I’m a 36yo male, been barbell training for ~4-5months now. I’m currently doing a 6-day PPL program and I’m thinking about switching over to one of the BBM programs. I’m 240lbs, with a 46" waist, so I’m eating in a deficit and focusing on losing body fat more than I am gaining muscle.
The Powerbuilding I template says it’s good for someone focusing on losing bodyfat, so I’m really looking at that one. But I want to make sure I can make it work with my current schedule.
I can get into the gym for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour M-F with more time available on Sat, but I have no issue going 6 days/week. I’m also in a commercial gym. They have a deadlift platform, so that’s better than most commercials at least. I OHP out of a squat rack, and the benches are very basic. Boils down to pin and band work isn’t available to me.
All of that being said, would the Powerbuilding template be a decent fit? One of the comment complaints I see about the BBM templates is workout length, which is pretty locked for me as I go before work and I don’t want to buy a template that has a big emphasis on work I’m unable to do like pin and banded lifts.
TIA for any advice/help you can give. And if the Powerbuilding doesn’t seem like a good fit, any recommendations would be very welcome.
Powerbuilding I is designed as a 3 day/week template with 3 main lifts per day. There’s some additional GPP work that can either be done as its own separate day(s) or tacked onto the end of a workout. It would be pretty difficult to do the template as written in 45 minute sessions, but you could easily just split up the exercises in a way that makes sense and spread them out over a 4 or 5 day schedule to shorten the time in the gym. Also, this template is very supersettable, and supersets are your friend when you’re short on time (as long as your gym isn’t too busy when you train).
I’m fairly certain there’s no pin or band variations in Powerbuilding I. Even if there are, BBM templates usually give you a few different options to choose from based on your equipment, so you wouldn’t be limited by that.
Thanks! In your opinion, about how long would a session take as written?
Glad to know there aren’t any pin or band movements, I think those and rack pulls are the only thing my gym isn’t really equipped for.
So while I own the template, I’ve never actually run it so I don’t have any experience with it. Just eyeballing it, though, it really depends on a lot of factors - how much volume is included in a given day/week, if you’re able to superset certain exercises, when you choose to do GPP, etc. As written, you’re probably not getting in and out of the gym in much less than 60-75 minutes on one of the main, non-GPP days no matter what you do.
It’s going to depend on your rest periods and how long it takes you to warm up/set up. If you are able to warm up quickly, low rest periods (2-3 minutes) and don’t need a lot of time to set up different exercises, you can probably finish the longer sessions (e.g. week 5 let’s say) in just over an hour. If you’re on the high side/long warm up/set up times then you’re going to run close to 2 on the long sessions.