4 Week Olympic Lifting & Hypertrophy Hybrid Routine

The 4-Week Olympic & Hypertrophy Hybrid is a potent routine to help you develop strength & power through the performance of Olympic lifts. Run this program as outlined for 4 weeks, take a break, and repeat as many times as you'd like.

After a thorough warm-up of 5-10 minutes you will perform the high intensity, low volume Olympic lifts while your central nervous system is fresh. If you miss an Olympic lift three times at the prescribed weight, stop, and move on to the next exercise.

After completing the Olympic lifts, you will move on to performing low to moderate intensity, high volume hypertrophy-oriented exercises. These hypertrophy-oriented exercises are less technical so they can be performed in a slightly fatigued state. Do not go to muscular failure with these exercises; they should complement and not detract from your Olympic lift performance.

Each workout should take about 60 minutes. If you ever feel exceptionally fatigued, sore, or run out of time it'd advised to cut the hypertrophy volume rather than the Olympic lifting volume.

It is important to note this routine is designed for someone with weight training experience at the intermediate level with prior Olympic lifting experience. More advanced Olympic lifting programs prescribe intensity levels (% of your 1RM) for the set and rep schemes.

Since you are relatively new to Olympic lifting I'd recommend picking a heavy but manageable weight that allows you to successfully perform all prescribed sets and reps without risk of failure. Once you gain proficiency in Olympic lifts you can begin assigning intensity levels, but right now you're likely too inefficient in the movement patterns for intensity levels to be applicable.

As always, listen to your body and adjust the volume, frequency and intensity based on your goals and recovery ability.

This routine will implement a number of tried-and-true training principles:

• The Rep Goal Method - popularized by Steve Shaw. If the routine prescribes 3 sets with a rep goal of 25, then you should aim to perform 25 TOTAL reps across all 3 sets. When you perform more than or equal to 25 reps, you increase the working weight for the subsequent workout.
• Progressive Overload - adding reps and weight to bar will force your body to adapt and gain muscle/strength.
• Superset - perform two exercise back-to-back before resting; this routine will typically superset exercises that target antagonistic muscle groups (e.g. bench & rows)
• Rest-Pause/Bulldozer Sets - pick a rep goal, number of sets, short rest period (10-45 seconds) and a conservative weight with which you believe you can exceed the rep goal given the set and rep goal parameters.  Adhere strictly to the short rest periods and increase the working weight for the next session when you exceed the rep goal.
• Drop Sets - perform one set to technical failure, decrease the weight by a reasonable amount, and then perform another set to technical failure. The number of drops can range from as few as 2 to as many as 5. Track total reps and utilize the rep goal method to measure progress.
• AMRAP - perform as many reps as you can with good form; if you feel as though you may fail on the next rep or be unable to complete it with good form, terminate the set.

The 4-Week Olympic & Hypertrophy Hybrid Routine

Weeks 1 & 3

• Day 7 - Rest Day. Take this day completely off. Sleep in, rest, relax, and put your feet up!

Weeks 2 & 4

• Day 7 - Rest day. Take this day completely off. Sleep in, rest, relax, and put your feet up!