Substitute session — instead of, never in addition to, the days it replaces

Chest, Shoulders & Arms — 3-day substitute · Deload / Test

Week 8 · SunTarget 40 min
12 exercises · 20 sets ahead

Sunday is true rest in a normal week. Run THIS session only as a replacement for Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday when just 3 lifting days happened this week — never in addition to them. Eat something 2-3 hours before this session — training under-fuelled costs you real strength on every lift. If you didn't and energy is under 5/10 today, cap this session at RPE 6 regardless of the week.

General Warm-up5 min

row or bike

5 min steady · zone2 conversational

Easy pace.

Mobility Primer6 min
Shoulder CARs

2 sets, 5 reps each direction.

Video thumbnail: Shoulder CARs

External video — Shoulder CARs by Functional Bodybuilding.

How to do it
Setup
Standing tall, one arm out to your side at shoulder height, the rest of your body still.
Execution
Take at least 8-10 seconds to complete one full circle — count it the first time to calibrate your own pace. Hit two checkpoints every circle: at the top, your arm brushes past your ear; at the bottom, it reaches down and slightly behind your hip. Complete the full circle through both checkpoints, then reverse direction and repeat.
Common error
Turning it into a brisk, loose arm-circle warm-up — if a full circle takes less than 8 seconds, or you can't feel real tension at the ear checkpoint and the behind-the-hip checkpoint specifically, it has become a warm-up swing, not this drill.
Feel
Steady, controlled tension everywhere in the circle, including at both checkpoints — never a swung, momentum-driven arc. Any pinch means shrink the circle until it's gone, even if that means missing a checkpoint.

2 × 5/side · rest 0:10

Wall Slides

2 sets of 8.

Video thumbnail: How to Improve Posture with the Wall Slide

External video — How to Improve Posture with the Wall Slide by DR MATT FONTAINE.

How to do it
Setup
Stand with your entire back, both forearms and the backs of both hands flat against a wall, elbows and shoulders bent to roughly 90°, low back gently flattened (not arched) against the wall.
Execution
Slowly slide both arms up the wall as far as you can while every point of contact stays flat on the wall the whole time, then slide back down to the start. That is one rep — slow and controlled both directions.
Common error
Letting the low back arch or the forearms peel off the wall partway up — that fakes range that is not real scapular/shoulder control. Stop at the true point everything stays flat and build range over weeks, rather than pushing the arms forward off the wall to gain height.
Feel
Mild, controlled tension through the shoulder blades and upper back as they rotate and glide. This is control work, not a stretch — go slow. Any pinch, especially deep in the shoulder, means you've gone above the height where everything stays flat — slide back down until it's gone.

2 × 8 · rest 0:15

Band Pull-Aparts (primer)

1 set of 20.

Demonstration of Band Pull-Aparts (primer), start position

20 @ RPE 3–4 · rest 0:15

External-Rotation Pre-Activation (light DB/band)

Light DB or band, mild effort only — this is prehab, not training. Stop well short of fatigue, never push through pain.

Demonstration of External-Rotation Pre-Activation (light DB/band), start position

2 × 8/side @ RPE 3 · rest 0:30

Shoulder PAILs/RAILs (90/90 external-rotation end-range)

Effort 5-6 of 8 (moderate to strong), 2 reps/side.

Video thumbnail: Shoulder Flexion PAIL's/RAIL's

External video — Shoulder Flexion PAIL's/RAIL's by Dr. Beau Beard.

How to do it
Setup
Stand or sit tall. Upper arm pinned to your side, elbow bent to 90°, light dumbbell or band in that hand. Rotate the forearm outward, away from your stomach, to your true end-range of external rotation — as far as it goes without the elbow leaving your side.
Execution
PAIL: from that end-range, gently drive the forearm further into rotation against the resistance, ramping the effort up over 5-10s, hold the peak, release slowly over 5s. RAIL: immediately try to resist the arm being rotated back toward your stomach, holding 5-10s without letting the elbow leave your side. That's one rep. Repeat, then switch arms.
Common error
Turning it into continuous reps instead of the ramp-hold-release protocol, or letting the elbow drift away from your side to fake more rotation — both defeat the isometric loading this drill exists for.
Feel
Building effort at your end-range during the PAIL, genuine resisting strength during the RAIL — this should feel like real, if mild, work, not a passive stretch. Keep it at mild effort only; this is prehab before pressing, never push it toward pain.

2 reps/side · ramp 20 s, hold 8 s · effort RPE 5–6 · rest 0:30–1:00

Main Lift — Bench Press + Overhead Press14 min
Bench Press

Deload logic — easy, clean, controlled. Your one pressing slot for chest this week.

Bench Press~200-400KB demo

2 × 6 @ RPE 5–6 · tempo 2-0-1-0 · rest 2:00

If pain flares
  • Sharp pain, or mechanics visibly breaking down (arms drifting forward, elbows flaring): first widen the grip 1-2 cm and re-set the scapulae — the standard first fix; if that doesn't resolve it, reduce ROM (partial/board-limited bottom); if still worse, swap Bench Press for Incline DB Press (or a floor press) this session and flag it.
Overhead Press

Your one pressing slot for shoulders this week. Shoulder: dull stretch/ache is fine, sharp pain or mechanics breaking down means stop and regress the set.

Overhead Press~200-400KB demo

2 × 6 @ RPE 5–6 · tempo 2-0-1-0 · rest 2:00

Face Pulls + Arm Superset9 min
Face Pulls

Kept even in the most compressed deload week.

Demonstration of Face Pulls, start position

2 × 12 @ RPE 6 · rest 1:00

Curl + Triceps SupersetAlternating Hammer Curl + Seated DB French Press

Alternating Hammer Curl

Light.

Demonstration of Alternating Hammer Curl, start position

Seated DB French Press

Light.

Seated DB French Press~200-400KB demo

Rounds

Mobility Finisher (light)5 min
Wall Pec Stretch

45s each side.

Video thumbnail: Pectoralis (Chest) Stretch

External video — Pectoralis (Chest) Stretch by EmergeOrtho-Triangle Region.

How to do it
Setup
Stand side-on to a wall or doorway. Forearm flat against it, elbow bent roughly 90°, upper arm raised to that week's height — 90° (arm level with the shoulder) or 120° (arm angled up above shoulder height).
Execution
Keeping the forearm fixed on the wall, rotate your torso away from the wall until you feel the chest stretch. Hold for the prescribed time. Repeat at the second angle if the session calls for both.
Common error
Hiking the shoulder up toward the ear to fake more stretch — keep the shoulder blade pulled down and get the range from turning the torso, not from lifting the shoulder.
Feel
A steady stretch across the chest and front shoulder. Any sharp pinch inside the joint means back off the height or how far you rotate. Either shoulder sharpening at all is your signal to stop that side.

45 s/side hold · rest 0:15

Cross-Body Shoulder Stretch

30s each side.

Demonstration of Cross-Body Shoulder Stretch, start position

30 s/side hold · rest 0:15

RPE — lifting sets

Rate of Perceived Exertion — reps in reserve (RIR) is how many more reps you had left.

10
RIR 0
Maximal effort.
Never programmed as a target in this plan.
9
RIR 1
One more rep was there, barely.
8
RIR 2
Two clean reps left in the tank.
7
RIR 3
Three left — working hard, not grinding.
6
RIR 4
Solid work, far from failure.
≤5
RIR 5+
Warm-up / ramp effort.

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Effort — mobility & primer sets

Effort against your own end range — RIR ("reps in reserve") doesn't apply to a hold or an isometric, so this scale describes how hard the contraction felt instead.

8
Hard end-range contraction — right at the edge, just barely maintained for the prescribed hold.
The peak-week PAILs/RAILs target — held, never exceeded.
6–7
Strong contraction, real effort, comfortably sustained for the hold.
4–5
Moderate — a working ramp, noticeable but not straining.
2–3
Light ramp — could hold this all day.

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Tempo

What to do: pick a weight that lets you hit the prescribed reps at the prescribed RPE while moving at this tempo, then log what actually happened. That's the whole job — everything below is only for when you want to know why.

Reading the four numbers

3-1-1-0
Eccentric (lowering) · pause at the bottom · concentric (lifting) · pause at the top — each number is seconds. This example, this programme’s Week 1 back squat, is 3s down, 1s paused in the hole, 1s up, no pause at the top.
3-3-X-0
"X" in place of a number means move that phase explosively — as fast as you genuinely can, not on a count. This example, Week 6’s back squat, is 3s down, 3s paused at the bottom, drive up as hard and fast as possible, no pause at the top.

Why this programme prescribes it

It standardises the stimulus. A rep's difficulty depends on how fast it's performed, not only the weight and rep count — the same weight moved faster is an easier rep. Writing the tempo down is what makes “RPE 7” mean the same thing this week and next; without it, RPE stops being comparable week to week.

This is a measurement/programming argument, not a muscle-growth claim on its own.

It removes momentum. A controlled lowering phase and a real pause at the bottom take away the free elastic rebound a rushed rep gets from the muscle and tendon stretching and snapping back (the "stretch-shortening cycle"). Without that assist, the muscle has to start the lift from a dead stop — why a paused rep feels harder at the same weight, and why it’s obvious immediately if a rep gets bounced instead of controlled.

Evidence: solid, well-established muscle physiology (Komi PV, "Stretch-shortening cycle: a powerful model to study normal and fatigued muscle." J Biomech 33(10):1197–1206, 2000) — a mechanical fact, not a hypertrophy-specific finding.

Tendon and connective tissue load differently under a controlled tempo. Tendons adapt to how they're mechanically loaded, and a slower, controlled rep holds real tension in the tissue for longer per rep than a bounced one — relevant here because this programme leans corrective (the shoulder/hip work).

Evidence: real but broader than this exact prescription. Bohm S, Mersmann F, Arampatzis A, "Human tendon adaptation in response to mechanical loading: a systematic review and meta-analysis of exercise intervention studies on healthy adults." Sports Med Open 1:7, 2015 (27 studies, 264 participants) found loading INTENSITY was the strongest driver of tendon stiffness gains, with duration a smaller factor — applying that general principle to this programme's tempo choice is this programme's own reasoning, not a trial that tested this exact tempo.

What it does NOT do: make a set better for muscle growth by itself. A slower or paused tempo is not shown to build more muscle than a rep performed under your own, honestly controlled pace.

Evidence: the best current evidence points the other way. Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn DI, Krieger JW, "Effect of repetition duration during resistance training on muscle hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis." Sports Medicine 45(4):577–585, 2015 found similar hypertrophy across repetition durations from 0.5 to 8 seconds each — and very slow reps (over roughly 10s) came out WORSE, not better.

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