Almost everyone who walks into this gym has trained before. Very few of them have ever run a block. That distinction — training versus running a block — is the whole difference between getting stronger and getting tired for a year.
Progressive overload is not "add weight when you feel good"
The principle is simple: to keep adapting, you have to keep asking for slightly more than you did last time. The execution is where people fall down, because "slightly more" gets interpreted as "as much as I can manage today", and today is a bad guide. You slept badly, you skipped lunch, or you are having the best Tuesday of your life. None of those are training variables.
A block fixes this by deciding in advance what each week asks for. Week four's job is different from week nine's job, and neither is decided by how you feel walking through the door.
The block we run
Every new member at VANTA gets a twelve-week block after their movement screen. The structure below is the version we use for a general strength goal, training three days a week. It is deliberately unexciting.
Weeks 1–3: build the base
Five sets of five on each main lift at roughly 70% of your tested max, with the last set never taken to failure. The purpose here is not stimulus, it is rehearsal — grooving the pattern enough times that the movement is automatic before it gets heavy. Accessory work is high-rep and targets whatever your screen flagged.
Almost everyone finds these weeks too easy and wants to add weight. Don't. The people who do are the same people who stall in week eight.
Weeks 4–7: load it
Sets drop to five sets of three, intensity climbs to around 82–85%. This is where the strength actually gets built. You add a small, fixed increment each week — 2.5kg on upper body lifts, 5kg on lower — regardless of how strong you feel that day.
The increment is the plan. Your mood is not the plan.
Conditioning stays deliberately light through this block. Two short sessions a week, kept below the threshold where they eat into recovery. This is the phase where people most often sabotage themselves by adding a spin class.
Weeks 8–10: peak
Volume drops, intensity rises: triples and doubles at 87–92%. You are working close to your limit now, and the accessory work is cut back to make room for it. Sleep becomes non-negotiable rather than nice to have.
Expect one bad session in this phase. Everyone gets one. The correct response is to finish the session at a lower weight and move on, not to bin the block.
Week 11: deload
Half the volume, 60% of the weight, all the technique. This is not a rest week and it is not optional. Fatigue masks fitness; the deload is what lets the strength you built in weeks four to ten actually show up on the platform.
Week 12: test
Re-test every benchmark: three-rep max on the main lifts, plus your conditioning test and an InBody scan. Then sit down with your coach and write the next block from the numbers.
What "real strength" looks like on paper
For a member starting from a genuinely untrained base and training three days a week, twelve weeks typically produces something like this:
- Squat up 20–35%, and looking dramatically better than it did in week one
- Deadlift up 15–30%, usually limited by grip and confidence rather than by the legs
- Bench press up 10–20% — the slowest mover, always, for everyone
- Two to four kilograms of lean mass, if food and sleep have cooperated
Those are typical numbers, not promises. Somebody who has trained seriously for five years will see a fraction of that, and will still be pleased with it, because the fractions are where the interesting training lives.
The four ways people wreck a block
- Adding "just one more" conditioning session. Recovery is finite. Something has to give, and it will be the lifting.
- Chasing a number in week three. The early weeks feel easy because they are supposed to. Patience compounds.
- Skipping the deload. The single most common mistake. It always feels unnecessary and it never is.
- Not eating. You cannot build tissue out of enthusiasm. See our guide to eating around training.
Where to start
If you already know your working maxes, you can write this yourself this afternoon. If you don't — or if you have been training for two years without a plan and it shows — come in for a screen. It takes forty-five minutes, it is free, and you will leave with a written block whether or not you join.
Marcus Vale
Head coach and founder of VANTA Athletic Club. Twelve years coaching, a national powerlifting record he never mentions, and a standing objection to anyone deadlifting in running shoes. Read his profile →
