Fitness Friday: A 3-day strength training plan for those pressed for time

Lift hard/run hard? Sure, to an extent. And the truth is, some people don’t have the time to be Superman or Wonder Woman.

Funny thing about fitness: Not everyone’s goals are the same.

It runs the gamut: Weight loss, getting that beach body, improving strength, boosting endurance. Some folks are training for a competition of some sort, be it in physique sports or some sort of race.

In January, I wrote a couple of posts about strength training. In those posts, there was one prediction (if you do this, you will get stronger) and one assumption, and it was a biggie: that you will be able to commit to lifting six days a week for 45-60 minutes.

I think it’s a doable proposition. But for some people, it’s not. Whether you’re time-crunched or you have other fitness goals that make such a schedule impossible to keep, some folks can’t hit the iron that often. But that doesn’t mean you should chuck the idea of strength training entirely. You just must change things up and properly scale your expectations.

Every fall for the past eight years, I’ve trained for longer-distance goal races ranging from half marathon to full marathon length. As training plans for these races progressed, the mileage and time commitment grew. There was no way I could do a heavy deadlift day right before embarking on a 13-mile training run. Even shorter runs (in the 5- to 8-mile range) were incompatible with the rigors of an intensive weight training schedule. So I made a compromise: During race training, I jacked up the miles and eased back on the weights.

I still wanted to focus on the big lifts and compound movements, though. But during race training, running was first priority.

What I came up with was a plan to lift three times a week, using a total body format. So, that meant that each workout used the same movement patterns I described in the first week’s Friday Fitness post: Squat, press, pull and hip hinge. Furthermore, each day started with one of the bigger lifts being the emphasized exercise of that workout, with other lifts coming behind it in priority and difficulty. Here’s what that looked like:

Monday (squat emphasized)

Barbell back squat: Warmup, then sets of 10, 7 and 5, increasing weight

Incline dumbbell presses (3 sets of 8)

Lunges (3 sets of 8)

Pull-ups (3 sets of 6-12, depending on ability)

Wednesday (press emphasized)

Bench press: Warmup, then sets of 10, 7 and 5, increasing weight

Goblet squat (3 sets of 12)

Kettlebell swings (3 sets of 12)

Barbell rows (3 sets of 8)

Friday (hip hinge emphasized)

Deadlift (warmup, then sets of 8, 6 and 4, increasing weight)

Overhead press (3 sets of 8-10)

Chin-ups (3 sets of 8-12)

Leg press (3 sets of 12)

You’ll notice that each workout has some sort of pulling movement (pull-ups, chin-ups or rows), and that’s by design. And you can always adjust the exercises you do depending on your preferences or limitations (machine lat-pulls can sub in for pull-ups or chin-ups, for example). But the lift portion of your workout should be no more than 40 minutes long. That way you’ll have time to do your run, ride, swim or other endurance session without having to cut it short.

How did that look for me? The last three years, I’ve used this plan alongside half marathon training workouts. Days where I had longer runs, I didn’t lift. And I didn’t lift on planned rest days. My schedule looked something like this:

Half marathon training workout schedule

Sunday: Cross train (bike for 30-60 minutes)

Monday: Lift, 5-mile run

Tuesday: 8-mile run

Wednesday: Lift, speed workout run

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Lift, 5-mile run

Saturday: 12-mile run

Obviously, this will look different for each person. You may not want to run that much, or you need to run more. Tailor it to your own needs.

But if you’re an endurance athlete, you should do some form of strength training, and this is a good blueprint to get it in a way that dovetails nicely in your endurance training.

And what if you’re not an endurance athlete, you’re pressed for time, and three workouts a week is all you can get? The lifting schedule still holds. If you can give it 2 hours a week spread out over three days, you can work on your strength needs on this plan. Tack on 20 minutes of some sort of conditioning (check out the interval training ideas I had two weeks ago), and you’re spending 3 hours a week getting the strength and conditioning you need.

Last thing: While this sort of plan can be beneficial, you’ll want to manage your expectations. Three workouts a week is not going to get you looking like Mr. Universe or The World’s Fittest Woman. Your strength gains will be in proportion to the work you put in. And you’ll want to make sure your caloric intake matches the amount of work you’re doing (too little and you’ll break down; too much and you’ll gain fat). But if you can give yourself 3 hours a week spread out over three days; you’ll be far better off than skipping it altogether with the thought that you don’t have time to exercise.

Next week: We’ll look at the things that can undermine your fitness goals, and ways you can fix that.

Bob Doucette

Fitness Friday: 5 things you need to do for proper recovery

When you’re working hard to get in shape, don’t overlook the need for recovery.

There comes a time in any sort of training where you’re dragging. Things start to hurt more. Soreness lingers longer than it should. And your energy levels aren’t there.

These are tell-tale signs that your recovery habits aren’t cutting it, and if you don’t do something fast your progress is going to grind to a halt. Even worse, you might get injured. And none of us have time for that.

With all the information I’ve given you in the previous four weeks, this might be the most important thing you’ll read to date. You must give yourself proper recovery. So, let’s look at the various ways you can do this.

You need proper sleep: Getting a good night’s rest is critical. I know this is a major issue for a lot of people, but it is something you must work on. The more you push yourself, the more time you need to snooze.

Sleep is when the body goes into overdrive to repair and strengthen your muscles. You can train hard and eat well, but it will all be hamstrung if you don’t sleep right. The winner of the 2018 Boston Marathon, Des Linden, said in one interview that she gets between 9-10 hours of sleep a day. Given the number of miles she runs and the intensity in which she trains, you can bet that she needs it. And in getting it, Linden continues to perform at an elite level. Same goes for any athlete. Try to get 8-9 hours a night.

You need proper nutrition: I’m not a nutritionist or a dietician, but what I can tell you is if you’re training hard, you need to give your body what it needs for recovery. Don’t short-change yourself on protein; try to eat about 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily. And what I like to tell people, “eat your colors.” If your diet is primarily shades of brown and white, you need to change that. Fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and so forth all need to be in your diet. And don’t think you can eat junk if you’re popping multivitamin pills and drinking protein shakes. Get those 6-10 servings of fruits and veggies daily and lean toward healthy carbs like white rice. Good fuel equals good performance – and good recovery.

If you’re a runner and you’re training hard, you need a periodic “step-back” week: In any decent marathon or half-marathon training program, you’ll notice a couple of weeks on the schedule where your mileage goes down instead of up. That’s by design. Every month or so, dial back your miles by about 10 percent, and shorten your weekend long run. You’ll go into the next week fresher.

If you’re hitting the weights hard, you need a periodic deload week: This is a lot like the step-back week for running. Successful strength training includes progressive overload over time, but every so often you need to have a week where you dial back the reps, sets and weight. Yeah, go ahead and lift. But take the weight down in all your main lifts. Multiple hard weeks of training tend to tax your joints and fry your central nervous system (symptoms of this include low energy). How often you do a deload is somewhat subjective, but most people do it once every 6-8 weeks. I’m getting a little older, so I’ll train hard for four weeks, then do a deload on the fifth. Trust me, you’ll bounce back fresh and strong.

Take your rest day weekly: Once a week, take a day where you don’t train. At all. No weights, no running, no cross-training. Go for a mellow walk if you want. But don’t train. You need that day to recover. But what about all those 30-day challenges and run streaks, you say? Dump ‘em in the trash if you’re serious about your training. They’ll only get in your way.

Next week: Some people don’t have time to hit the weights six days a week. And some athletes, such as runners, can’t afford to lift that much and still get the miles they need. I’ve got a solution for that.

Bob Doucette

Fitness Friday: More ways to use interval training for conditioning

Go to any commercial gym and there is a good chance you’ll have a lot of tools you can use for interval training conditioning.

I’m a fan of interval training. It’s a way to get a lot of work done in a compressed amount of time. And the method works: Performing intervals will build cardiovascular capacity and help burn excess body fat.

But going back to last week’s post, I knew that I’d need to follow it up with some ideas that do not involve running longer distances. Not everyone is a runner, either by choice or from physical limitations. What I want to do here is give you some ideas for interval training that do not involve “running” workouts.

As a refresher, let’s talk about different forms of cardio. The type you see when someone plows ahead on some machine for 30-60 minutes at the same speed is called steady state cardio. The same is true of someone out for a run or on their bike who travels at pretty much the same pace the entire way.

Intervals involve an activity where you switch speeds from a slower, easy pace to progressively higher speeds, then drop back down to the original slower pace. Another version of this involves working at a high, intense speed (think sprint), then slowing way down to a recovery pace and doing that for multiple rounds. This is sometimes referred to as high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

The up-and-down nature of intervals tends to have greater fat-burning qualities than steady state. And you can generally get that benefit in a shorter amount of time with intervals than you can with steady state workouts. The latter has its place, but for most of us, interval training has more value.

So let’s get to it. I’ll break it down into inside and outside forms of interval training you can do.

INSIDE

If you have access to a gym, there is a good chance it has a variety of machines like treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, stair climbers and rowing machines. Although I’d much rather get my work done outside, there is a benefit to having these tools at your disposal.

One of my favorite machines is the stairmill. One of my friends calls it the “stairway to hell,” and I know why. It’s not pleasant. But it can give you a great workout. And it is very interval-friendly. I’ll start out at an easy speed, and then every minute, go up one level for four minutes, then drop it back down to the speed where I started. Five founds of this and I can climb 1,000 feet in 20 minutes and burn a few hundred calories:

Minute 1: Speed level 8

Minute 2: 9

Minute 3: 10

Minute 4: 11

And than back down to 8 to start the next round.

Ellipticals have the same feature: a speed level, or in some cases, speed is measured in RPMs. In that case, the intervals would look like this:

Minute 1: 55 RPMs

Minute 2: 65 RPMs

Minute 3: 75 RPMs

Minute 4: 85-95 RPMs

And then back down to 55 to start the next round.

A similar path could be forged on an exercise bike using miles per hour as your guide. And so on. Do five rounds of this, and make sure that hardest interval (minute 4) is one in which you are really working hard. You need to be gassed when you take it back down to the slow interval on the next round.

You may have a couple of machines that are more conducive to sprint intervals. Two that I can think of are the spin bike and the rowing machine.

In this case, the goal is to work as hard as you can for a minute, then take a two-minute break before doing the next sprint. Do this for 6-10 rounds. It’s important to remember that your sprint pace is going to feel rough. You’ll need those rest breaks. And when you’re done, you’ll be trashed.

If you’re lucky enough to have a place where you can push a prowler sled, you can do sprints with those, too. Load the sled with a weight you could push at a walk pace fairly easily. Get behind it and sprint behind it as hard as you can. Do 6-10 rounds with a 1-2 minute break between sprints.

As with any form of cardio, I recommend doing your conditioning after you lift and not before.

This grassy pitch is small, but if you run up and down it enough you will get one tough workout.

OUTSIDE

If the idea of indoor exercise is a no-go for you, then you still have options. Probably not as many, and you may need to go back to running a bit. But the distances will be short, so it won’t be anything like longer steady state runs or cross-country style workouts.

Hills on the bike: Find a hill that has a moderately steep grade and is long enough that you can get a 30-60 second ride uphill. Ride as hard as you can up the hill, coast back downhill to recover. Repeat for 10 rounds.

Hills on foot: Find a moderately steep hill that is at least 50-100 yards to the top. From the bottom, run hard uphill, turn around, jog slowly back downhill. Repeat this for 10 rounds.

Wind sprints on foot: Depending on your fitness level, find a stretch of level ground anywhere from 50-100 yards. From a full stop, explode at full speed for the distance you choose. Walk back to the start line, and give yourself a 1-2 minute break between sprints. Do this for 6-10 rounds. Word of caution: I wouldn’t do wind sprints if you are just starting out in your exercise journey. The potential for injury is higher for an untrained person, and if that’s you, build up to sprints by doing other forms of conditioning first.

What I hope you get out of this is your toolbox for conditioning is fairly extensive, especially if you have access to the tools or the places that have the tools to get you there. Not every conditioning workout has to involve running for miles and miles. And if you use intervals and work hard, you’ll see results.

Coming up next week: We’ll take a look at one of the most important (and undervalued) part of training: Recovery.

See you then.

Bob Doucette

Fitness Friday: Running intervals to build speed, torch fat

Good-ole running is a solid way to work on your conditioning goals.

The last couple of Fitness Fridays have been heavy on the weight training side of things, so I wanted to go in a different direction this week. Let’s talk conditioning, and then go over a couple of run-based plans that will definitely up your fitness game.

Fitness is basically two things: strength and conditioning. Strength is the ability to produce force. Conditioning is the ability to produce work capacity. If that sounds nebulous, let’s get down to brass tacks. A strong person can lift and move heavy things. A conditioned person can carry out rigorous physical activity for prolonged periods of time. A good athlete is a person who exhibits high performance in both areas.

And this even includes people in very specialized areas. Strongman champion Eddie Hall, who set a world record deadlift at 1,100 pounds, used swimming to make him better in competitions. Elite marathoner Jordan Hasay can deadlift twice her body weight. The two are nothing alike as athletes, but respective to their fields they are both strong and well-conditioned.

And they set a good example for you. It doesn’t matter if you want to be strong as a bull or able to run long distances at a good clip. If you have a good balance between strength and conditioning, you will be better at what you choose to do, and healthier overall. I went through some basics of strength last week. Now it’s time to talk conditioning.

Let me say at the outset that running is both the default exercise of choice for conditioning (or “cardio,” as you’ve probably come to know it) and a much-maligned activity in some fitness circles. It’s the default because it’s a natural human movement. You ran around as a kid. You ran laps in PE class or for whatever sports program you were in. Aside from running form techniques, running is about as intuitive as it gets.

It’s maligned because some folks see it as a way to get hurt (I think that’s overblown) or believe that other forms of conditioning are superior. Run too much, they say, and it will inhibit strength gains. There are grains of truth to all of this, but generally speaking, a good running program with moderate distances and different types of workouts offers a lot of bang for the buck, and without nearly as much downside as detractors would have you believe. Yes, it will be hard to build strength if you’re running 30, 40, or 60 miles a week. But we’re not going there, at least not in this post.

One last note before I get into the meat of it. The workout ideas I’m going to throw out there in this post will be for people who are already doing some running. If you’re a beginner, you’ll need to start slower and much more modestly and build up your running base before trying what I’m going to present here. A solid Couch to 5K program is going to be right up your alley. Tackle that and you’ll be ready to go to the next level.

Now for the rest of us. You can get fit running 15 to 20 miles a week. But your body will eventually adapt, and when it does, you’ll find your fitness levels stagnate or even regress. Adaptation is a bummer. So that’s why we must challenge ourselves by making things hard.

And that’s where intervals come in. What are intervals? For running, intervals are when you run at a challenging pace for a specific distance or time, then slow down to an easy recovery pace for a short time. Once that recovery period is over, you ramp up the intensity again.

A basic interval run might look like a “race pace” 400-meter interval, followed by a 200-meter slow jog or walk, and repeating this process for about eight rounds. That will give you about three miles of movement. A “race pace” speed should be a hard effort, akin to running but not being able to hold conversation during the effort. Your rewards: torching excess body fat, improving your cardiovascular capacity and gaining experience running at challenging paces that might have made you pause. Try it and see what you think.

400-meter warmup

400-meter race pace 200-meter recovery walk or slow jog, x8

400-meter cooldown (light jog)

As you get accustomed to this, try kicking up the speed on the race pace intervals.

Here’s a place where you can work on some speed.

Too easy? Let’s kick it up a notch. But I’ll just warn you right now:  It’s hard. It’s called a ladder, and it’s a whole lot of no-fun work with big rewards.

How it works: After a moderate warmup, you’ll run a certain distance at a challenging pace, or maybe a desired race pace. Then you’ll slow down to a light jog for 400 meters. When that recovery interval is over, you do a longer race-pace run, then slow down to the light jog. And the next interval has you go at an even longer race pace interval. When you reach a peak distance on the “fast” intervals, you’ll then shrink their distance until you reach the “fast” interval distance that you started with.

If you’ve never done this before, start with a “baby ladder.” It looks like this:

400-meter warmup

400-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1200-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

400-meter race pace

400-meter cool-down

The first time I did this, it trashed me. And this isn’t even the full monty!

Here’s the full ladder:

400-meter warmup

400-meter, race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1200-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1600-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1200-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

400-meter race pace

400-meter cool-down

That’s a lot of work, a lot of intensity, and a decent amount of mileage, to boot. It’s important to remember that during this workout, you never stop for a water break, never stop to walk. You’re always running. As you adapt, increase the speed on your race pace intervals.

The best places to do this is either on a track (one lap is 400-meters, so it’s easy to keep track of distances) or on a treadmill (distances are going to be on the control panel). It will be a little harder to track your speed on the track, though most sports watches can help. On a treadmill, you can set precise speeds.

Do this speed workout once a week, mixed in with your regular runs or other conditioning routines.

Your weekly run schedule might look something like this:

Monday: 3-mile-run

Tuesday: 5-mile run

Wednesday: Speed work (ladders or other form of speed interval)

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 3-mile run

Saturday: Long run

Sunday: 30-minute cross train (bike, swim or some other form of conditioning)

Next week: I’ll get into some other ideas for conditioning, and not all of them will involve running.

Bob Doucette

Five things I learned about coming back from a serious illness

Me a few days before pneumonia had set in. I weighed 180 pounds in this photo. Now imagine that person with 18 fewer pounds on that frame. Coming back from the illness and the damage it caused was a long process.

A little over ten years ago, I had what was one of the most eye-opening sessions I’ve ever had in the gym. Following a weeks-long bout with pneumonia, I finally felt healthy enough to get back into the weight room and rebuild what I’d lost.

When I’d fallen ill, I was 180 pounds and in pretty decent shape. And then I dropped 18 pounds in a span of just 10 days. It would be several weeks later before I felt good enough to return to training.

I knew I’d be weak, and I was. But what was most stunning was how I looked. I was ridiculously skinny. And from the side, I looked like I was barely there, like a gust of wind could carry me off. It was almost like I was completely starting over, back in high school when I was a scrawny little twerp with more hair than muscles.

But I had a few things going for me, namely, a lot of knowledge built up over years of training. Still, it was a long road back. And I learned a few things along the way.

If you’re coming back from being sidelined because of injury or illness, then this one’s for you. Let’s start:

You’re going to be weaker. Don’t expect to move nearly as much weight as you did before. I remember doing bench press sets with 225 pounds before I fell ill. Coming back several weeks later, 165 pounds felt like I was trying to lift a Buick. So don’t push yourself past your new limits because of pride. Ease back into it.

Your conditioning is going to suck. Strength ebbs more slowly than conditioning. If you’re a runner, a cyclist or some other form of athlete that depends on a high level of conditioning, be prepared to feel almost like you’ve never ran/biked/swam before. Yes, it can be that bad. Once you accept that, you can get on with regaining your form.

It’s going to take some time. Maybe you squatted 500 pounds or ran a 20-minute 5K when things were good. But now that you’re two months removed from your training, please understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was that squat/deadlift/5K/marathon PR. Or whatever. It took a long time to build up to all of that, and rather unfairly, a short time to lose it. Rebuilding it will be an exercise in patience.

But eventually, muscle memory will take over. Too often we see our past athletic performance as purely exercises of strength and conditioning. It is all that, but it’s also skill. Lifts are skills. Running is a skill, at least if you’re doing it at a higher level. Your brain hasn’t forgotten these things, and once you get back to it, your cranial neurons are going to fire up and tell your body what to do. That’s going to help in your recovery process.

This is a great time to learn new things. Often, we get stuck in our routines when things are going well. When you’re not chasing PRs (because you’re a shadow of what you were), this lets you take a new look at training and methodologies. Things you may not have tried before might be worth looking at now since your ego is solidly held in check. You never know what secret sauce you’ll unlock to eventually make you better than you were before.

I won’t lie, there’s nothing fun about being in the middle of a comeback. But once you’re healthy enough to start down that long road, there is opportunity. You might become stronger. Faster. Able to go further. It’s hard to believe when your fitness is in its nadir, but there is always a chance that you might climb out of that valley to a higher peak than the one you fell from.

Bob Doucette