This 9 week program will help you take your strength and functional fitness to the next level. It’s an advanced strength program designed for intermediate and advanced lifters who want to build as much strength as possible in 9 weeks. This plan uses variable resistance training, in the form of bands or chains on your primary lifts. It includes WODs that are designed to maintain your functional fitness. Keep reading for all the details.
As the name implies this is not a beginner program for new athletes. For those that are just starting their functional fitness journey, I recommend checking out my 5 Week Beginner Program for Functional Fitness. It’s plenty difficult, and will provide all the challenge you desire. Here’s a quick overview of the program.
Premium Program Overview
- Research confirms that variable resistance training (VRT) is ideal for intermediate and advanced lifters
- Lifters using VRT were able to gain 28% strength in 8 weeks in a research study detailed below
- The program is 5 days per week with heavy compound exercises for each session
- Scaling options, lifting percentages, and coaches notes are included for each workout
- Nutrition calculator, and recovery programming included as well
This advanced strength program is heavily based on research. If you’ve read my previous articles on variable resistance training, you’ll know that research confirms that it’s one of the best methods to gain strength. While I won’t cover all the research, I will quickly review variable resistance training (VRT), and why it makes this program so effective.
Building Strength Quickly: Variable Resistance Training
Variable resistance weight training is a method of lifting with compound lifts, using bands or chains. As any experienced lifter knows, there is always a sticking point during each rep. This is the portion where the bar moves the slowest, due to lack of mechanical advantage. After the sticking point. mechanical advantage increases and you can finish the lift easily.
Variable resistance training changes this completely. When you loop bands or chains over the bar the lift becomes more difficult as you stretch the band or pick up more chain. This means that your body must increase force output all the way to the end. Research confirms VRT builds strength rapidly.
This training method has been used by powerlifters for ages; however, it’s a completely new method of training for most functional fitness athletes. As a result, I wrote a 9 Week Advanced Strength Program that combines VRT style training, with WODs and metcons. Let’s get into the details.
The 9 Week Advanced Strength Program for Functional Fitness [Premium Program]
If you’re a long time reader you’ll know that I’ve released the free version of the 9 Week Advanced Strength Program for Functional Fitness, a while back. It’s become one of my more popular programs, which prompted me to write a premium version of the program.
I’m often contacted by folks who want me to write them a custom program, with all the details. Because of the time involved, this type of program is very expensive, which lead me to create my premium programs. Each of my premium programs provides all the same information I give to athletes one on one including: lifting percentages, WOD strategy, rest periods, and scaling options. This allows me to provide a detailed program at a fraction of the cost to you.
If you like the sound of the program then you can go ahead and pick up your copy below. If you want some more details, then continue reading. I’ll provide a sample of programming and discuss each piece of the workout.
Advanced Strength Program Details
This program is designed to put you in the gym 5 days per week, with 2 rest days. Most days you’ll be lifting with multiple heavy compound movements. Much of the barbell work will use bands or chains, but not all of them. I’ve also programmed in olympic lifts and accessory work that doesn’t use VRT. Here’s a sample training session below.
This is the first session of cycle one. You can see that each day starts with some warm up work, and a specific warm WOD that’s designed to ready your major muscle groups for the lifts. For this session your bench press and back squat will use bands or chains. Their percentages are based off your banded 1RM which is covered in detail in the program.
In every 5 day cycle you should hit each muscle group at least twice. Research shows that this is the ideal frequency to build strength and muscle mass. It does mean that you’ll be lifting with a lot of volume, but I bet you can handle it.
By now you might be wondering just how much strength you can gain with this program. While I can’t give you any guarantees, I can point you to some research studies that show how effective this style of training is.
How Much Strength Can You Gain in 9 Weeks?
This research study lasted 8 weeks, and used variable resistance training. The group that used variable resistance, gained 28% on their bench press in only 8 weeks. The control group, that trained without elastic bands or chains, gained only 19%. The VRT group also gained more muscular endurance in the back squat as well as strength.
It’s important to note that I can’t guarantee this level of strength increase. However, I can tell you that intermediate lifters (1-3 years experience) are most likely to gain the greatest amount of strength compared to more advanced trainees, who are closer to their genetic limit.
Now don’t despair advanced lifters. Switching to VRT training is the best way to jump start your strength gains. You always gain the most when switching to a novel training method, provided you’re still lifting heavy weights!
Final Thoughts
If you’re ready for an advanced strength training program, that builds functional fitness, then this is your best bet. This program is hard, and you’ll probably be in the gym for at least an hour each day. I bet you aren’t scared of hard work!
If you’re not sure if you want the premium version, then you can always start the free version and see how it goes. You’ll still gain strength, you just won’t have access to the percentages, extra accessory work, and other details that make this program comparable to my custom functional fitness programs. Now get out there and get training!
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