Training 2 Days a Week

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

So I just purchased the beginner template after spinning my wheels for years on SSLP for various reasons.

My wife and I workout together and have my parents watch our 1 year old son while we lift in their basement. It’s not ideal but beats spending all of our nights separate so one of us can watch our son while the other does a workout. (We live in an apartment so home gym isn’t an option right now) We have found that weekend only training (sat and sun) works well for us but are unsure how to modify the beginner template to 2 days, especially 2 back to back days.

Should we choose 2 days worth of work out of the 3 days making workouts out of the most important exercises?
i.e: day 1 squat, bench, row and day 2 deadlift, press, squat
OR
Should we run the 3 days and just spread them out over 1.5 weeks? (I tried to do this with the original bridge myself and thought that maybe the frequency of the main lifts was too low)
OR
Should we do something else?

I really enjoy the “big 4” lifts so my goals are to increase those while also losing some fat and ideally at some point putting on some more muscle. (I’m under muscled and have about a 38in waist)

My wife just wants to get stronger and does not want to think about it so she just does whatever I do.

2

Hi,

Sounds like a challenging situation. I’d probably try the first option you listed there and see how you do. The back-to-back training days shouldn’t be a big issue since loads will regulate themselves using RPE.

3

Thank you Austin. That was the one I was leaning towards. This is what I love about Barbell Medicine. There are suggestions for what is probably closer to optimal but modifications are acceptable. Versus just telling everyone that didn’t train perfectly, progress weights perfectly, eat perfectly, and get the perfect results “You’re not doing the program.” The number of times I’ve reset to try to “do the program” cannot be counted.

If I have poor results I’ll be sure to make sure anyone who asks knows I only performed the workouts 2 days a week on back to back days.