Olympus Phase II
About Olympus Phase II
Who is Phase II for?
Olympus Phase II is designed to as a continuation of our previous program but with an emphasis on dialing in our progress. If you were to start with Phase II and skip Phase I, you could totally get away with that!
Phase II accommodated for all skill-levels — complete novice (6 months-1 year), intermediate (1 year-3 years), or advanced (3 years and up). We provide guidance depending on your experience level so you can easily traverse your progress.
What is Phase II?
Olympus Phase II is hypertrophy focused, 12 week, push, pull, legs program and a continuation of Olympus Phase I. Why fix what isn’t broken? With Phase II, we are dialing in our approach to progression week-to-week. In some ways, Phase II can be viewed as a fresh start after Phase I.
What’s new?
Pull, Push, Legs?
Phase I was a true push, pull, leg program in the sense that the order of the workouts played out in that order. In Phase II we are re-arranging that order into pull, push, legs. Why the change? The idea is to create as much recovery time between our fist pull day and first leg day as both can put stress on the lower back.
Alternative Workouts
We are also introducing a “choose your own adventure” aspect into Phase II. This decision was made for two reasons. First, we are more likely to perform better on exercises we enjoy, so we give you choice. Secondly, we understand not everyone has the same gym (or a gym at all for that matter). By giving you more options each week, including and especially dumbbell movements for home gyms, we’ve built Phase II to be our most home-gym friendly program yet!
Approach to Intensity - Reps In Reserve (RIR) Programming
Instead of going to failure whenever we can, we are going to be more systematic in our approach to intensity. There are downsides to pushing to failure week after week, especially for non-professionals. It turns out the fatigue we experience depending on how hard we train can throw off how we track progression and makes it harder to program.
Log “Book”
We provide a custom Google Sheet for you to track your reps, sets, and weight for all workouts. We highly encourage those of you who are super focused on your personal progress. Phase II will take great advantage of this. Week to week we will recommend building up in weight and/or reps. Being organized and logging your workouts is critical to taking full advantage of this program, so don’t skip it!
Weekly Goals
We’ve improved our weekly goals which cover workouts, cardio, and nutrition. More specifically we’ve added tiers of achievement each week. We recognize not everyone can make it into the gym 5 days a week due to a busy lifestyle. This tier system of goals is for you to manage your expectations — our programs are built with this in mind.
If you wish to join the discord channel and hang out or even become a member and start lifting with us, the link is here.
Free, from Gaintrust, Week I of Olympus Phase II.
I'm excited to jump back in! I hope to have some type of size after the next 12 weeks.