Advanced gym workout routines

Home › Routines › advanced

After several years of training the margin for progress narrows and more precision is needed. These routines use periodization: volume and intensity are not constant but climb for a few weeks and then drop to allow supercompensation. They also add more accessory work to target specific weak points instead of always repeating the same basics.

Pick your goal and the days you can train. Each routine is generated with periodization, effort control (RIR) and automatic progression.

Choose your goal

Hypertrophy

• Hypertrophy · 2 days
• Hypertrophy · 3 days
• Hypertrophy · 4 days
• Hypertrophy · 5 days
• Hypertrophy · 6 days

Strength

• Strength · 2 days
• Strength · 3 days
• Strength · 4 days
• Strength · 5 days
• Strength · 6 days

Fat loss

• Fat loss · 2 days
• Fat loss · 3 days
• Fat loss · 4 days
• Fat loss · 5 days
• Fat loss · 6 days

Body recomposition

• Body recomposition · 2 days
• Body recomposition · 3 days
• Body recomposition · 4 days
• Body recomposition · 5 days
• Body recomposition · 6 days

Generate my free routine

Close to failure: the variable that matters most after years of training

With years of training behind you, the easy gains are over and every variable has to be tuned more carefully. One of the most debated is how close to muscular failure to take each set, because always going to the limit spikes fatigue while staying far from it may leave stimulus on the table.

Robinson, Pelland, Remmert, Refalo, Jukic, Steele and Zourdos published a series of meta-regressions in Sports Medicine in 2024 estimating proximity to failure through repetitions in reserve (RIR). They found that hypertrophy increases as sets end closer to failure, while strength gain barely changes across a wide range of proximities.

That asymmetry is the useful part for advanced lifters. In exercises aimed at muscle size, especially isolation work, it makes sense to train with few reps in reserve. In heavy strength-oriented compound lifts, leaving a little more in the tank costs almost no strength and saves fatigue that you would pay for during the rest of the week.

The authors present their results as exploratory and call for studies designed specifically for this question, so they are best taken as well-founded guidance, not a closed rule.

Other training setups

• Beginner gym workout routines
• Intermediate gym workout routines
• Home workout routines
• Dumbbell workout routines for home or gym
• Gym workout plans and routines
• Full body workout: 2, 3 and 4 days, gym or home
• Push pull legs (PPL) routine: 3, 5 and 6 days
• 4-day upper lower workout routine
• Gym workout routines for women
• Strength routines for adults over 55

Learn the theory

Linear vs undulating periodization: which to pick

Create my free routine