I’ll soon be starting a job where I’ll be working at minimum 60 hours a week. For those of you in similar situations, how have you scheduled your training? Lifting in the morning and then bjj and/or strking in the evenings?
judiciously.
When my workload increases to the point where it compromises time in the gym, I just try and do whatever I can and feel like doing, keeping in mind that I need to avoid less effective exercises (don’t we always?) and maximise bang for buck. In these times getting to the gym is 99% of the battle, so if you’re still doing that you’re ahead of the game.
Also, cut out wasted time on things like TV. When was the last time watching TV helped your progress in the gym or achieve your goals?
Assuming thats 12 hour shifts 5 days a week, you still have 12 hours in the day. Say you just need 6-7 hours of sleep leaves you with about 6 hours of time. It takes an hour to get a good solid workout in, you have time.
You don’t, just kidding. Hopefully you live really close to where you train, because it sucks having to drive 45 minutes to an hour to train, plus that means less time to train too. Good luck
I’m currently working 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Fortunately it’s only for two weeks at a time, then I have two weeks off.
I try to Box every day, and lift 4 days per week. Non-lifting days I Box for about 1 hour. Lifting days I go 6 three minute rounds with one minute rests. Then aim for about 45 minutes of weightlifting.
A couple tips to make the best of your 12 hours off:
-NEVER turn on the TV
-Sneak a meal in at work an hour or so before the end of your shift
-Time your break between work and the gym. I limit myself to 30 minutes then head out.
I am not a morning person so I train after work. Knowing that put a stop to many missed workouts or plain crappy sessions because I hate mornings.
I’ll be honest and say… caffeine when i need it and ambien cr to sleep.
that said, I’d just train the important shit… technique & conditioning. And get a LOT of it in. Unless your goals are more aesthetic then I’d put in some lifting.
Otherwise I’d skip the lifting… or get some parallettes and do more gymnastics type shit that you can basically fit in wherever w/o having to go to the gymper say and you can do in 15min sessions.
I recently had my dojo cut down their operating hours, along with my workload increased… so I have to at least skip the training for two months in Gojuryu.
It sucks, but I’m not putting the money out to make it there once every two weeks.
I do keep up with the boxing though, and lifting. That I can do in my breaks in work and what not.
Also which 12 hour shift you’re working matters. There’s a big difference bewtween working 0600-1800 verse 1800-0600. Or noon-midnight vs midnight-noon. Or anything in between. Offsetting your normal sleep cycle by 6 hours or more can take few days adjustment.