only add weight once you hit the top of the range on every set.

The arc

Mesocycle

Push effort up over ~4–6 weeks (RIR drops, weights climb), then take a lighter week. Fatigue is real; a planned back-off lets adaptation catch up.

The reset

Deload

When performance dips or joints feel beat up, cut volume ~40% for a week. You don't lose muscle in a week — you shed the fatigue hiding your progress.

Tools

Calculators

Load estimator

Enter a set you did and how many reps you had left. It estimates your 1-rep max, then tells you what to load for any rep/effort target. Same RIR language as your logbook (built on the Zourdos effort→%1RM table).

Estimated 1RM
Load this

Warm-up ramp

Ramp to your working weight without frying yourself or going in cold. Enter your top set for the day and get graded warm-up sets — enough to prime the pattern, not enough to fatigue.

Your data

Every set you log lives on the calendar above — tap any day to review, fix, or reconstruct it. These buttons keep that history safe.

Your data lives on this device

History is saved in this browser. It does not sync to another phone and a cache-clear can wipe it. Tap Save a backup file regularly — one file now covers all three programs, it's yours forever, and it restores on any phone or computer. The app reminds you when a backup is overdue. (Email login & cross-device sync is coming to a later version.)

06 Execution

How to move the weight

Tempo

Control down, drive up

Lower over ~2 seconds under control, lift with intent. The lowering (eccentric) is where much of the growth signal lives — don't just drop it.

Range

Full range, loaded stretch

Train the muscle lengthened. The stretched position (bottom of a row, curl, RDL) is a potent growth stimulus. Half-reps build half-results.

Bracing

Brace, then move

On compounds, take a breath, tighten your midsection like you're about to be shoved, hold it through the rep. A braced spine is a safe spine.

Focus

Feel the target

On isolation work, think about the working muscle doing the work — not just moving the weight A to B. Mind-muscle focus modestly helps for small muscles like delts.

07 The rules

Do / Don't

Do

  • Add a little weight or a rep whenever you can — that's the whole game.
  • Log every working set. Untracked training is guessing.
  • Sleep 7–9 hours. Growth happens between sessions, not during them.
  • Hit your protein before you worry about anything fancier.
  • Keep 1–3 reps in reserve on most sets. Save true failure for isolation.

Don't

  • Program-hop. Consistency on a decent plan beats a perfect plan you quit.
  • Chase soreness. It measures novelty, not growth.
  • Ego-lift with garbage form to move a bigger number.
  • Add endless exercises. Volume comes from sets, not variety.
  • Test your max every week. Build the base; the numbers follow.
08 Fuel & recovery

You can't out-train the kitchen

Training is the signal; food is the material. Miss the food and the signal builds nothing. These targets are calculated from your bodyweight — for a lean bulk (small surplus, minimal fat gain).

Can't hit it perfectly? Still train.

Ideal nutrition beats no nutrition, but a plan you can sustain beats a perfect one you quit. If you can't nail everything, prioritize in this order: total protein → enough total calories → consistency. B-grade eating done every day outbuilds A-grade eating done twice. Progress, not perfection.

↳ A Filipino, gym-oriented recipe collection is planned as its own module — real meals with ingredients you can actually buy here.

The receipts

Evidence base

Every number above traces to published research — mostly meta-analyses and systematic reviews. Where evidence is contested (upper limits of volume, exact failure proximity), the app stays conservative. This is where the science currently points, not gospel.

Volume: Schoenfeld, Ogborn & Krieger (2017), J Sports Sci — dose-response. Pelland et al. (2024), Sports Medicine — volume meta-regression.

Rest periods: Schoenfeld et al. (2016), J Strength Cond Res — 3 min > 1 min for size & strength. Grgic et al. meta-analyses.

Frequency: Schoenfeld, Grgic & Krieger (2019), J Sports Sci — volume-equated frequency.

Effort / RIR: Zourdos et al. (2016), J Strength Cond Res — RPE scale validation. Refalo et al. (2023), Sports Medicine — proximity to failure.

Muscle memory: Gundersen (2016), J Exp Biol; Bruusgaard et al. (2010), PNAS — myonuclear retention.

Protein: Morton et al. (2018), Br J Sports Med — 1.62 g/kg breakpoint meta-analysis.

Surplus: Garthe et al. (2013); Slater et al. (2019) — lean-gain rate & surplus size.

Creatine: Kreider et al. (2017), ISSN Position Stand — 5 g/day, no loading needed.

Age / youth: Lloyd, Faigenbaum et al. (2014), Br J Sports Med — youth resistance training consensus.

Somatotype: excluded — Sheldon's typology is discredited pseudoscience; personalization uses training age, limb length & injury history instead.

Illustration credits (when licensed images are added):
Body figures here are original schematic diagrams. Slots are marked for licensed raster illustrations from — Servier Medical Art (CC BY 4.0, smart.servier.com) · OpenStax Anatomy & Physiology 1e (CC BY 4.0) · Injurymap (CC BY 4.0) · Gray's Anatomy 1918 (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). Each will carry its required attribution string on placement.

OVERLOAD · Module 01 · Not medical advice. Consult a professional before starting a new program, especially with existing injuries or conditions.