Ivysaur 4-4-8

What is Ivysaur 4-4-8?

Ivysaur 4-4-8 (often written just "448") is a community novice routine built on weekly linear progression: one working weight per lift that climbs every week you hit your reps. The name is the two rep schemes every main lift runs. On its heavy days a lift does sets of four at your working weight; on its lighter days it does sets of eight at 90% of that same weight, kept locked together so the volume tracks the strength. Once a fortnight the four turns into a 3×4 followed by a single AMRAP set — as many reps as you can, no ceiling — and repping out eight or more doubles that week's jump. That rep-out bonus is the one idea it borrows from 5/3/1; everything else — no training max, no monthly wave, add weight every week — is straight linear.

It runs as a two-week A/B rotation of three full-body days each. Across the fortnight squat, bench, deadlift and overhead press each get one heavy four-rep day carrying the AMRAP, one plain four-rep day, and 8-rep back-off days at 90% — plus barbell rows and chin-ups for the upper back. Every pattern is trained several times across the two weeks without any of it approaching failure, because the fours are submaximal by design and the eights are lighter still.

Is Ivysaur 4-4-8 right for you?

This suits the novice who finds grinding sets of five joyless and would rather chase a rep number. Every week you hit your reps the bar goes up, and on a lift's AMRAP week repping out eight or more doubles that jump — so progress is fast and the rep-out is a bonus rather than a gate. Frequency junkies get the most from it: every major pattern is practised across the fortnight, and the submaximal fours plus the back-off eights build bar speed and technique in a way heavy straight sets do not. One warning that comes with the program itself: start light. Because the weight climbs every week and doubles on a good AMRAP, seeding too heavy is the quickest way to stall.

How progression works

The weight goes up every week on every lift — that is the whole point of the program. Hit your reps and the bar climbs, whether the week gave that lift a heavy set of fours or an 8-rep back-off day; the two schemes share one working weight, so raising it lifts both. The base weekly jump is 7.5 kg on squat and deadlift, 5 kg on bench and rows, 2.5 kg on the overhead press (15/10/5 lb for pounds lifters). On the week a lift trains its AMRAP top set, that jump doubles when you rep out eight or more — so the AMRAP is a bonus on top of the weekly climb, not the only thing that earns it. Rows carry no AMRAP set, so they take the plain jump every week.

Because the numbers rise fast, start light — seeding too heavy is the quickest way to stall. Miss on any day and the shared weight freezes for both schemes: the fours and the eights are one number, so falling short on an 8-rep back-off day holds the four-rep day too. Stall on the same lift twice and it drops 10% to rebuild. The 90% on the back-off eights is a starting estimate, not gospel — the program's own author ran his volume sets more like 80–85%, by feel, and it varies lift to lift; drop them to a weight you can own for clean eights and let the fours carry the strength. The AMRAP set is the early-warning system: when a rep-out that used to sail past eight starts landing just short of it, the runway is shortening before a real miss. Durata charts that trend and handles the weekly jump, the AMRAP double and the deload for you. When several lifts start stalling at once, that is the cue to move on to an intermediate program.

Durata runs this progression for you — every session's weights are computed automatically from your training maxes and logged AMRAP sets.

Ivysaur 4-4-8 — every set, every session

Percentages are of your training max (TM). AMRAP = as many reps as possible on the final set.

Ivysaur 4-4-8 — common questions