Linear Progression Calculator
The formula
What the lp progression tells you
The beginner-ramp arithmetic: a fixed weekly addition, a predictable ceiling, and the stall-reset rule that keeps the ramp from becoming a wall.
Calculation: Next = start + add × weeks; stall → reset × 0.9. Enter your inputs and every substitution is shown below the result.
Reading the result
Every lifter’s first 6–12 months ride this curve — the engine quantifies exactly where “it got hard” should appear.
Rules of thumb: Squat ramp 2.5 kg/wk, press/OHP 1.25; stalls land at ~6 months
Limitations and best practice
Continuing to add after a missed lift is the LP crime; a stall is the program asking for the −10 % reset.
This calculator gives an estimate based on standard formulas; it is not professional financial, medical, legal or engineering advice. Verify anything you plan to act on with a qualified professional and your own records.
Frequently asked questions
When does LP stop working?
Does it apply to machines?
Source & methodology
Rippetoe/Meadows Starting Strength template.
Linear Progression explained: formula, worked example and honest limits
This page was written for one job: turning your own inputs into a defensible figure, with the working shown. There are plenty of pages about Linear Progression; almost none of them show the working. This one does: the formula, every input, a fully computed example, and a sensitivity analysis calculated live from this engine’s own defaults.
Like most useful measures, Linear Progression is a summary, and summaries hide as much as they reveal. The companion outputs and the input table are here to reopen what the headline compressed.
What makes Linear Progression worth calculating is not precision but position: it tells you which side of a threshold you are on, and by how much. A rough figure that settles the direction beats an elaborate one that never commits.
What makes a calculation page trustworthy is that its copy is derived from its own arithmetic: here next session = 127.0 kg, recomputed every time a field changes, and the sensitivity section ranks the inputs that move the result — Starting weight first, at ≈9.1 % of the headline for a ten-percent error either way in that input. Read the sections in order and you will be able to reproduce every figure by hand.
Inside the Linear Progression calculation: formula and every input
Here is the complete model this tool runs — Next = start + add × weeks; stall → reset × 0.9 — with each input explained below. If a competitor’s page gives you a different answer from the same inputs, this is the text that settles which of you is right.
Starting weight (kg) (example value 115) is a numeric input whose unit is fixed by the label; a wrong unit is a wrong answer wearing a plausible disguise. Use the same conditions each time (same scale, same time of day) so that changes in the output reflect real change.
Weekly increment (kg) (example value 2) is a measured number in the unit named by the label; the formula does not convert for you. Use the same conditions each time (same scale, same time of day) so that changes in the output reflect real change.
Weeks completed (example value 5) is a quantity rather than a category — precision here is cheap and worth having. If the period is partial, decide whether you mean elapsed or planned time and keep that meaning across every field.
Missed last session? (example value No) is a branching choice rather than a figure you measure; the per-option effects are computed below. The example value is there to demonstrate the mechanics, not to describe your situation — overwrite it.
What each “Missed last session?” choice actually does: No → 127.0 kg · Yes — stall → 112.5 kg These figures are computed from this engine, not estimated — switch the dropdown above and you will land on exactly these numbers.
Linear Progression with real numbers, step by step
Rather than describe the calculation, here it is end to end — every substitution in order, starting from the inputs above. Starting figures: Starting weight (kg), Weekly increment (kg), Weeks completed, Missed last session?. Run to the end, the next session resolves to 127.0 kg — After 5 climbs the bar is at 125.0 kg; next dose is 127.0 kg; two missed sessions in a row converts a ramp into a reset on the bands this tool uses.
- 115 + 2.0 × 5 = 125.0 kg
- Next 127.0 kg; reset option 112.5 kg
- The increment halves (upper body) as stalls approach
Current top — 125.0 kg. Read next to the headline, this is the figure that shows the shape of the trade-off.
Progress total — 10.0 kg. If your inputs change, this is usually the first companion figure to move.
Progress % — 8.7%. This is the number experienced users quote when the headline alone would mislead.
End of LP — when 3×5 grinds switch to a 2-day or wave template. Compare it against the main result of 127.0 kg before drawing conclusions.
Keep this worked example open while you enter your own figures: matching the shape of the substitution is the fastest way to spot a unit or convention mistake.
The Linear Progression corridor: your result across a realistic band
The honest version of any estimate is a corridor, and this one is cheap to produce: Linear Progression was recomputed at 5 points along the dominant input, with every other field left untouched.
| Starting weight setting | Next session |
|---|---|
| 80 % of the example value | 104.0 kg |
| 90 % of the example value | 115.5 kg |
| example inputs | 127.0 kg |
| 110 % of the example value | 138.5 kg |
| 120 % of the example value | 150.0 kg |
That spread — 104.0 kg at the low end, 150.0 kg at the high — is what a careful read of Linear Progression looks like: a band you can state out loud, with the reason for each edge. Reproduce it in the form above by editing Starting weight alone; the substitution steps will follow your figures exactly.
The levers behind Linear Progression, ranked by effect
Generic advice says “it depends on your inputs”; this section says exactly how much. Each field was perturbed by ±10 % in isolation and the next session recomputed, so the ranking below is measured rather than asserted. For Linear Progression the ranking is measured rather than guessed, and it belongs to these defaults: shift the starting point and the order can shift with it.
- Starting weight: ten percent up gives 138.5 kg, ten percent down gives 115.5 kg — ≈9.1 % of the next session either way
- Weekly increment +10 % → Linear Progression = 128.2 kg · −10 % → 125.8 kg (the next session shifts ≈0.9 %)
- Nudge Weeks completed by ±10 % and Linear Progression lands between 126.0 kg and 128.0 kg (sensitivity ≈0.8 %)
Starting weight is the dominant lever here: ten percent either way moves the result by about 9.1 %, from 115.5 kg to 138.5 kg. Spend your verification effort there first, and treat Weekly increment as the second priority (≈0.9 % per ten percent). The remaining fields can sit at safe defaults without materially changing the answer — knowing which is which is what separates a careful calculation from an anxious one.
Is your Linear Progression good — reading the result bands
The value above only becomes useful the moment you know what it is being measured against. On the example inputs the band reads “After 5 climbs the bar is at 125.0 kg; next dose is 127.0 kg; two missed sessions in a row converts a ramp into a reset”; your own figures place you on a different rung of the same ladder. Before treating the band as fact, note its width: ten percent either way on Starting weight already spans 115.5 kg to 138.5 kg. The practical reading rules: ask what would have to change to move you one band. If the answer is “a small, plausible input difference”, the band itself is not the finding — the uncertainty is.
Where Linear Progression sits next to similar measures: this tool answers “how much is the Linear Progression”, while the related calculators answer “what do I do about it”. Reading the result alone tends to over-weight a single snapshot; pairing it with the companion tools above turns the number into a decision.
Common mistakes with Linear Progression (and the fix)
Continuing to add after a missed lift is the LP crime; a stall is the program asking for the −10 % reset. This calculator gives an estimate based on standard formulas; it is not professional financial, medical, legal or engineering advice. Verify anything you plan to act on with a qualified professional and your own records.
Reading Linear Progression as a promise rather than a conditional. Every number here is of the form “if these inputs, then this result”; when an input moves, the honest response is to recompute rather than to defend the old figure.
This model has its own particular trap: Starting weight carries ≈9.1 % of the response per ten percent of error, so effort spent elsewhere is largely decorative.
Another is comparing across contexts: a Linear Progression computed with one set of conventions should never be lined up against a figure computed with another. Check the inputs behind both before ranking them.
Linear Progression verification checklist
- State, in one sentence, which convention each rate, unit or period in the form is using.
- Compare the output against one published benchmark or a colleague’s independent estimate.
- Put Starting weight under a magnifier; the sensitivity table above is the reason why.
- Check that every field the formula needs actually arrived from a document, not from recollection.
- Compare the result with one independent method or published benchmark.
- Repeat the ±10 % test on the inputs that matter and see whether the decision — not just the number — still holds.
A routine for decision-grade Linear Progression
Using a calculator well sounds trivial, but the difference between a decision-grade figure and a throwaway one lives entirely in the routine. The routine for Linear Progression takes a minute to learn and applies to every input above.
Step 1 — gather before you type. Linear Progression depends on starting weight (kg), weekly increment (kg), weeks completed, missed last session?. Collect them from a source document — a statement, a report, an invoice, a log — rather than from memory, because recalled inputs are the single largest cause of wrong results. The input you reach for first is usually the one you measured longest ago.
Step 2 — baseline before exploration. Get one defensible Next session on screen before you start nudging numbers. Without a baseline, every variation looks interesting and none of them means anything. When two sources disagree, it is almost never the arithmetic that differs.
Step 3 — play with the inputs on purpose. Ten percent up, ten percent down, one field at a time. Within a few minutes you will know this calculation better than most people who quote its results. Write the assumptions in the same file as the result, and future arguments take minutes instead of meetings.
Step 4 — compute a corridor, not a point. Three runs — worst, likely, best — turn Linear Progression from a snapshot into a range. Plan against the pessimistic end and treat the optimistic end as the upside story. A figure nobody can reproduce is a figure nobody will act on twice.
Step 5 — write the one-line memo. “Next session = 127.0 kg on this date, from these inputs.” That line is the entire deliverable; everything else on this page is how you earned the right to write it. Half of a good calculation is knowing which input you would hate to be wrong about.
From calculation to decision: where Linear Progression earns its keep
Numbers earn their keep in conversations, and Linear Progression is no exception. In Fitness & Sports discussions around Strength Training, this figure decides whether an option stays on the table: it converts an opinionated debate into an arithmetic one, and arithmetic is the only referee both sides accept. Write the figure down before moving on; memory flatters whichever number you saw last.
Professionals in Strength Training use this style of calculation as a screening filter before spending real money or effort: a quick Linear Progression check eliminates weak options in minutes, and the survivors earn the deeper, slower analysis. The fastest sanity test is to guess the answer first and see how far the calculation disagrees.
Re-running this page costs nothing and catches the slow drifts that never announce themselves. In Fitness & Sports the expensive mistakes are rarely sudden; they are small changes in Starting weight (kg) that nobody recalculated for a year. Half of a good calculation is knowing which input you would hate to be wrong about.
Linear Progression — frequently asked questions
What affects Linear Progression the most?
Linear Progression is driven above all by Starting weight. Perturbing only that field by ten percent either way produced 138.5 kg against the 127.0 kg baseline — a ≈9.1 % response, while Weekly increment manages ≈0.9 %.
Which matters more: weekly increment or starting weight?
By the numbers, Starting weight: a ten-percent change in it moves the result ≈9.1 %, versus ≈0.9 % for Weekly increment. Spend your measuring effort in that order — precision on the weaker lever buys almost nothing.
How much does the “Missed last session?” choice change the answer?
Across every option this tool offers, the next session ranges from 112.5 kg (Yes — stall) to 127.0 kg (No) with all other inputs held at their example values. The per-option table is printed in the inputs section — this is a decision that genuinely moves the number, not a cosmetic dropdown.
What is a typical Linear Progression?
There is no honest universal average for Linear Progression, but there is a reference point: the defaults on this page produce 127.0 kg (After 5 climbs the bar is at 125.0 kg; next dose is 127.0 kg; two missed sessions in a row converts a ramp into a reset). Replace the inputs with your own and compare — that comparison is the useful meaning of “typical”.
How do I calculate Linear Progression by hand?
Use the stated model — Next = start + add × weeks; stall → reset × 0.9 — and substitute in the order the tool prints (it starts from 115 + 2.0 × 5 = 125.0 kg). On the example inputs the hand route lands on 127.0 kg, exactly what the calculator shows. A spreadsheet reproduces it in two or three cells; doing it once by hand is what makes the automated answer trustworthy.
What happens to Linear Progression if starting weight changes by 10 %?
Try it in the form above and the printed substitution will follow you; the pre-computed answer for the defaults is 115.5 kg to 138.5 kg across the ten-percent probe, i.e. ≈9.1 % sensitivity on the next session.
Is the Linear Progression result of 127.0 kg good or bad?
Neither, on its own — the label “After 5 climbs the bar is at 125.0 kg; next dose is 127.0 kg; two missed sessions in a row converts a ramp into a reset” is the band this figure falls in for the example inputs, and your own inputs will place you elsewhere on the same ladder. Judge the number against your history and your alternatives, and remember that a ten-percent error in Starting weight alone moves it by ≈9.1 %.
How often do I recheck Linear Progression?
Whenever Starting weight (kg) changes materially, or on a deliberate block cycle (4–8 weeks is standard practice). A stale Linear Progression under-programs strong athletes and over-programs tired ones.
Is Linear Progression accurate?
The arithmetic is exact: Next = start + add × weeks; stall → reset × 0.9 is evaluated with full floating-point precision and every substitution is printed in the worked example. What limits accuracy is input quality and the model’s assumptions, so treat the 127.0 kg result as the correct answer to the question you typed — and check the assumptions section before acting on it.
When does LP stop working?
When resets stop recovering within two sessions — then a wave or block template takes over.
Does it apply to machines?
Yes, though the increment granularity (micro-plates) makes it cleaner than barbells.
Do I need an account to use this Linear Progression calculator?
No, and no data leaves the tab. The engine runs in the page itself, which is why the worked example, the bands and the sensitivity ranking all respond instantly to your keystrokes.
Glossary for Linear Progression
- Current top
- 125.0 kg on the example inputs — a companion figure printed beside the headline of Linear Progression so that no result is read in isolation.
- Progress total
- 10.0 kg for the Linear Progression worked case; it sits next to the main result because it carries context the headline leaves out.
- Progress %
- 8.7% for the Linear Progression worked case; it sits next to the main result because it carries context the headline leaves out.
- Next session
- The primary output of this tool: 127.0 kg for the default inputs, computed exactly from Next = start + add × weeks; stall → reset × 0.9.
- Worked example
- The calculation written out in full so that nothing on this page has to be taken on trust.
- Verdict band
- The interpretation attached to a result (“After 5 climbs the bar is at 125.0 kg; next dose is 127.0 kg; two missed sessions in a row converts a ramp into a reset” on these inputs), which turns a bare number into a position on a scale.
- Sensitivity (±10 %)
- How far the Linear Progression moves when a single input is nudged ten percent either way; the ranked list on this page is computed live from this engine.
The provenance of this Linear Progression calculation
Everything above runs on one stated formula, applied without hidden coefficients: Next = start + add × weeks; stall → reset × 0.9. Source of record: Rippetoe/Meadows Starting Strength template. Any other implementation of this model should return the same figure for the same inputs. If one does not, the difference is in its assumptions — which this page prints and that one probably does not.
This page is an estimation aid, not professional advice. The design rule is simple: two people entering identical figures must get identical answers. The sensitivity table above is part of that promise rather than a bonus: it lets you see how much of the result depends on how carefully you measured.
After the number: what to do with it
Save the number together with its inputs and today’s date; a Linear Progression figure without context is unusable the moment an input changes.
The audience here is people who need one trustworthy number before their next decision. Everything you need to defend the result — formula, substitution, sensitivity, source — is printed above, so the only remaining variable is the honesty of your inputs.