Strength Training Programming by Numbers: Training Max & Percentages, Plate Loading, Effort Tables, Volume Load, Periodisation Blocks & Progression

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Estimate maxes from heavy sets with two common formulas, choose between a tested and an estimated max with IF and turn the result into a training max rounded to a loadable weight.
• Fill a week's percentage table for four lifts with one copied formula, see what rounding does to the load, round down where a plan asks for it and translate a training-max percentage into a share of the estimated max.
• Find the closest weight the plate set can load, split it into weight per side, count the largest plates with INT and keep the rest with MOD – the greedy rule a lifter uses at the bar.
• Look up the % of max for a top set in a two-way effort table, estimate the max from it, plan the next session's weight from the same table and compare the new estimate with the last block.
• Compute the volume load of every logged exercise, add it up per lift and week with SUMPRODUCT and measure the change from week 1 to week 2.
• Turn a block table into a week-by-week plan: the block of every week, the week inside the block, the top-set percentage and the top-set weight in kilograms.
• Build a 12-week plan with a fixed weekly increment, apply a deload rule every fourth week with MOD and IF, apply a repeat-the-weight rule to a session log and chart the logged top sets.
• Plan three attempts per lift as shares of the estimated max, rounded to loadable weights, build a warm-up ladder towards the squat opener and add up the planned total.