Recently, I was asked by one of my newsletter subscribers about how I would structure a training program for athletic strength and speed development with athletes that could only train 2 and/or 3 days per week.
Luckily, this is actually quite easy and most athletes that I have worked with have actually done very well training only 3 times per week. 2 days per week is not "ideal", however with a busy schedule and sometimes playing multiple sports, 2 days would often suffice and still enable an athlete to make significant progress.
What is the key here? It's really very simple. First, let's examine an example template for a football player who can only train 3 days per week during the off-season. When training 3 days per week, the intensity of the workouts on each day would be higher. Due to this, however, you must have a day of rest in between each training day.
Example: Train Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Rest Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. *This is a HUGE mistake most coaches and athletes are making. A big reason that progress is not being made is because these athletes are constantly bombarded with training EVERY day. The body adapts to the stressor (exercise) while it rests, not when you are training in the gym or on the field. When you rest and recover, you allow yourself to build back up to a level beyond where you were at before. This is the basic principle of adaptation and why we as human organisms can get bigger, faster, and stronger. You either come back better, you stall out, or you regress. Hopefully you aren't stalling or regressing; if this is the case you're probably doing too much. Rest is very important.
Regardless if you're training 2, 3, or 4 days per week, you still need to rest. Here's a general rule of thumb and probably the key to planning: The less you train per week, the intensity needs to be adjusted. Think of it as spreading the wealth around. If you only have 2 days to train, you'll be able to tolerate more work each day because you will be resting longer between sessions. Training 4 days per week will allow you to spread the stressors around a little more evenly throughout the week, but each day would not be as intense on the central nervous system, muscles, joints, etc. Make sense so far?
Here's an example 3-day per week training cycle. Let's use an American football player who needs to get stronger in the early off-season (February) and build up some muscle mass. Remember, this is an example. You'll notice a pattern here though.
Monday
- Speed: 5x10 yard sprint, 2x15 yard sprint on hill or with light sled.
- Weights: Clean, Squat, Bench, Push Ups/Pull Ups, Glute Ham Raise.
- Foam Roll, Stretch, Regeneration
Wednesday
- Med Ball Throws x 8-10
- Weights: Power Snatch, Military Press, Inverted Row/Dips, Band Good Morning.
- High Rep Ab Circuit 200 repetitions.
- Foam Roll, stretch, regeneration work.
Friday
- Speed: 5x10, 3x15
- Weights: Deadlift, DB 1-arm Clean/Press, DB Rows/DB Floor Press, Back Extension/Romain Chair Sit Up, 10 min beach work.
- Foam roll/regeneration/stretch.
Couple things you'll notice here is that each day, we attack the entire body from multiple angles and use lifts that will hit the most amount of muscle in the shortest time. I strictly adhere to training economy here, meaning pick what gets you the biggest "bang for your buck".
Also since this is early off-season, no sense in doing tons of speed work. Do enough to maintain sprint form for now, while striving hard to get strong and add some muscle. Twice per week is great, even once per week would suffice with low volume sprints.
So what about twice per week?
You'll simply condense the training stressors into higher intensity training sessions. If you are training twice per week, you'll want to take 48-72 hours between sessions, i.e. train on Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Friday, etc. I have done this with many athletes during their competitive seasons, as well as with clients/athletes who simply could only train twice per week and they still made progress. Example:
Day 1
- Speed: 5x10, 3x20
- Jumps: SLJ x 10
- Weights: Squat, Bench, DB Row/DB Bench, DB Lunge/Back Extension/GHD Sit Up
- Foam Roll, stretch, etc
Day 2 (2-3 days later)
- Speed: 5x10, 2x3x15-20
- MB Throws x 10 (Overhead back, Squat Throw, Coil Throw, etc)
- Weights: Clean/Deadlift, Overhead Press Variation, DB or KB Swings/Pull Ups/Dips, Band Good Morning
- High Rep Ab Circuit 200-300 reps
You'll see that each day on the 2-day split is a little more intense and the volume is a bit higher as far as training load goes. This can be tolerated due to the fact that you get a little bit more time in between sessions to recover.
Now that you have some ideas on how to structure training for different training splits, you have zero excuses. No more of this "I don't have enough time" BS! Get it done, even if it's only twice per week!
Remember to adjust accordingly, monitor volume, and know where you're at during your training phase. If you were in-season, you would need to adjust to let the demands of the sport be the primary focus; these templates were mainly focusing on off-season training.
Train hard, but train SMART,
John Cortese BS, YFS
About this Author
John Cortese is a certified Youth Fitness Specialist through the IYCA. He trains athletes and clients to get in the best shape of their lives. Get your FREE Report "NO BS Training and Nutritional Methods for Maximal Results" at CortesePerformance.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Cortese
