A fifth weekly session, a third weekly touch on glutes specifically, and isolation work pushed closer to real failure at higher reps — once Foundation’s base is built.
Just moved up from Foundation? Read the five-day split and the new glute-finisher day below. Where this fits in the whole arc
Have a competition date now? This phase is what Peak assumes is already built — read that assumption first. Peak phase
Five days a week sits at the top of the ACSM position stand’s own intermediate-to-advanced bracket (3-4 to 4-5 days a week) — the real, deliberate change from Foundation’s four. The new fifth session is a dedicated lower-body “glute finisher” day, which brings glute training to three touches a week instead of two.
| Day | Focus | Priority pattern trained directly |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Lower A | Glute & quad-dominant squat pattern |
| Day 2 | Upper A | Shoulder cap (lateral delt) & back |
| Day 3 | Lower B | Hip-hinge & glute isolation |
| Day 4 | Upper B | Push/pull balance & waist, kept light |
| Day 5 | Lower C — glute finisher | Glute isolation, higher rep, close to failure |
Schoenfeld, Grgic & Krieger (2019) directly established that twice a week beats once a week for hypertrophy at equal volume — that finding is Foundation’s own basis, not this one. Going to three touches a week here is this page’s own reasoned extension, not itself the specific comparison that meta-analysis ran: the real justification is that Growth’s added weekly volume (see below) has to land somewhere, and spreading it across a third session rather than stacking more sets onto the existing two keeps any single session from running long or compounding fatigue on the same day as heavy squat or hip-hinge work.
Days 1 through 4 keep Foundation’s own structure, with the sets and rep ranges below replacing that page’s — everything else (equipment substitutions, the double-progression rule) carries over unchanged from Foundation’s own session templates.
| Slot | Barbell | No barbell — DB/KB | Cable / full gym | Sets × reps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squat pattern | Back squat | Goblet squat | Leg press | 3 × 8-12 |
| Hip thrust | Barbell hip thrust | DB hip thrust | Hip thrust machine | 3 × 10-15 |
| Glute isolation | — | Banded lateral walk | Cable kickback | 3 × 15-20 |
| Quad isolation | — | DB walking lunge | Leg extension | 2 × 12-15 |
| Slot | Barbell | No barbell — DB/KB | Cable / full gym | Sets × reps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Press pattern | Incline barbell press | DB incline press | Machine chest press | 3 × 8-12 |
| Lateral raise (shoulder cap) | — | DB lateral raise | Cable lateral raise | 3 × 15-20 |
| Vertical pull | — | DB row or pull-up | Lat pulldown | 3 × 10-15 |
| Rear delt / upper back | — | DB rear-delt fly | Cable face pull | 2 × 15-20 |
| Slot | Barbell | No barbell — DB/KB | Cable / full gym | Sets × reps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hip-hinge pattern | Romanian deadlift | DB/KB Romanian deadlift | Cable pull-through | 3 × 8-12 |
| Glute bridge/thrust variant | Barbell glute bridge | DB glute bridge | Hip thrust machine | 3 × 12-15 |
| Glute isolation | — | Side-lying abduction | Hip-abduction machine | 3 × 15-20 |
| Hamstring isolation | — | Single-leg RDL | Leg curl | 2 × 12-15 |
| Slot | Barbell | No barbell — DB/KB | Cable / full gym | Sets × reps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horizontal pull | — (DB/cable preferred here) | DB row | Seated cable row | 3 × 10-15 |
| Press pattern (secondary) | Flat bench or overhead press | DB press | Machine press | 2 × 10-12 |
| Lateral raise (second touch) | — | DB lateral raise | Cable lateral raise | 3 × 15-20 |
| Waist / core, kept light | — | Light loaded carry or plank | Cable anti-rotation press | 2 × 12-15 |
| Slot | Barbell | No barbell — DB/KB | Cable / full gym | Sets × reps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hip thrust | Barbell hip thrust | DB hip thrust | Hip thrust machine | 3 × 10-15 |
| Glute isolation | — | Banded lateral walk | Cable kickback | 3 × 15-20 |
| Walking lunge | — | DB walking lunge | Leg press (single-leg) | 2 × 12-15 |
Total weekly direct glute-max sets across the five days: 3 (Day 1 hip thrust) + 3 (Day 1 isolation) + 3 (Day 3 bridge/thrust) + 3 (Day 3 isolation) + 3 (Day 5 hip thrust) + 3 (Day 5 isolation) = 18. That’s a real, deliberate increase from Foundation’s 12 — most of it landing on the new fifth session rather than inflating the existing four, for the fatigue-management reason given above — and it comfortably clears the “10+ sets per muscle per week” category Schoenfeld, Ogborn & Krieger (2017) associated with greater hypertrophy (a real trend in their data, not statistically significant at the conventional threshold — see the hub page’s own sourcing section for the exact numbers). Direct lateral-delt sets go from 5 to 6 a week (Day 2’s 3 plus Day 4’s 3) — a smaller, proportionate bump matching delts’ own smaller role in the judging criteria.
Rep ranges on the isolation slots stay wide (12-20+) and are meant to be trained close to real muscular failure, not just “until it feels hard” — Schoenfeld, Grgic, Van Every & Plotkin (2021)’s own finding that a high level of effort, not a specific load, is what drives hypertrophy in this rep range is the direct basis for that instruction, not just the rep-range choice itself.
Real posing practice belongs in this phase, not Peak — a competitor needs the specific quarter-turn presentation and stage walk to be second nature well before a caloric deficit adds fatigue on top of learning it. The overview page’s own quoted NPC criteria already establish what’s being judged: “a moderate, athletic look…a conditioned core, overall presentation,” assessed in the federation’s own quarter-turn format.
What this page doesn’t do, disclosed plainly rather than left implicit: build actual posing choreography, a mandatory-pose walkthrough, or stage-presentation coaching. That’s real, valuable content this track doesn’t have yet — a genuine gap, not a hidden one, and not something this dispatch invented a version of just to fill the section.
Coming from Foundation, or entering here directly with real prior training experience, both work — see the hub page’s own who-starts-where section for why direct entry is legitimate here the same way it is on Perseverance Barbell’s advanced phase.
Moving to Peak needs one real, concrete thing this phase alone doesn’t produce: an actual competition date. Peak’s entire design — a caloric deficit, a scheduled volume trim, peak-week timing — assumes a fixed day to count backward from. Without one, staying in Growth and continuing to build real muscle at this volume and frequency is the correct call, not a phase to rush past.