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.
It depends on how conditioned you are. If you are super conditioned, go ahead and drop the conditioning sessions. Get all four weight training sessions in. Tack on some upper back work and abs to the end of a weight training session or two, and if you have the time and can swing it, some cardio.
However, if you are not well conditioned, I would still prefer ensuring all weight training sessions are done. However, the modification would be to cut rests between sets and focus on strict 3 minutes between competition lifts and strict 2 minutes between variation/accessory/supplemental lifts (this can be applied to above if you are super conditioned). This alone will be force your conditioning to step up. As the sessions will likely go faster you can also tack on upper back work and abs and cardio to the end of a session.
I feel 4 days weight training is better than 3 days.
If I can’t make it to the gym, GPP is the first to be jettisoned. I do; however, ride to and from the train station to work twice a day most days (about 15-20 minute cycle each way with stop/starting at traffic lights), so there is some cardio there. If I know I can’t make a GPP session in advance I will try to tack something on my previous weights workouts. Some days I can’t make GPP as something came up (work, life, whatever) so off it goes and I will see if I can add something to the end of the next couple of weight sessions.
Bottom line, get the weight workouts in. However, adapt and see if you can get some upper back/abs/GPP in on weight training days.
And apologies for posting this in both the moderated and unmoderated forums. I’m assuming that’s not appropriate. I initially posted it in the moderated one, but after a few hours got a notification that it hadn’t been approved, so I posted here. But then later still, it popped up in the moderated forum with a replay from Dr. F. So, sorry about that. I’ve been reading here for a few months, but this was my first time getting my head around the mechanics of posting.