Hey everyone. Im looking to make a program that I can do while im limited on time. I understand they have the time crunch but I am looking for something I can do 3 maybe 4 days a week within an hour. I was hoping to keep it to 2 barbell exercises and maybe some accessory work. I am doing the strength 1 program now but its taking almost 2 hours to get the day done with limited rest. I was thinking of something like a 4 day split where I did squat with deadlift, day 2 would be bench with press, day 3 deadlift with squat and day 4 would be press with bench. I was thinking setting it up like a heavy day for one lift followed by a lighter lift for the second movement followed by some accessory work. Has anyone tried anything like this and found success in it? During winter I can spend the time in the gym but at the moment between work and home 2 hours at the gym is not working well.
Time crunch is 3 days a week and doable within an hour, no? If you had time for another day now and then you could just add one GPP day with some accessory movements added in.
Alternatively you could for instance do the Powerbuilding or Hypertrophy programs and choose the weights so that you fall withing the lower limits of rest (e.g. 3 minutes when it says 3-5 and 2 mins for the higher rep sets). If you then have days that are ultra pressed for time, you could just skip the last exercise or what I like to do in such cases: I do them as Myorep sets instead which takes like 3-5 mins max as a whole.
Endurance template without the cardio is a pretty good option for this.
Montana Method / Hanley HVLF stuff (see exodus forums) work really well for this too. I’m doing something like that and added 110 lbs to my squat, 30 lbs to my bench, 40 lbs to my pull, and 5 lbs to my press since January. I’ve spent more than an hour on a session maybe 10 times, and never more than 4 hours in a week of 3 day/wk. And honestly if I were really motivated I could probably get my average session time down to 50 min.
Right now I am in Powerbuilding 1 on W7, right after the Pivot week. My sessions are under 1 hour each witouth GPP (I add it to the end of my main session). On W5 they were longer as there were more sets, but it was never longer than 80-90 min. I rest the minimum prescribed time on the template.
I have similar issues as I can generally only work out during my hour lunch break on week days (this includes the ride across the base to the gym)
I can’t speak to the results, as it’s a new project for me, but I’m running my own 4 day version of the free Bridge template much like you are describing, where it goes like this:
Monday: Day 1’s Squats and DL variant
Tuesday: Day 3’s Press, Day 1’s Bench variant
Wednesday: GPP
Thursday: Day 5 DL, and Squat Variant
Friday: Day 5 Bench, Press Amrap or Myo reps. Some rows/pullups GPP
I lose one squat block, and the Pendelay Rows, which I’m generally non-compliant on anyways since I hate them. Not having the upper body block between the Squats/DL blocks means the second block is probably at a little lower weight than it would be otherwise, but I can generally do my workouts in less than an hour.
I’ll be looking at my legacy Hypertrophy template for a way to split it up similarly for when I finish this Bridge run.
The new Power Building template is a great option for this. I have to be in and out in under an hour including dress/shower. The first lift is one of the big 4, the 2nd is a variation for volume, and if need be you can skip the last one (hypertrophy accessory movement) without issue or super set it with the 2nd. Set rest periods to 3 minutes max. On bad days I just do the big lift and leave, good days I can even get some extra work in in addition to the prescribed lifts.
I believe this structure is ideal for my schedule and I plan on adapting future templates to this structure because it is so effective.
I like this idea and it would be fairly easy to do.
I like the idea of a powerbuilding program but then I hate the rep ranges of some of the powerbuilding exercises I have seen.
I’ve been running higher rep range programs for months now and it took a long time for me to adapt both my work capacity and my mental focus. I also hated sets of 8, or 10, etc. but now they feel normal.