Calgary Barbell's original CBB16 is a four-day powerlifting program built around high exposure to the competition lifts: squat three times, bench four times and deadlift three times per week. It mixes percentage-based loading with RPE and finishes with a competition taper.
The original is still available as a free resource, and Calgary Barbell now also offers newer CBB16-2 and CBB16-3 variations.
People search for the spreadsheet and the PDF, and there are plenty of copies floating around. We link to Calgary Barbell's own resource instead of rehosting an unauthorized or community-edited version — those copies drift from the original and nobody maintains them.
It's a 16-week powerlifting program built by Calgary Barbell around four training sessions per week, all oriented toward the squat, bench press and deadlift.
What sets it apart from a generic strength routine is the combination: it prescribes loads using both percentages of 1RM and RPE, and it ends with a taper leading into a powerlifting meet. It's a competition program, not a general strength block that happens to use the big three.
That's the shape of the week rather than the prescription. Exact exercises, sets, reps and loading come from the official program — we're not reproducing the spreadsheet here.
What the structure tells you is that no session is a throwaway. Four days means four bench exposures, and the squat and deadlift each appear three times across those same four sessions.
The defining feature isn't one magic exercise. It's repeated practice of the competition lifts across four sessions while fatigue is managed through variation, intensity and RPE.
Bench gets the highest frequency at four exposures, which makes sense given it's the lift that generally tolerates the most frequency and benefits most from technical repetition. Squat and deadlift sit at three each, which is high but manageable when the intensity of each exposure varies.
This is how the program is built, not a claim that these frequencies are superior to every alternative. Plenty of good powerlifting programs run lower frequencies successfully.
Using both is the point. Percentages give the block its skeleton; RPE lets the day-to-day reality flex within it. RPE accuracy takes practice, especially if you've only used percentage-based loading.
Across the block
Early block
Volume, technique and workload foundation. Building the base the later work sits on.
Middle block
Increasing specificity and strength emphasis as variations narrow toward the competition lifts.
Late block
Heavier competition-specific work at the intensities you'll actually attempt.
Final block
Taper into the meet or a gym max test.
That's the high-level arc. Exact weekly phase boundaries and set/rep schemes come from the official program rather than from a summary.
This is the feature that separates CBB16 from a generic 16-week strength routine, and it's the reason to run it if you actually have a meet on the calendar.
The program includes a taper week for competition — deliberately reducing accumulated fatigue so the work you've done shows up on the platform. A program that ends by simply stopping doesn't do that, and it's why people who run general strength blocks often test lower than they expected.
If you're not competing, you can still run the taper into a gym max test. The logic is the same.
I couldn't verify a current first-party Calgary Barbell page for the older 8-week resource. Calgary Barbell's current official material centers on the CBB16 series, so circulating 8-week spreadsheets should be treated as legacy or community copies unless their original source is verified.
If you've found an 8-week sheet, check who actually made it before you run it.
It's common to see this described as "not for beginners." That's too absolute — Calgary Barbell currently positions CBB16-3 across beginner and advanced use. The realistic constraints are the four-day schedule and the RPE learning curve, not experience level by itself.
Go to Calgary Barbell directly. The original 16-week program is offered as a free resource on their site, and that's the version that stays current if anything changes.
Their training app additionally provides training logging, exercise demonstrations, estimated-1RM, PR and volume tracking, and video upload across web and mobile — useful if you want the newer CBB16-2 or CBB16-3 versions or want the tracking handled for you.
CBB16 still deserves a page in 2026 because Calgary Barbell itself still supports the original program. It isn't just an abandoned spreadsheet floating around Reddit.
The appeal is simple: four days, frequent exposure to the competition lifts, percentage work when structure is useful, RPE when autoregulation matters, and an actual taper at the end.
If you specifically want a newer interpretation, compare CBB16-2 and CBB16-3 rather than quietly mixing their programming into the original spreadsheet. They're separate programs with different progressions, and blending them gives you neither.
