Yesterday, we discussed what it means to train like an athlete,
why I program that way, what a program would look like, and how I adjust that
program for my clients. Today, we’ll take a deeper look into how I change that
program further to fit more client’s needs. This will include programs for training
more sessions per week and how I adjust that to add conditioning directly into
the sessions. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet then make sure to do that first.
The program outline from Part 1, which is designed to be a
full body workout, is great for a 2 days per week or 3 days per week program. But
what about people who want to train more frequently? It is possible to do full
body more frequently (see CrossFit) but for most I don’t think it’s your best
option. If you want to lift 4 or 5 times a week then that is when we move into
different splits. Usually, this becomes upper body and lower body split, meaning
you train each movement and muscle group in the lower body 2 times a week and
each movement and muscle group in the upper body 2 times per week. This approach
is my favorite for a 4 times a week program because it gives you a lot of time
work per muscle group as well as plenty of rest time before having to use the
same muscles again. It also allows us to use the base of an athlete program by
focusing on compound movements first then follow down the line from most complicated
to least complicated. An example of this type of program would look like this.
Lower Body
1.
Dynamic Warm-up/ movement preparation
2.
Compound strength lift
3.
Hinge Movement
4.
Squat Movement
5.
Glute accessory exercise
6.
Lower leg accessory exercise
Upper Body
1.
Dynamic Warm-up/ movement preparation
2.
Compound strength lift
3.
Pulling Movement
4.
Pushing Movement
5.
Biceps accessory exercise
6.
Triceps accessory exercise
7.
Shoulder accessory exercise
This is the very basics and more can be added from here but
this type of lifting program will work very well for most people who want build
muscle and/or lose fat. I will take this outline and do it twice per week with
different exercises for each movement. This gets you more variability of
exercises while still hitting the main points that you want to hit. But wait, what
if you want to lift five times a week? My usual recommendation is to take that
fifth day and do an upper body pump day. Do lighter weight with high-ish reps
and just get a sick pump. If you decide on that then you may even want to take
an exercise or two out of the other upper body days so they you can still
maintain a good amount of total volume. Some people may be wondering where core
work fits into this so I usually will add it in either at the end of the lower
body days or save it for conditioning days. Yes, I am a believer in doing core
focused work because I don’t believe that heavy compound exercises are enough
for most people. I’ll have a full post on core work in the future as well.
Another adaptation I will make to this outline is to transform
it into a conditioning session. This is actually what I do for most of my
weight loss clients after we take them through a brief adaptation period (most
people I get have little to know experience lifting weights). We still start
the same with a dynamic warm-up and movement prep work, then still go to a
heavy compound exercise. Even when someone wants to lose fat I always try to
help them get as strong as possible. After the heavy lift, I basically take the
accessory work and make it into a circuit. I’ll take on exercise for a squat,
hinge, push, and pull and shorten or eliminate rest between exercises. I then have
them work through that for a given amount of time or rounds. Think of this as a
more structured and progressive form of CrossFit training. Instead of being
constantly varied we stick with the same set-up for a few weeks but try to
increase difficulty each week in some fashion. That could be increasing time,
increasing weight, or increasing reps depending on the workout. I also work
more with interval training than you often see in CrossFit. If you’re on a good
program that it will show up but I don’t think people utilize it as much as
they should.
Using intervals help me keep then intensity high for each session
because I can control the amount rest they get before working again. For most
of these workouts my goal is intensity. I want them to work hard and fast and
get their heart rate up because I know they will do low or moderate intensity
on their own for homework. It gives a
good mix of everything and, chances are, most people don’t want to do the high intensity
work on their own. Here’s on outline that I will use for a conditioning day.
1.
Dynamic Warm-up/ movement preparation
2.
Power exercises
3.
Compound strength lift
4.
Circuit
a.
Hinge Movement
b.
Squat movement
c.
Push movement
d.
Pull movement
5.
Core work
You can see how similar this is to the basic outline that we
started with. I added core work at the bottom which is 2-3 exercises done back
to back with rest afterword. Again, there will be a future post of my favorite
ways to train core so I will leave the specifics for then. Other than that it’s
basically the same set-up and it works very well. You’ll jack up your heart
rate, burn a ton of calories, and even build some muscle while you’re getting a
good cardiovascular adaptation. Something like this will definitely cover all
of the bases that you need.
Hopefully you got something out of
this 2 part post because it is a pretty deep look into how I program for my
clients and what goes through my head when individualizing each program. My
goal was to give you guys as much free info as I could without getting too
specific so I could keep it fair to my paying clients. If you want details on
what exercises I use, what dynamic warm-up and movement prep I do, or how I
progress my programs throughout each cycle then reach out to me. We’ll figure
out what we need to do to get you the help that you need! Don't forget, if you want to be the first
to hear about new posts, new programs, and get discounts on paid services, make
sure to leave your email in the space above and join my Newsletter list! The
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See you tomorrow!
Facebook: Greg Herceg - Personal Trainer
Instagram: @GregtheTrainer
Email: gsherceg@gmail.com
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