If you’re someone who struggles to consistently “find the time” to train, what follows may well prove very useful indeed.
Many, probably most, people have a “real life” outside of training. You wouldn’t think it from the fitness content that’s popular on the internet these days, but it is so.
Consequently, they can’t or don’t want to meticulously calculate the weights they use for every set, log their RPE, perform multiple variations of the same movement pattern… and…do it all upwards of four times per week.
It’s too much, and trying to keep up leads only to one of two destinations:
1) Training stopping altogether due to overwhelm…
… or…
2) Joylessly “going through the motions”, exchanging hours of hard toil for basically no progress for years on end in some cases.
And that’s just training.
Oftentimes, people pay just as much and often more attention to their diet. Weighing and measuring every morsel that passes their lips, fastidiously tracking their macros, devoting large portions of their days off to prepping meals for the week ahead, and so on, and so on.
‘Tis not a recipe for success, that is for sure.
Short term gains, maybe.
But long term, steady, sustainable progress that delivers substantial positive improvements to the way you look, feel, and perform that compound over time?
Not so much.
If this sounds familiar, my remedy (born from experience training productively while working body-clock destroying shift patterns, festering in a mind-numbing corporate hell, and putting in all the hours under the sun running various businesses, some successful and others less so) is to scale back whatever work you are doing in the weightroom.
Why the weightroom?
* It’s far and away the most time consuming element of any training programme, doubly so if you have to commute to and from a gym, and even if you are training at home there’s still equipment setup before and during training plus tidying up afterwards,
* It’s also (generally) the most psychologically taxing element, as even when you are lifting as I prescribe (i.e. only using weights you can handle and always stopping short of failure), it still won’t be long before you’re shifting intimidating loads if you are not already doing so,
* There is a lot of logging and tracking involved (even if you don’t keep a journal and do it all in your head), with many dozens of variables to consider and adjust – often in real time,
* Cutting lifting down creates space for vital and oft neglected cardiovascular and flexibility work,
* Plus some more reasons I won’t go into for the sake of brevity.
The exact solution I recommend obviously varies, but in the specific case of the “time poor” person, it’s always based upon my “Two and Two System”:
* Two sessions in the weightroom – full body, mostly barbell based and supplemented with machine, dumbbell, and bodyweight work.
* Two cardio sessions of some description.
* A daily walk.
Plenty sufficient to get basically anyone stronger and more in shape, albeit slowly.
Some make the mistake of labelling this as something “for beginners”. It’s not. Not at all. Even those who have been training for some time can (and do) see pleasing progress because restricting the number of lifting sessions forces the trainee to ruthlessly “cut the fat” from their routines, leaving only the most productive movements. Productive movements they will also have more energy to plow into, as they will no longer be dilly-dallying about with “nice to haves” that don’t really move the needle.
All right, that’s enough for today.
I’ll close by saying that if what I’ve just written is of interest to you, I’m looking for a small handful (not more than five) people who want to work towards getting stronger and more in shape using sustainable methods (most probably using my “Two and Two” as a foundation) that deliver modest yet compounding results once you get the hang of them.
This is a close arrangement. Private (no sharing your struggles with a group of random strangers on a video call), with bountiful personal support to ensure (insofar as these things can be ensured) you are successful in putting what I teach you into practice, not just now but potentially for many years to come.
It’s also open ended. There is no fixed term contract to sign. You pay monthly and can cancel whenever you like without question or challenge (however, I am not offering a “money back guarantee” or similar).
If you’d like the details, go here:
https://philtyreman.co.uk/online/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman