Wave Planner
Enter one recent set. This maps out the next four weeks on a main lift — the load, the reps, and the intensity for each session — from a single Brzycki estimate. Switch between the two schemes the engine rotates through.
The engine runs the volume block first, then rotates to intensity — two four-week blocks make a mesocycle.
Showing the intensity schemeWeeks 1–2 accumulate, week 3 peaks, week 4 deloads. RIR is reps in reserve — end the set that many clean reps short of failure. A "+" set is an AMRAP: as many clean reps as you have. Percentages are of the training max.
Week 3 is the test: a 1+ top set at 97.5 kg — every clean rep past the first is signal. Week 4 is planned recovery.
How the wave is computed
One set becomes a training max, and every week's load is a percentage of it. For a set of 102.5 kg × 5:
Week 3 is where the two schemes part: the intensity block tops out at a 95% single, the volume block at a 3+ AMRAP set at 88%. Week 4 deloads to 60% in both. Effort differs too — the reps in reserve on the back-off sets run 2, 1, then 3 across the intensity block (hardest in week 2, eased under the heavy week-3 single) and 3, 2, 2 across the volume block, which sits further from failure throughout.
Why a four-week shape, from one set
Most calculators tell you one number: an estimated max, a percentage, a working weight for today. None of them tell you what next Tuesday looks like. Progress doesn't happen in a single session, though — it happens across a block, where load rises for three weeks, peaks into a test, then eases off so the adaptation catches up. That shape is the thing a program is for, and it's what this planner draws from your one set.
The four weeks aren't arbitrary. Weeks one and two accumulate work at rising loads and falling reps in reserve. Week three is the peak — a heavy top set that doubles as a probe: what you deliver there rewrites the training max for the next block, so the wave calibrates off the bar rather than a survey. Week four is a planned deload, lighter on purpose, so week five of the next block lands fresh instead of dug-in.
The two schemes are the same wave run at different rep ranges. The volume block does its work in fives and closes with an AMRAP for feedback; the intensity block does it in triples, doubles, and a single, peaking at 95%. The engine runs the volume block first, then rotates to intensity — two blocks make a mesocycle, and the pair covers both sides of getting stronger: the work that builds the tissue and the practice that expresses it.
This is the whole calculation Sterka runs, on one input, for one lift. In the app it runs on every main lift at once, adjusts as your recovery and history move, and re-anchors each block off what you actually hit. Here, it's the shape — mapped out in advance, from a single set.
This is the four-week wave from one set. Sterka runs it for every main lift, and adjusts it as your numbers move.
Join the WaitlistThis is the engine's math on one set, not a plan for you — the real one starts with a screening. Shown in kilograms, rounded to 2.5; pounds work the same, rounded to 5. Consult a clinician before starting a new program.