Something that has become a thing for me in this season of training is time. I’ve got 40 minutes or less to get my lift in. One hour if I am lucky. Not doing a full body warm up. Cardio straight into movement prep. 3 to 4 lifts. 3 to 4 days per week. That’s what I have to work with.
You may be wondering how I’m still able to make gains. I am in a building and recovery phase. Atrophied from pregnancy and postpartum, so I am able to reap those newbie gains due to the season. If I was training, normally, not atrophied, three days a week could be enough to maintain, but likely not gain.
My current training is using a majority upper lower split.
Not necessarily doing the classic back squat, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press split. But, definitely working with and squatting patterns, one day, hinging patterns, or glutes, and posterior chain, focused, and then a horizontal, pressing, and for pulling day, and vertical, pressing and pulling day.
These basics allow me to hit lower body muscle groups twice per week and upper body muscle groups twice per week.
I am not specifically tracking any cardio, but trying to get steps in mostly via walking. Because upper body days are shorter for me, if I have time, I will add in cardio that last 12 minutes or less. So for me, that’s either tempo work, 12 to 15 seconds as hard as I can resting for the remainder of the minute period for 8 to 12 rounds. Or three sets of threshold‘s. Which would be three minutes of work above 75%, resting for two minutes or when the heart rate drops 50 beats below the height of the working set.
The cardio is literally just thrown in for overall conditioning, and to get more movement in. It is not specifically to add more of a caloric deficit or train for something specific. Just working on that cardiovascular fitness when I can. Because something is better than nothing. But weight training and building muscle is my priority. So that comes before cardio.
As far as an actual program that I am following. It’s a hodgepodge. I’m still following Marcus Filly’s Persist as a base. But I’m missing that with my own preferences, and some of the things that I learned through MamaSteFit. Because, though I am just over seven months postpartum, I am very much so still rebuilding my core and deep core connections.
I do find that, especially in seasons where your time and energy is limited, personal preference does play a big role. It’s important for you to enjoy your lift in the exercises that you are doing. If I don’t like some thing or feel something else in this training season, I swap it out for some thing that gets the same job done, but that I enjoy more from a personal preference.
The takeaways: know your season, it’s OK to cut things out and not follow the perfect program. If it allows you to get the most bang for your buck done. Upper lower split will always be the goat. You can make gains on three days per week depending on your training, age, and overall training volume. But higher frequencies will likely be helpful.
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