It seems that most people have a pretty regular schedule about when they can train, and programs are written accordingly. My work/life situation doesn’t make that possible, leaving me with a situation where most weeks I can fit in three full sessions and a GPP day, with the occasional week when I can manage four full sessions plus a GPP day.
In the past, I’ve handled this by ignoring the specifics of WeekXDayY in my programming, and just running whichever session is programmed next on the days I can get to the gym. Sometimes, that means getting through a week of “4day/week” programmed work in a week, while sometimes it may take me 9 days for the week’s worth of programming. Or if I’m running a “3day/week” program, I am occasionally get through the week’s programming in 5 days.
Using “12 Week Strength” as a specific example, I know that there is a recommendation for taking what is normally a “4day/week” program and adapting it for “3day/week” training. How would you advise that I approach a program like this, given the irregularity of my training schedule. I can think of three options:
- Perform all “4day/week” programmed sessions when I can - full 12 week program will take ~15 weeks.
- Perform sessions from the adapted “3day/week” version of the program when I can - full 12 week program will take ~11 weeks.
- Adapt the program to 3 or 4 day/week on a week-by-week basis to ensure that the each official “week” of the program is actually performed in a week - this might be tricky, as I often don’t know my weekend schedule until the Friday.
And on a related note, if the only way for me to get my all training days performed within the week would be to sacrifice a GPP session - am I better to skip GPP, or to perform it and stretch the week’s worth of programming out to 9 days.
Many thanks for your advice.