Medical school and training

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

I’m a first year medical student at UNECOM, and I’m struggling to balance the gym and school work. I’m passing, put I’m not high passing.

I’m getting really frustrated with how my training is going. I was originally following Ben Pollack’s intermediate program, but I had to cut out most of the accessory work, then had to cut out the 4th training day. Now I’m only able to get to the gym 3x per week for about 1.5-2 hours, following a 12 week periodization program. I’m squatting and benching Tuesday, OHP and deadlifting Thursday, and doing some strongman stuff Saturday. I’m improving, but very very slowly… especially with pressing work.

How did you balance the stress of training with the stress of medical school? I asked the r/powerlifting subreddit for advice about bench press goals given where I’m currently at, and was eventually pointed towards this forum. I found a post from a few months ago asking about training while studying for step 1, to which Jordan responded: “I didn’t train any differently prepping for boards and would generally spend about 2-2.5 hrs in the gym 4x a week. I studied a lot outside of that and scored a 257 on Step 1.”

That’s way more training than I’m doing, and that step score is about 1.5 standard deviations above average. I’m training 1.5-2 hours 3x a week—which seems like a lot to me given how much I’m in class—and I would be happy with a 240-245 on step 1 (I’m hoping to go into EM).

2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mxC1HGoQig&t=112sHello and welcome! Have you watched this?

3

Take a listen to the above podcast for a perspective on training in med school. I didn’t really go to the gym until MS-4 year.

I can offer the perspective of a senior EM resident. EM emphasizes step 2 score over step 1. The desired step 2 score was >250 when I applied. The grade in the EM rotation and standard letter of evaluation (SLOE) were more important to program directors than board scores, however. Talk to your advisor about what is expected now. I can also give you hope for the future – EM residency is pretty relaxed. We have more free time than most of the other residents, typically working 30-50 hours per week rather than 60-80. The trade off is that our schedule varies wildly and the swings from days to nights can be exhausting. I have had no issue training 4 days per week in residency. Having a home gym is immensely helpful.

4

Hi, I know this is an old thread, but I’m in medicine now. I study at the university. https://www.trinityschoolofmedicine.org/blog/can-i-get-into-medical-school, and it’s very hard. I didn’t think it would be so difficult in medicine. I have no free time, and I use it all the time for teaching, preparing for lessons, and it is very tedious. Maybe someone knows what tips can organize time in medicine to have a little rest and have a personal life because this is not possible. Can there be any training sessions about this?