The Rippler

Intermediate 12 weeks 4 days/week Cody Lefever Powerlifting

The Rippler is Cody Lefever's twelve-week GZCL program, from his free GZCL Compendium spreadsheet. Lower reps and high intensity for intermediates, with a main-lift progression that climbs for two weeks and dips for one, so twelve weeks pass without a deload. It is built into Ægir Iron and free to load.

What this program is

Four days a week, upper and lower alternating. Each day is a main lift (T1), a second lift (T2) and two accessories (T3). The sheet lets you open the week with bench or with squat; the other days rearrange to keep the alternation.

Day 1 Bench Press T2 Incline Bench T3 Behind the Neck Press, Lateral Raise Day 2 Squat T2 Stiff Leg Deadlift T3 Pull Up, EZ Bar Curl Day 3 Overhead Press T2 Close Grip Bench T3 Incline Bench, EZ Bar Pullover Day 4 Deadlift T2 Front Squat T3 Barbell Row, Rear Delt Fly

Two up, one down

The T1 is written against your 2RM and moves in what Lefever calls a Two Up, One Down pattern: plus five percent on the up weeks, minus two and a half on the down week. The average keeps rising while the dip weeks give recovery room, and the sets and reps shift with the intensity. A + means the last set is a rep-out.

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 T1 85% 90% 87.5% 92.5% 90% 95% 92.5% 97.5% 95% 100% 90% 5x3 3x4+ 4x3 2x5 4x3+ 2x4 3x3 1x9+ 2x3+ max 2x4+

The T2 is written against your 5RM and runs in three-week waves of 6, 5 and 4 reps per set, dropping a set every wave as the intensity creeps up. The T3 is max rep sets with a weight you can lift for ten or more reps, held for three weeks and then raised by the total reps the block produced.

The sheet names its four three-week phases The Trough, The Shoulder, The Crest and The Peak. In week 11 the T2 and T3 rest, and week 12 tests a new one-rep max on squat, bench, deadlift and press.

At a glance

Discipline	Powerlifting
Author	Cody Lefever (GZCL)
Experience level	Intermediate
Length	12 weeks, ending on a 1RM test week
Training days	4 per week
Equipment	Full power gym
Loading	T1 off a 2RM, T2 off a 5RM, T3 off a 10RM weight
Price	Free for individual lifters and rostered athletes

Free for individual lifters and for athletes on a coach's roster. Coaches pay only for roster tools.

How it works in Ægir Iron

The spreadsheet asks for rep maxes and warns against entering a one-rep max. Ægir Iron stores one max per lift, a 1RM, so it does the conversion for you: a 2RM is about 94 percent of a 1RM and a 5RM about 86, which puts week one's 85 percent of a 2RM at 79.7 percent of the number you saved. Every row then resolves and rounds itself to the plate.

It asks for eight starting numbers, the four main lifts and the four second lifts, because each T2 runs off its own 5RM rather than the day's main lift. The accessories carry their weight rule in the row notes, with the exact thresholds on the weeks that end each block.

If you run it again, Lefever suggests swapping the T3 movements for something different, for example a seated dumbbell press in place of the behind the neck press, or cable rows in place of the barbell row. Every exercise is a swap away when you load it.

Start The Rippler

Open Ægir Iron, go to Program and choose New Program, then the Program Wizard. On the first screen pick Powerlifting, then choose The Rippler from the cards under WHAT DO YOU WANT TO RUN? It is free on iOS, Android, and the web, with your data synced across all three.

Load The Rippler free →