Workout A — squat, horizontal push/pull, knee and ankle prehab

Workout A — Squat, horizontal push/pull, knee and ankle prehab Reps default to 12, with exceptions marked. A dash means no rep target. The bold rows are prehab — joint work, never taken hard, and numbered like everything else because they are part of the session rather than an optional extra.
#	Exercise	Reps	Notes
1	Front Squat	5	One set of five. Elbows high, chest tall.
2	Barbell Squat	12	Heaviest axial item in the week. 12-rep squats three times a week are the largest sustained axial load in the plan — if something becomes the recovery bottleneck, it is most likely this.
3	Barbell Rows	12
4	Barbell Bench Press or Flat DB Bench Press or Incline DB Bench Press	12	Your choice of three, switchable any time. Whichever you pick occupies the slot on its own, so the cut line does not move. Push-ups are a separate slot at #9 and everyone does them regardless.
5	BSS (Contralateral Hold)	12/leg	DB in opposite hand, tight fist for balance.
6	Alternating Gorilla Rows	12/arm	Keep the non-working bell glued to the floor.
7	Alternating Incline DB Bench or Alternating Flat DB Bench	12/arm	Incline by default, flat by choice. Non-working arm holds locked out at the top — that hold is the core half of this lift. Independent of #4, so the two slots give you two angles without either one having to be spent on it.
8	Hanging Windshield Wipers	—	Loaded rotation and anti-lateral-flexion. No rep target: progression comes from leverage. Leverage ladder knees tucked → bent → ½ straight → straight → straight + ankle weights
Cut line — stopping here is a complete session
9	Push-Ups	—	To near-failure. The rep count is the progression variable — beat last time.
10	Romanian Deadlift	10	Push the hips back, soft knees, bar close. Stop where the stretch stops, not where the floor is. Straps are fine — the hamstrings are the target, not the grip.
11	Poliquin / Petersen Step-Ups	—	Knee-friendly terminal-range work. Light or bodyweight. Leverage ladder low box, bodyweight → higher box, bodyweight → higher box, 3s down → holding DBs
12	Wall Tibialis Raises	—	Easy pump. Goes to one leg once both get easy. Leverage ladder both legs, feet close → both legs, feet mid → both legs, feet far → single leg → single leg, 3s down → single leg + weight
13	Triceps Pushdowns	12
14	Single-Leg Leg Press	12/leg	Safe quad pump.
15	Lying Back Extension	—	Face down, lift the chest slowly and lower it slowly. Leverage ladder hands by sides → hands at temples → arms overhead → arms overhead, 2s hold at the top
16	Band Finger Extensions	~30 s	Both hands, about 30 seconds. Counterbalance to daily grip flexion — this program loads the hands every single session.

The cut line, after #8

Exercises 1–8 are the session. By the time the eighth is done, the squat, both horizontal patterns, the unilateral leg work and the loaded core are all in. Walking out there is a complete session, not an abandoned one.

It is still an exception rather than a routine option — off days, time pressure — and every use gets logged. Cut-line frequency is a diagnostic, not a failure count: more than two cuts in ten workouts means the session is too long, recovery is short, or life has changed shape. Note also what a cut actually deletes here — the push-ups, the Romanian deadlift, the triceps work, the leg press and all four prehab items. The RDL is the one that should give you pause: it is the only hinge in this workout and the only thing in the program loading the hamstrings at length, so it is a main lift sitting below the line rather than a top-up. That aside, this is why the knee and ankle work is numbered ahead of the leg press rather than tacked on the end: a session that runs out of road should lose the quad pump, not the joint work.

Both press slots are your choice

Workout A presses twice above the cut line, and by default it presses at two different angles. Flat at #4, incline at #7, and flat again on the push-ups at #9. Both slots are switchable at any time without restarting anything, and each option keeps its own weight — run something for a block, go back, and it picks up where you left it.

#4 — the main press

The heaviest pressing you do, and the one with the most load to gain:

Barbell Bench Press — The heaviest option, and the one with the finest load steps.
Flat DB Bench Press — Both bells together, not alternating. Kinder on the shoulder, and no spotter needed.
Incline DB Bench Press — Your heaviest press on an incline too. #7 is already incline by default, so picking this leaves Workout A with no flat press above the cut line.

#7 — the second press

Alternating, twelve a side, with the non-working arm locked out at the top. Incline is the default here:

Alternating Incline DB Bench — The default, and the only incline you need. Expect a lighter bell than flat — that is the angle, not you.
Alternating Flat DB Bench — The flat version. Kinder on a shoulder that dislikes incline, and an easier hold — but then every press in Workout A is flat.

The incline sits at #7 rather than at #4 because this is the cheaper slot to spend it on. An incline is a lighter lift than a flat press, and #4 is where load is most worth having; #7 is already lighter and unilateral, so the angle costs you very little there. The result is that the upper chest does not depend on how you set #4.

The honest cost is in the rating. At 30–45° the bell you are holding locked out sits closer to overhead, so the isometric is harder and what ends the set is more often the hold than the working pec. Pick the flat variant if that bothers you, or if your shoulder prefers it — but then every press in this workout is flat.

Both slots occupy one position each, so the cut line stays after #8 whichever way you set them.

Reps are not blanket 12

The default is 12 and the exceptions are marked in the table. A dash means no rep target at all: naturally loaded movements — the windshield wipers, the wall tib raises, the step-ups — have their intensity set by leverage and position rather than by weight on a bar. The rep count is whatever the movement gives you that day, and progression comes from the ladder shown in the notes: longer lever, greater range, slower tempo.

Where there is a weight, reps may still float in a band of 8 to 16 to absorb equipment granularity — a leg press stepping 20 kg has no load that gives twelve reps at RPE 7–8 once twelve at the lower weight has gone easy. Reps and load are one ladder →