When new training cycles begin Monday May 12th, you get to “choose your own adventure” based on YOUR current goals.
Rather than having to choose between following a strength or hypertrophy cycle, you get to “mix and match” the two as much as you desire!
Everyone will follow the same programming base, but you get to decide the if repeating movements are Strength or Hypertrophy focused. So you decide WHAT lifts and how many reps.
*A little birdie ALSO told us that due to popular request, this cycle will have a slight glute focus!
Either way:
- Hate Squats, but love Deadlifts?
- Going full send lifting heavy?
- Want some hypertrophy AND some strength work?
- The world is your oyster this cycle! (:
But no fret: there’ll still be tons of bodybuilding and accessory work either way, so you can maximize looking great AND getting strong.
And with our free cardio-add on program, you’ll still have the option to complete up to 1-3 cardio sessions each week (if you want to). You can run, bike, swim, or row.
More About This Cycle
This is a 7-week strength cycle that will help you get stronger, build more muscle, hopefully hit some new PR’s, and improve your ability to lift heavy weight.
If you choose to do the optional cardio sessions, you can expect to improve your endurance, engine, and cardiovascular health as well!
Workout Splits
- 3-Day: lower, upper, full body
- 4-Day: lower, upper, lower, upper
- 5-Day: lower, push, pull, lower, upper
Optional Cardio
- option to complete up to 3 programmed cardio sessions per week
- you can run, bike, swim, row, ruck, etc
- choose between zone 2 or zone 5
Repeating Movements
Here are some of the weekly repeating moves to look forward to this cycle!
As always, there will be movement swap ideas listed within the app if equipment isn’t available or you need to scale.
*For the purposes of keeping this blog succinct, we’ll just be listing out the programmed strength movements. But as mentioned, there will be hypertrophy swaps listed in the app as well.
- Back Squats
- Front Squats
- Conventional or Sumo Deadlifts
- Barbell Bench Press
- Barbell Overhead Press
- Strict Pull-ups
- Supported Rows
- Split Squats
- Pendlay Rows
- Steep Incline DB Press
Detailed Cycle Notes
Paragon Co-founder Bryan Boorstein here to discuss the Strength Cycle for Spring 2025.
This strength cycle is going to have a bit of a “glute focus” due to popular request from members.
The main focus of the training periodization is to optimize strength and hypertrophy outcomes across the year, without having to sacrifice conditioning levels.
You can think of these phases on a spectrum, with hypertrophy being in the middle as the most well-rounded stimulus. Then strength is just slightly lower reps and longer rest periods. Metabolic is going to be slightly lighter weights with shorter rest periods.
This how it will look for the next 13 weeks:
- Strength Pre-cycle Introduction week
- 6-week Strength Phase
- Metabolic Pre-cycle Introduction week
- 5-week Metabolic Hypertrophy phase
Let’s discuss some of the science that makes this approach so effective and delve into the specific details of this training cycle!
Why Program Strength Cycles?
1. Strength phases provide you an opportunity to assess your progress at a much more tangible level.
Yes, we can get stronger and set a “PR” in the 10-15 rep range but being able to say “I set a PR in a 1, 2 or 3-rep max” is something we can hold with us as an emblem of our hard work and dedication. Not to mention, lifting heavy has a certain grit and determination associated that isn’t quite the same with higher rep ranges.
Ok, now onto some science 🙂
2. Re-sensitization to the “hypertrophy” stimulus is one major reason.
The research behind this idea is building momentum, though I wouldn’t say it’s fact at this point. The idea is that our bodies are extremely resilient, and therefore adapt to a given stimulus, making it more difficult to continue to make progress without altering the stimulus temporarily.
A good analogy here would be what happens with continuous exposure to the sun. When the stimulus is new, we adapt quickly, and we can see skin changing to a darker color. As we do this more and more, we have to stay out in the sun longer to illicit an adaptation the next time we go into the sun.
The sun exposure is much like training volume during a hypertrophy phase. Instead of having to do more and more, we can change stimulus temporarily and allow the body to “de-train” that stimulus slightly (avoid sun exposure), and then come back with a renewed ability to manifest these adaptations (be “more sensitive” to the sun).
3. Potential HYPERTROPHY benefit of preceding a hypertrophy phase with a strength phase.
There is a 2020 study by Carvalho and colleagues, which demonstrated exactly this idea. One group did an 8-week hypertrophy phase while the other group did a 3-week strength phase, then a 5-week hypertrophy phase.
The group that did the strength phase first, ended up with more hypertrophy. The reasoning for this is still ambiguous, in my opinion, and I may still argue that this is a result of “re-sensitization” more than “priming,” but it was proven effective either way!
4. The final one is simply psychological fatigue.
The majority of people find it quite difficult to do the same thing all the time. Especially when you consider that hypertrophy training mostly trains close to failure in higher rep ranges, many of these sets can be quite painful as the lactic acid and other metabolites flood the body during hard sets.
When we do strength work in lower rep ranges, the work is still extremely difficult, but it doesn’t have the same burn associated with doing higher reps. It can be a nice reprieve to train in this manner for a few weeks!
What’s Different This Cycle?
In prior recent cycles, we ran strength cycles in which we implemented Back Squats as a repeating movement twice each week.
This cycle will not have Back Squats twice. In fact, we have a few new repeating movements!
We will now have Front Squats and Walking DB Lunges (with a glute focus) as the repeating movements on the second leg day for all physique programs!
As referenced at the start of the blog, this cycle has a bit of a GLUTE FOCUS flare to it. This can be seen in the repeating movements, but also in the construction of the accessory movements on each of the leg days.
Throughout the cycle, you’ll notice that each lower body day has a direct glute exercise in the accessory movements, such as cable kickbacks, thrusts, bridges, hip extensions, step-ups etc…
The repeating movements for the lower body offer 3 that are very directly influenced by the involvement of the glutes (low bar squat, deadlift and walking lunges) while the front squat offers a bit of direct quad work, while also incorporating elements that ultimately support and enhance the back squat and deadlift.
Program Delivery
1. Option for Hypertrophy
Due to the feedback from members who prefer not to do strength cycles, we have been offering hypertrophy options for all the repeating movements for the couple of strength cycles.
Each hypertrophy option will have a different rep scheme (focusing mostly on the 6-12 rep range), and there will be some options for more hypertrophy-focused movement swaps in exercise selection.
We do encourage you to utilize the strength movement, wherever possible. Even if it that means squatting, deadlifting and benching in the 6-12 rep range, we can be pretty confident that there is SOME benefit to changing movements out every now and then.
If all you ever did was RDL variations, you would be missing out on a varied stimulus from the deadlift. Not to mention the psychological monotony of performing the same movement in every cycle.
Therefore, unless there Is a good reason to swap out the programmed strength movement, you ought to stick with it, even if you opt to train in higher rep ranges.
2. Can we mix and match strength and hypertrophy?
We figure some of you all will want to prioritize strength for some lifts, and maybe prioritize hypertrophy for others (or specific body parts). This “mix and match” approach should be totally fine.
Per the standard protocol for repeating movements, we just want to make sure we stick with the same choices throughout the cycle; meaning whether you take the strength or hypertrophy route on a given movement, then be consistent and progress that exercise for 7 weeks!
Details of the Strength Cycle
The Rep scheme approach will be a typical Linear Periodization approach.
This is the simplest form of progression to implement and is also “backed by science” as the most effective way to increase strength over a training block.
A 2009 study by Prestes and colleagues on 20 women, found that Linear Periodization provided significantly more strength improvements on Bench Press, Pulldowns, Curls, and Leg Extensions, when compared to the alternative method.
Comparison of Linear and Reverse Linear Periodization Effects on Maximal Strength and Body Composition
This makes intuitive sense, based on everything we know about the development of strength compared to Hypertrophy.
Specifically, strength responds to lower volumes; and guess what happens when you decrease reps each week? You are in effect, DECREASING total volume load.
This means that as weights and effort are INCREASING week to week, the decrease in total reps is helping to facilitate recovery (via reduction in volume) and allowing you to properly MANIFEST your strength potential.
Essentially, this just means that each week, the reps will decrease, and the weights will increase accordingly.
Week 1 (intro/deload) = 6 Reps
Week 2 = 5 Reps
Week 3 = 4 Reps
Week 4 = 3 Reps
Week 5 = 2 Reps
Week 6 = Taper week (see note below)
Week 7 = 1 Rep (max testing)
The “Taper week” is a proven concept in Powerlifting, in which the athlete decreases volume by a significant amount (usually over 50%), but still lifts “heavy,” and thus flushes a lot of fatigue to optimize performance on the subsequent “testing” week (or the lifting competition for Powerlifters).
It’s also important to note that there are REPEATING movements that are NOT conducive to that same 6-5-4-3-2-1 rep scheme.
For example, rowing variations are not going to be doing a ONE REP MAX. The approach will be to stick with mostly sets of 4-6 reps (still decreasing reps and increasing load progressively across the cycle).
Also, remember that the objective on all movements is to ACCELERATE each rep as fast as possible on the “UP” portion. This “UP” portion is called the CONCENTRIC, and we have plenty of data to support the idea of “maximal concentric intent” being vital to the development of the neurological side of building strength.
“To increase strength, faster resistance training is thought to provide a better stimulus for neural adaptations, which could lead to greater strength gains”
Strength work and Proximity to Failure
Many studies have confidently demonstrated that STRENGTH is increased faster staying further from failure.
The rationale is based around the idea that strength development is a result of total force production.
Force = Mass x Acceleration, so we want to keep the concentric speed faster (avoiding the grinding reps that slow); increasing the force applied.
The other negative ramification of “grinding” reps is the inevitable COMPENSATION mechanism that occurs. Our bodies are professional compensators; meaning we will always find the easiest solution to the problem.
If we are competing TOUGH reps where mini compensations occur, we are not allowing the NEURAL (skill) adaptations to take place.
Essentially, we are teaching our bodies how to be better at compensating, as opposed to training the specific skill adaptation that we are after.
We are creating bad habits that become permanent and inhibit our strength adaptations.
Furthermore, working to close to failure on these highly demanding compound movements can quickly lead to high levels of fatigue, and eventually burnout / loss of strength and motivation.
There are two studies I’d like to focus on to cement this point about proximity to failure.
1. A Meta-Regression (a study of all studies on a topic) from 2023 by Robinson and colleagues, found that training closer to failure provided non-linear increases in hypertrophy.
However, in the same review, they found that training closer to failure for strength did not have any increased benefit to increasing strength; only increasing fatigue.
It seems that even sets with as much as 5-8 reps from failure produce similar increases in strength, with exponentially less fatigue (when reps are performed with maximal concentric intent; meaning lifting the weight as fast as possible).
2. In a 2021 study by Karsten and colleagues, one group trained 4 sets of 10 Reps to failure, while the other group used the same weight (approximately 10-rep max), but completed 8 sets of 5 Reps (leaving 5 reps from failure each set).
The group that left 5 reps from failure had better strength gains! This has been confirmed in practice, among a wealth of top-level coaches, too!
*notably, the group that did 4 sets of 10 to failure achieved better hypertrophy results, which is also in line with the research; that we need be closer to failure to maximize muscle building.
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Ultimately, this cycle is about building Neural Efficiency across the musculature, while re-sensitizing to some of the hypertrophy stimulus.
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