Features
Plan a season, not just next week
A visual calendar for the months between now and your next goal. Drag hypertrophy, strength, peaking and deload blocks onto the timeline, and let diet phases switch your nutrition targets automatically when they end. Progressively disclosed: a lifter six weeks in never has to see this page.
A drag-and-drop training calendar
The Training Periodization Planner is a multi-month calendar of your mesocycles. Drag a hypertrophy block, a strength block, a peaking block, or a deload onto the timeline and set its length. Each block carries its own volume, intensity and progression method, configurable independently rather than inherited from a template you can't touch.
Coaches can lay out a full competition season or annual plan per client from this same view, and every block stays moveable after it's placed.
Deload weeks, suggested and moveable
A deload week gets auto-suggested based on how long the block ahead of it runs, but nothing locks it in place. Drag it earlier if a block is running hot, later if it isn't. Outside the planner, the reactive deload engine still runs on your actual training data (see Training); this calendar view is where you plan deloads ahead of time instead.
Diet phases that switch targets on their own
Define bulk, cut, maintenance, recomposition or peak-week phases with start and end dates, and set the calorie and macro targets for each. When a phase's end date arrives, your nutrition targets update to the next phase automatically, no manual re-entry.
Rate-of-change targets are configurable per phase rather than hardcoded, and your full phase history stays visible as a timeline you can look back on. Carb cycling, refeed days, and reverse dieting sit on top of this as separate, off-by-default protocols you or your coach can turn on and configure; MuscleBuddy provides the framework without prescribing a philosophy.
Contest prep, worked backwards from your show date
Enter a show date and MuscleBuddy builds the phase timeline backwards from it: off-season, early prep, peak week, show day. A stage weight estimator runs off your current weight and body fat, and a peak week protocol planner lays out a water, sodium and carbohydrate manipulation schedule that you or your coach define; the app is the tool, not the protocol. A show-day countdown sits on your dashboard the whole way through.
How it reads the rest of MuscleBuddy
A phase block set here is what your Training sessions and Nutrition targets read day to day: change a block's dates and the calendar, the deload suggestion and the diet phase transition all move with it. Contest prep phases are shareable to your Health-informed training log and the social feed. Upkeep's longer-cadence tracking, appointments, spending, runs alongside a season plan without needing to know about it.
Frequently asked
- Do I have to use the periodization planner?
- No. It's progressively disclosed: MuscleBuddy runs a normal reactive training program without it. This is for someone who wants to plan months ahead on purpose, not something forced on a beginner.
- Does a deload here override the reactive deload?
- They're two different tools. The planner lets you place deload weeks ahead of time on a calendar. Reactive deload still watches your actual training and can trigger independently based on real stalls, described on the Training page.
- Are carb cycling and refeed days on by default?
- No, both default off. They exist as configurable tools for you or your coach to enable, not a philosophy the app pushes on you.
- What does the contest prep peak week protocol actually do?
- It gives you a place to lay out and track a water, sodium and carbohydrate schedule that you or your coach define. MuscleBuddy provides the planning tool; it does not tell you what protocol to run.
- Can my coach build my season plan for me?
- Yes. Coaches get the same drag-and-drop calendar for planning a full competition season or annual plan per client, and can adjust it as your training progresses.
Plan the season, not just the week.
Lay out your mesocycles, set your diet phases, and let the transitions happen on their own.