4 Day Strength Endurance Workout Plan

About this plan

Four sessions a week on an upper/lower rotation, opening each with a heavy five-by-five and finishing with accessory work. This is an advanced plan and it assumes several years of consistent lifting.

Day one is upper push and pull: bench press at five sets of five, military press, bent-over rows, lat pulldowns, curls and cable work. Day two is lower: front squats at five sets of five, deadlifts at four sets of five, leg press, hip thrusts, leg curls and extensions. Day three returns to upper with incline dumbbell press, Pendlay rows, overhead press and cable rows. Day four is the second lower session — deficit Romanian deadlifts, single-leg press, Bulgarian split squats and hip thrusts.

The name is accurate about the intent. Five sets of five is strength work; the eight-to-twelve rep accessories that follow it are hypertrophy and work capacity. The combination is aimed at being strong for a whole session rather than strong for one attempt.

Volume is the risk. Four sessions with a heavy compound in each is a lot of weekly tonnage, and the plan only works if you are sleeping properly and eating enough. Run this in a deficit and you will find the deadlift going backwards within a fortnight.

The deficit Romanian deadlift on day four is the hardest movement on the schedule. Standing on a plate increases the range at the hardest part of the lift. Reduce the load compared to your normal Romanian, do not match it.

Deload every fifth or sixth week — cut the sets in half and keep the loads. On a programme with this much heavy compound work, that is maintenance, not weakness.