I’m a grad student who has to bunker in and do nothing but eat sleep and write, except for the minimum amount of sneaking to gym in order to not lose muscle, for the next 6-8 weeks.
I have been a T-Member for years, have done just about every program that’s been described by the main authors, and have been working straight through the programs listed in Waterbury’s Muscle Revolution book.
However, now I do not have the time or ability to focus on anything other than work enough to workout at the same level I normally like to. Instead, I need to go to the gym as infrequently as possible to at least retain the muscle I currently have. I’m just a terrible multi-tasker and I can only do one thing really well at a time, basically. So it has to be my research project for the next six weeks.
Could anyone give me any ideas for a program that would involve going to the gym 3 times per week? I think this is an frequency I could sneak off to the gym for while still maybe gaining a little or at least not losing too much strength if done for only 6 weeks or so.
Look at the Stripped Down Hypertrophy and try to go every other day if possible. It is not the frequency the program calls for but it will probably work for you in this case. You will get full body in, some variation to help with boredom, and it can be done in under an hour.
Thanks for the suggestion. THe thing about that program, as good as it looks though, is that it’s intended for high-frequency protocol of 5 days per week. But I’m looking more to do about half that (3 days ideal but 2.5 per week probably often going to happen).
Basically, I don’t mind longer workouts, it’s the scheduling in going to gym, commuting, timing my eating right for them, the mental shifting of gears, etc that seems to make my evening disappear when should have gotten lots of work done.
Have 15m or 20m longer workouts, though, really aren’t a big deal b/c I’m already in there and it’s just a few more minutes lost in a day if you know what I mean.
Something I maybe should have put in my original post: My weaknesses are my chest and calves. My chest vanishes if I don’t work out for a week. The rest of my body is pretty normal, except my upper back seems to never lose strength and so little as looking at a weight seems to blow up it up and make ridiculously stronger than my chest.
How can you have been training seriously for any time at all and still need to ask this question…?
Don’t YOU know what works best for YOUR body?
Pick one or two exercises for each major muscle group that you know hit it the best and allow you to get stronger on the fastest, and create a simple 1, 2, or 3 way split around that to follow each week.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
Look at the Stripped Down Hypertrophy and try to go every other day if possible. It is not the frequency the program calls for but it will probably work for you in this case. You will get full body in, some variation to help with boredom, and it can be done in under an hour.
It’s all about priorities. If school is more important right now, so be it.
I like the hardgainer style abbreviated routines in these situations.
Hit the gym 2x a week, full body. Hard. It might not be optimal for gains, but you certainly won’t wither away to nothing in 8 weeks. And you really don’t have to do longer workouts. You still can get it done in right at an hour.