Foundation
Base
Four patterns, learn the log
Two full-body sessions and three easy efforts. The only goal is a complete, honest training record.
GlowLab Training · Strength, Measured
Train the log,
not the mood.
Four compound patterns, one honest training record, and a deload that is scheduled rather than earned. Six levers with a dose and a ceiling each — the same practice as the wellness pillar, pointed at the barbell.
4 patterns3 × zone 2Deload week 15
Current blockBuild · Weeks 5–10
Organic · Herbal
The levers
Six levers, one log.
Every lever has a dose, a method and a ceiling. If a number is missing from the plan, it is not a plan.
01
Progressive Strength
Load, logged, every week
Open02
Conditioning
Zone 2 that does not eat the week
Open03
Mobility & Range
Range you own, not range you visit
Open04
Recovery & Sleep
The session you cannot skip
Open05
Fuelling
Carbohydrate timed, not feared
Open06
Measurement
Numbers that do not flatter you
OpenThe block plan
The block plan.
Sixteen weeks, written before it starts. Volume and intensity move on a schedule, not on how the week felt.
Build
Load
Add weight, hold form
Four sessions, linear progression on the four patterns, one threshold block a week.
Peak
Intensity
Heavier, shorter, sharper
Volume drops, intensity climbs. Conditioning gets one hard interval block.
Deload
Recover
Forty percent less, on purpose
Scheduled before you need it. Same movements, half the volume, none of the grind.
Return
Rebuild
Re-enter at eighty percent
Rebuild from the last clean week rather than the last heroic one.
Review
Measure
Four metrics, one decision
Load, resting heart rate, waist, sleep mean. Continue, adjust, or stop.
Pillar 01
Progressive Strength
Strength is the only adaptation that keeps paying rent. We treat the barbell as a measuring instrument, not a personality.
Every programme is built around four compound patterns -- squat, hinge, press, pull -- and a weekly load increment you can defend. Accessories exist to keep those four moving, never to replace them. If a week does not add reps or kilos, the week gets rewritten rather than repeated.
Two hard sessions a week beats five half-sessions. The log decides, not the mood.
- Squat pattern
Front or back, whichever your hips tolerate. Depth is the standard, not the number on the bar.
- Hinge pattern
Trap-bar deadlift or Romanian. The hinge is what keeps a spine useful at seventy.
- Upper press
Overhead before bench. Shoulders that can hold load overhead are the ones that survive desk work.
- Vertical pull
Chin-up or lat pulldown to the same standard. Pair it with the press so the week stays balanced.
Pillar 02
Conditioning
Aerobic base is built below the point where it costs you Saturday's session.
The engine work is deliberately boring: three easy efforts a week at a pace you could hold a conversation at, measured by heart rate rather than feel. One short interval block sits on top. Anything more and the strength work starts paying for it.
Easy means easy. The most common training error is turning the recovery session into a second hard one.
- Zone 2 base
Nasal-breathing pace. If you cannot hold a sentence, you are not in zone 2, you are in a race you did not enter.
- Threshold block
Four minutes on, three off. The classic VO2 block, and still the best return per minute spent.
- Loaded carry
Farmer or suitcase. Grip, trunk and gait in one movement, with a heart rate that climbs whether you want it to or not.
- Step floor
Non-negotiable and unglamorous. The floor is what makes the other three sessions possible.
Pillar 03
Mobility & Range
We do not stretch for the sake of it. We train the end range under load, because that is the range that stays.
Every joint gets a daily five-minute pass and a weekly loaded end-range position. The test is simple: can you get there without a warm-up and hold it while something heavy is in your hands. Passive stretching alone fails that test, which is why it is not the programme.
Five minutes daily beats forty minutes on Sunday. Frequency is the mechanism; duration is not.
- Hip end range
Internal and external rotation, held while breathing. The position most desk hours quietly delete.
- Ankle dorsiflexion
Ten centimetres of dorsiflexion is the difference between a squat and a good morning.
- Thoracic rotation
Rotation that lives in the mid-back instead of the lower back is rotation that does not injure you.
- Loaded end range
The same positions with weight. Range that survives load is the only range that transfers.
Pillar 04
Recovery & Sleep
Adaptation happens here. Everything else is just the stimulus that asks for it.
Sleep is scored, not hoped for: seven and a half hours in bed, a fixed wake time, and a room below nineteen degrees. Deload weeks are scheduled every fifth week rather than taken when something hurts. Recovery is the part of the programme that most people quietly delete, and then blame the programme.
If sleep drops below six hours for a week, the programme pauses. Training on a sleep debt is borrowing at a bad rate.
- Sleep window
A fixed wake time sets the rhythm. Bedtime follows or it does not; the wake time is the lever.
- Deload cadence
Scheduled, not earned. The week you feel fine is the week to take it.
- Protein floor
Spread across four meals. Below this, the training is maintenance at best.
- Heat & cold
Sauna after strength, cold on rest days. Never cold immediately after a hypertrophy block.
Pillar 05
Fuelling
You cannot out-train a plate, and you cannot train hard on an empty one either.
Carbohydrate goes around the session, protein goes across the day, and fat fills the rest. There is no banned food and no cleanse. The only rule that matters is that the intake is written down for at least four weeks, because estimated intake is wrong by roughly a third in both directions.
No cleanse, no detox, no elimination list. If a plan removes a food group for a reason you cannot state, it is a diet, not fuelling.
- Pre-session
Oats, rice or fruit. Enough to train, not enough to sit in the stomach.
- Post-session
With carbohydrate if the session was long. The window is wider than the supplement aisle suggests, but it is real.
- Hydration
Sodium included on hot days. Water alone on a three-hour session is how people finish dizzy.
- Logged intake
Weighed, not guessed. Four weeks of data beats four years of intuition.
Pillar 06
Measurement
Four metrics, taken the same way, on the same day. Everything else is noise with a subscription.
We track load, resting heart rate, waist and sleep. Nothing else earns a place, because every extra metric costs attention that the training needs. Measurements are taken weekly under identical conditions, and reviewed every fourth week against the plan rather than against how you feel.
Review every fourth week against the plan you wrote, not the plan you remember. Memory rewrites both.
- Load progression
The primary metric. A flat log for three weeks is a programme problem, not a discipline problem.
- Resting heart rate
A five-beat rise across a week is the cheapest overtraining alarm there is.
- Waist
More honest than weight, which mostly tracks hydration and glycogen.
- Sleep duration
Read as a weekly average. Single nights are noise; the mean is the signal.
Daily practice
The training day.
Three phases around one session. Fuel before, log during, recover after.
Pre-session · 06:40
Wake, fuel, prime
- Ten minutes of daylight, no screen.
- 40 g carbohydrate ninety minutes out.
- Five-minute hip and ankle pass, not a stretch class.
Session · 08:00
Four patterns, logged
- Squat, hinge, press, pull -- in that order.
- Every set written down with its load and RPE.
- One accessory block, never two.
Post-session · 09:15
Protein, walk, downshift
- 30 g protein inside the hour.
- Ten-minute walk to clear the legs.
- Five minutes of nasal breathing, exhale long.
Membership
Coaching, plainly priced.
Self-guided, coached, or reviewed by a physio. Same block underneath.
Logbook
Free
The block, written
- All six levers, unabridged
- The sixteen-week block plan
- Printable training log
Most kept
Coached
$29/ month
The block, checked
- Everything in Logbook
- Monthly form review on video
- Load progression adjusted for you
- Deload reminders you cannot ignore
Reviewed
$79/ month
The block, measured
- Everything in Coached
- Quarterly physio screen
- Bloodwork panel each block
- Direct line for niggles before they are injuries
In writing
People who finished the block.
Fifteen weeks, two sessions a week, and my deadlift went from 90 to 125 kg. The log is the whole product.
The scheduled deload is the only reason I am still training. Every other plan waited until I was hurt.
Four metrics, reviewed every fourth week. It is the first programme that told me to stop rather than sell me a reset.
Sunday letter
One pillar a week, one page.
No launches, no discount codes, no re-sent press releases. A single page on one lever, with the studies linked and the dose stated.
Unsubscribe in one click. We keep the list to ourselves.