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Hypertrophy for tradies: building muscle around a physical job
A demanding day on the tools can change what you have available for the gym. One afternoon you feel ready to train. Another, you feel demotivated from being tired and the warm-up feels heavier than usual.
A useful hypertrophy program needs to work across both days. It should give you a clear way to improve, a manageable amount of training and a straightforward adjustment when work has taken more out of you.
We developed Muscle Beach Madness using Dr Mike Israetel and Renaissance Periodization's volume-landmark framework as a foundation, alongside broader hypertrophy research. We adapted those ideas for tradies: manageable training volume, gradual progression and practical adjustments for the demands of physical work.
What are training volume landmarks?
Dr Mike Israetel and Renaissance Periodization have popularised a framework for thinking about training volume. These four terms help distinguish maintaining muscle, stimulating growth and reaching recovery limits:1
| Landmark | Meaning |
|---|---|
| MV: Maintenance Volume | Training sufficient to preserve muscle. |
| MEV: Minimum Effective Volume | The minimum training that produces growth. |
| MAV: Maximum Adaptive Volume | The range associated with the greatest adaptation. |
| MRV: Maximum Recoverable Volume | The highest workload you can recover from. |
These are coaching concepts, not universally validated set thresholds. Individual needs vary. Read RP's original volume-landmarks explanation and muscle-group training guide for their full framework.2
How these landmarks shaped FBY Muscle Beach Madness
The landmarks helped shape how we approached starting volume, workload adjustments and recovery. We then built the exercise selection, double progression and green/amber/red system around the needs of people doing physical jobs.
Our starting question is practical: can you recover sufficiently to train well again and manage the next working day?
The program begins with a repeatable workload. We look at performance across comparable sessions, whether soreness interferes with the next exposure, and whether the combination of work and training is becoming difficult to sustain.
The job is relevant to recovery, but we do not translate hours of carrying, digging or climbing into an exact number of bodybuilding sets. Those activities vary too much to make that a reliable calculation.
We also avoid treating MRV as a destination everyone must reach. FBY's weekly set limits and readiness colours are our coaching choices for this audience, rather than a reproduction of RP's progression algorithm.
Progress reps and weight with double progression
Muscle Beach Madness uses double progression. For an exercise prescribed as three sets of 8-12 repetitions, you build repetitions at the same load while keeping technique and effort consistent.
Once all three sets reach 12 with the intended reps in reserve, increase the weight by a small, practical amount. Repetitions may then fall towards the lower end of the range.
Progress is not tied to a deadline. A harder shift may mean repeating a load or doing fewer reps while staying within the effort target.
Research comparing repetition progression with load progression found that both supported muscular adaptations over an eight-week study. That supports using both tools, although it does not prove that one exact double-progression rule is best for everyone.3
Weekly reviews: more sets must earn their place
Adding sets can be useful, but a longer workout is not automatically a better workout. In the app, load progression and weekly volume reviews are separate decisions.
At each growth-week review, the app checks each muscle’s training logs, effort, recovery, performance and reported stimulus alongside the workweek and your session-time budget. Depending on those checks, the next prescription can increase, hold, reduce or stop that muscle’s work.
Completing a week does not guarantee more sets. Adjusted or incomplete sessions, effort outside the prescribed window, recovery concerns, muscle-set limits or projected sessions exceeding your time budget can hold additions. You do not need to wait for a strength plateau to complete the review.
These are FBY programming rules, not a claim that research has established one ideal set-increase schedule. A trial in trained men found growth in groups that maintained their established volume as well as groups that increased it; it does not validate FBY’s exact algorithm.4
Green, amber and red training days
Green: recovery and warm-up performance are broadly normal. Follow the planned session and progress when the targets are met.
Amber: an unusually demanding day or poor recovery makes the full session less suitable. The app reduces selected sets and leaves more repetitions in reserve. Adjust the load as needed.
Red: in Muscle Beach Madness, a Red training day means rest. Record the session as skipped; there are no work sets or make-up sets. Stop and seek appropriate advice for illness, pain changing your movement or other concerning symptoms.
This is a simple coaching system, not a medical test or a direct measurement of fatigue. The point is to make the day's decision clear enough to use after work.
Choosing three, four, five or six gym days
Choose the version you can attend consistently.
Three days combines the movements into full-body sessions. Four uses an upper/lower split. Five separates some sessions into push, pull and legs. Six keeps that foundation, redistributes accessories and adds a small amount of shoulder work.
The six-day version does not double the three-day workload. It provides another way to organise training. The best schedule for you is the one that fits your work, recovery and available time.
The initial plan uses six training weeks and a lighter seventh week, with earlier recovery adjustments when needed. Expert consensus supports individualising deload timing rather than prescribing one fixed interval for everyone.5
Set counts are useful, but not a complete picture
The app organises prescribed working sets by muscle for its weekly review. A set count is a planning tool, not a precise measurement of the stimulus or fatigue your body experiences.
Research has also explored fractional counting of indirect work when analysing training volume. That does not mean the app converts every assisting muscle into half a set, or that its targets can be compared directly with RP’s direct-set landmarks. Exercise selection, effort and recovery still matter.6
Put a repeatable plan around your working week
Start with the number of sessions you can sustain, record what you do, and make gradual changes from the results. Consistency includes being able to reduce a session when needed and return for the next one.
Read the Muscle Beach Madness program guide and compare the 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-day training options.
Credit: FBY acknowledges Dr Mike Israetel and Renaissance Periodization for the volume-landmarks framework. Muscle Beach Madness is an independent FBY program and is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
References
- Renaissance Periodization. (2017, January 4). Training Volume Landmarks for Muscle Growth. RP Strength. Practitioner framework, not a trial establishing universal thresholds. Accessed October 29, 2026. https://rpstrength.com/blogs/articles/training-volume-landmarks-muscle-growth
- Renaissance Periodization. (2024, May 29). The Hypertrophy Training Guide Central Hub. RP Strength. Includes links to muscle-specific guidance. Accessed October 29, 2026. https://rpstrength.com/blogs/articles/complete-hypertrophy-training-guide
- Plotkin, D., Coleman, M., Van Every, D., Maldonado, J., Oberlin, D., Israetel, M., Feather, J., Alto, A., Vigotsky, A. D., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2022). Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations. PeerJ, 10, e14142. Eight-week lower-body trial; does not test this exact double-progression rule. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14142
- Barsuhn, A., Wadhi, T., Murphy, A., Zazzo, S., Thompson, B., Barakat, C., Bradshaw, J., Walters, J., Andersen, J. C., Schoenfeld, B. J., Ugrinowitsch, C., & De Souza, E. O. (2025). Training volume increases or maintenance based on previous volume: the effects on muscular adaptations in trained males. Journal of Applied Physiology, 138(1), 259–269. Eight-week trial; 29 of 55 participants completed. Does not validate FBY’s specific weekly-review rules. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00476.2024
- Bell, L., Strafford, B. W., Coleman, M., Androulakis Korakakis, P., & Nolan, D. (2023). Integrating Deloading into Strength and Physique Sports Training Programmes: An International Delphi Consensus Approach. Sports Medicine - Open, 9, 87. Expert consensus, not a trial validating a seventh-week deload. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-023-00633-0
- Pelland, J. C., Remmert, J. F., Robinson, Z. P., Hinson, S. R., & Zourdos, M. C. (2026). The Resistance Training Dose Response: Meta-Regressions Exploring the Effects of Weekly Volume and Frequency on Muscle Hypertrophy and Strength Gains. Sports Medicine, 56(2), 481–505. Indirect sets counted as 0.5 in the fractional method; does not validate FBY’s specific assignments. Published online December 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-025-02344-w