A four-day upper/lower program template, and how to progress it

Each muscle is trained twice a week, sessions stay under an hour, and a missed day is easy to absorb. It suits almost every intermediate client who can train four days, which is most of them. Push/pull/legs needs six days to hit that frequency; full body four days a week gets crowded.

Monday upper (strength), Tuesday lower (strength), Wednesday rest, Thursday upper (volume), Friday lower (volume), weekend rest. Strength days lead with a heavy compound for 3 to 5 reps; volume days use 8 to 12.

• Upper A: bench press 4x5, barbell row 4x6, overhead press 3x8, lat pulldown 3x10, curl / triceps superset 3x12.
• Lower A: squat 4x5, Romanian deadlift 3x8, leg press 3x10, hamstring curl 3x12, calf raise 4x12.
• Upper B: incline dumbbell press 4x10, chest-supported row 4x10, dumbbell shoulder press 3x12, cable row 3x12, lateral raise / face pull superset 3x15.
• Lower B: deadlift 3x5, front squat or hack squat 3x8, walking lunge 3x12 per leg, leg extension 3x15, calf raise 4x15.

A rest day should be a day in the program, not an absence. A client whose app shows a blank Wednesday cannot tell 'off' from 'not written yet', and a schedule that treats rest as a missed session shows the wrong next workout. Write the rest days in.

Double progression: keep the load until the client hits the top of the rep range on every set, then add the smallest increment (2.5 kg or 5 lb on upper lifts, 5 kg or 10 lb on lower) and start again at the bottom of the range. It is simple enough that the client can run it, and it produces steady progress for twelve weeks without a spreadsheet.

Every four weeks, look at weekly tonnage per muscle group. If it has flatlined for two weeks with reps and loads unchanged, add a set to the lagging lift; if sleep, soreness or the logged loads are dropping, take a deload week at 60 percent of the sets.

In CoachVana the template is built once with supersets, rest days and per-set targets, saved to your library and assigned to a client in one tap. Their app shows the day, the player logs each set, PRs are detected, and your dashboard shows tonnage by week and by muscle without you counting anything.