So I got a question today that I think it is a fairly common one and is one I have overlooked quite frequently when thinking of blog ideas! That is the question of Scheduling!
One thing a lot of people don't schedule into their agendas, is adequate rest, and appropriate downtime. Too many people work out when they feel like it, or when it is convenient but what many may fail to see is the benefits. Scheduling adequate rests and recovery days allows you to get the most out of your workouts, feel better while doing it, alleviates soreness, increases affects and results, avoids overtraining and injury, and keeps you healthy!
The ideal schedule I can plan will involve 3 things. Weights, Cardio, and Yoga with 3 workouts for each a week For those of you that don't want to do yoga, you can avoid it and shift your runs to fit the off weights days. However, I do really recommend yoga for your body's overall health, and it is used daily for thousands of professional athletes for muscle balance and control.
The Master Schedule:
Sunday: Cardio (Long steady low intensity run)
Monday : Weights
Tuesday : Cardio and Yoga. Cardio should be high intensity, and ideally should be done before yoga in the day.
Wednesday: Weights
Thursday: Cardio and Yoga. Cardio should be high intensity, and ideally should be done before yoga in the day.
Friday: Weights (Feel free to make fridays workout a little harder and longer. Still remember we don't do more than 8 exercises a workout (before core exercises), but try to introduce high rep or failure exercises in supersets. (if both are low weight or high rep count them as one exercise) Remember supersets are done when you do one exercise and immediately do another before getting rest. Ex. Push ups and body squats, or lunge walk and wall sit.
Saturday: Yoga. This can be a a nice long yoga session and should be a feel good yoga workout for you on a more relaxed weekend.
That brings us to the next question of weight workouts for 3 days a week. This can be done in two ways effectively. Whole body workouts on each day, or rotating a four day routine with upper/lower splits. Upper/Lower splits mean you do one section of your body a day. For this I would recommend a four day routine that would cycle as follows:
Week 1
M: Upper body
W: Lower body
F: Upper body
Week 2
M: Lower body
W: Upper body
F: Lower body
The other option would consist of working a variety of muscles on the same day. While I do support doing entire body workouts, still try to keep your routine to 8 exercises or less (excluding low impact, high rep or endurance type supersets) before you do core. Use the four day routine to have focuses on certain days. For example, if you find you didn't get a lot of back in on one upper body day, make it more focused on the second upper body day. This will ensure you don't forget body parts, keep variety and make sure you get all your muscles in. These are also great workouts to focus on multi joint movements that will work a variety of muscles at the same time!
In closing, the main idea is you always want to try to get days in between when you did a similar thing last. The most important thing is to spread out are muscle groups for workouts. Don't ever work chest on monday and chest on tuesday if you get my drift. You need at least 48-72 hours in between muscle groups for adequate rest and growth. Cardio and Yoga are lower key and are spread out throughout the week in order to help the recovery of your muscles. It keeps them moving and recovering not to mention helps those joints stay healthy and balanced! If you need more information on yoga, I have a number of great people I can get you in contact with.
Hope this all helps!
Cheers, Ryan Trueman
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