Two Day Programming

[J_Horsley]

My wife is planning on attending the local Orange Theory Gym near our house two days a week (HIIT combined with some bodyweight and dumbbell stuff). She'd also like to do some barbell training a couple of days a week. Anyone have any recommendations on how to intelligently program strength training for her on those two days? I'm guessing that an SSNLP approach wouldn't be the best way to go since the physical demands of her Orange Theory workouts will be pretty steep, and since she'll only be lifting twice a week anyway.

She's not really looking to lift competitively, or even take up lifting as a primary sport. She's just looking to put on a little muscle, lean out a bit, and improve her general physical fitness.

[PWard]

With the context you've given here, I would probably just get her to do SBD or SPD 2x per week. She could probably get away with doing day 1 and 3 of The Bridge. You could swap out the bench slots for comp press and a press variation if she would rather be press focused instead of bench focused. Obviously it's not going to be the most optimal from a strength development perspective, but it sounds like optimizing strength outcomes is not necessarily the goal here so it should be fine. And hey, if she winds up liking the barbell training you can always prioritize it later and add in more days/volume at that time. In the meantime, doing something is way better than doing nothing.

[J_Horsley]

PWard, on point and thoughtful as per usual. Thanks for the help!

I was thinking something similar but wanted to get some input from folks who know more than I do. She actually does pretty well with barbell training; she ran SSNLP for a few weeks over the summer until she tweaked her back squatting and got a little gun shy about lifting. She was really enjoying watching herself become stronger though, and is looking forward to getting back into it (albeit in a less intense manner).

[Michelle1]

You could also do: day 1: box squat ([email protected]), Press (4x5), leg press ([email protected]), tricep pushdown(3x12) day 2: Romanian deadlift ([email protected]), floor press([email protected]), row([email protected]), bicep curls (3x12)

If she is gun shy at the moment about lifting sometimes doing different variations can help get back to work outs without pressure on the weights always going up.
And there is not record pressure.

[WonderCat4Life]

Here's a 2-day/week template I put together as a favor for a friend in independent pro-wrestling. He doesn't particularly like training and he prefers to get in and get out as quickly as possible. It's programmed for 2 lifts per session, deadlift and bench press, but squat can be swapped in or alternated for deadlift without changing the sets/reps/RPE. This may not be what you're looking for, but it's something.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing