Workouts & Exercises
One Exercise, Four Rep Ranges: How A Wave Set Trains Strength And Size Together
From the FASTER syllabus: this article is taught in full in Movement Trainer (AFT) — where Skeletons and Blocks is taught →
In short: A wave set runs one exercise through several different rep ranges in a single sitting, with the weight adjusted at each step, so a session trains more than one adaptation without a separate strength day and a separate hypertrophy day. The course's own example: a bench press taken as 12 reps, then 6, then 4, then 24, the load changing to match each rep count. Movement Trainer (AFT) teaches this as a block, the specific deliverable that sits inside a skeleton, FASTER's own system for building a session so it's specific, effective and repeatable rather than improvised on the spot.
What a wave set is
A wave set runs one exercise through several different rep ranges in a single sitting, with the weight adjusted at each step, so a session trains more than one quality rather than needing a separate strength day and a separate hypertrophy day in the diary.
Movement Trainer (AFT) gives the worked example on a bench press:
"Implement a system of varying rep ranges within a single exercise to stimulate strength and hypertrophy. Block Example: Exercise (e.g., Bench Press). Set 1: 12 reps. Set 2: 6 reps. Set 3: 4 reps. Set 4: 24 reps. The weight is adjusted according to the rep scheme, allowing for varying intensity."
Four sets. Four different rep counts. The bar gets heavier as the reps drop, then the weight comes back off for a final set that has nothing to do with strength at all.
Why moving through the ranges does so much
Twelve reps at a moderate weight starts the session with some genuine volume in the bank. Six reps, loaded up, and four reps, loaded up again, train the client at heavy weights while they're still fresh enough to handle them safely. Twenty-four reps, weight dropped right back, floods the muscle with the kind of volume that drives size, at the exact point in the session where a client's nervous system is already primed from the heavy work that came before it. One exercise. Both adaptations trained, in the same twenty minutes.
The block that sits inside the skeleton
Movement Trainer (AFT) calls the session's overall shape a skeleton, and the specific pieces inside it blocks: "a combination of exercises and systems that define the order, intensity, volume and rest for the section of programming you are designing." A wave set is one kind of block, a particular way of moving a client through rep ranges inside a single exercise, that a trainer can drop into a skeleton wherever a session needs to do more than one job at once.
Point it at anything
The same 12-6-4-24 shape works on a squat just as well as it works on a bench press, or a shoulder press, or a row. The exercise changes. The reason for moving through the rep ranges doesn't.
What to do next
Movement Trainer (AFT) is £375, and it's where Skeletons and Blocks is taught in full, alongside the rest of the programming system this block belongs to. The price is on the page, there are no sales calls, and PT Manager opens the moment you sign up.
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Movement Trainer (AFT) — where Skeletons and Blocks is taught — taught by the people who wrote it, with free return access for life. The price is on the page, payment plans at checkout, no sales calls.
Also worth a look: PT Manager, where a block like this gets saved into the plan.
See what the course covers →Frequently asked
Is a wave set just four separate sets at different weights?
Not quite — the point is that one exercise, in one sitting, deliberately covers a heavy set, a moderate set and a high-rep set, so the session trains more than one quality instead of picking just one rep range for the day.
Why 12-6-4-24 and not some other order?
The course gives that as the worked example; the shape that matters is moving from a moderate rep range down to heavy, then out to a high-rep set once the nervous system's already primed.
Does a block only work for a bench press?
No, the course's own example just needs one exercise to demonstrate it — the same rising-then-dropping rep structure works on any exercise a client can safely load across a range of weights.
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