Weekly Volume Planner

Fitness is built by adding a little more than last week, then recovering enough to absorb it. Add too much and you stall, get hurt, or stop sleeping. Sit flat for months and the gains dry up. The calculator above takes your starting volume and lays out a 4-week block that climbs at a sane rate, then backs off so your body can catch up.

What the planner does

You give it one starting number: your current weekly training load. It builds the next four weeks around the roughly 10% progression rule, where each week adds a small amount of load on top of the last instead of jumping in big steps.

• Hours: total weekly training time. Good if you mix strength, cardio, and skill work.
• Kilometers: weekly running or riding distance. Good for a single-sport block.
• Starting volume: enter what you did last week, not what you wish you did.

The 10% figure comes from the idea that adaptation lags behind effort. A modest, steady rise gives your tendons, aerobic system, and sleep time to keep pace with the work.

Reading the block

The four weeks come out like this. Week 1 sits at your start volume. Weeks 2 and 3 each add about 10% on top of the week before. Week 4 drops to around 60% of week 3.

That last week is the deload. It is the point of the whole block. You spent three weeks accumulating fatigue, and the cut lets the adaptation surface so you start the next block fresher and stronger than you finished this one. Do not skip it because you feel fine. Feeling fine in week 3 is exactly when the deload is working ahead of schedule.

Where the 10% rule bends

Ten percent is a guide, not a law. It assumes your sleep, food, and life stress are steady. They rarely are.

If you slept badly all week, missed meals, or work blew up, cut the jump to 5% or repeat the previous week flat. Your Garmin or Apple Health resting heart rate and sleep trend will tell you when to hold back before your legs do. The progression also breaks down at the edges: a beginner can sometimes add more than 10% early on, and a high-volume athlete near their ceiling often needs less. Read the rule as a starting point and adjust to the week you had.

For how blocks like this stack across a full season of training, read the periodization guide.