My school semester officially began today. I've decided to force myself to make training #2 on my priorities list after last semesters subpar academic performance. The problem was I was training too much, too long, and I would completely exhaust myself on many levels doing this. It's not that I was overtraining per say, I was just training like I had nothing else in my life.

I'm thinking of switching my upper/lower;ME/DE split to something that I can do quickly, less frequently, and will leave me with enough to go about the rest of my life.

My training log can be found here:
http://training.fitness.com/journal/...log-18994.html

I would still like to have a strength/power/performance emphasis. I'm not looking for "fitness" or to get a six pac. Some of you who I hope will provide some input already know me and know this, but I appreciate anyone who will take the time to help me out.

For now let's just assume I have the best of conditions, in terms of equipment and diet.

This thing is going to get pushed off the page if I don't...

*Bump*

I don't feel like I'm even remotely qualified to offer any advice on the actual program, but maybe if you were a little more specific as to what exactly you want? You want something basically similar but quicker that won't tax your CNS quite so much?

Hmm. Intuitively, what I would think to do is to just take what you've got and divide it into more sessions, and perhaps train a little bit more frequently, at a bit lower of a %max. Maybe avoid going to failure most of the time, also.

Interested to see what peeps have to say on this one.

Edit: Oh, right. You did say less frequently. I dunno. Seems to me that if you decreased the harshness and the volume, training a little more frequently wouldn't hurt. But if it's a matter of time/# trips constraint...

You doing Westside now?

I'm with Tony on this one. Check out Defranco's Westside for Skinny Bastards. You can get it done in 45 minutes and you can do his 3 or 4 day template depending on how much or how little time you have during the week.

I'm not exactly in the same boat with you as far as grades are concerned, but due to my schedule for the next few months, I just don't have a lot of time to train.

Another option if you don't want to go with a premade template is to pick 2-4 movements you're going to concentrate on for X amount of time. Today I took 20-30 minutes out of my planning period and did 4 trisets of snatch grip deadlift, inverted rows, and chain push ups. I think if you picked 9-12 of your favorite movements and just worked those 2-3 times a week, you could take care of what you needed without eating up your time and energy.

I kinda' rambled. I don't know if this helped.

That's right, I totally forgot that WSFSB I is for on-season athletes!

Another good idea. Although I will say that my biggest fear is being too weak to use enough weight that will give me the benefits of extra work. I was in a pradicament much like that about a year ago with low volume, however I would also always try to max, which was dumb.

Focus, thanks for helping me out. It's true I would like to cut down my training to say M, W, F since I want some days dedicated more to studies. Since I already trained for most of the week on my previous schedule, I don't want even higher frequency with like 6 or 7 days a week of training. You hit the nail on the head what with the # of trips and time constraints. It's almost 30 minutes a round trip to the gym.

On Joes site he also has a 2 day Westside plan if you want to go even less.

Although I will say that my biggest fear is being too weak to use enough weight that will give me the benefits of extra work

As long as you present a stimulus, you will get results.

OH yeah. I forgot about his two-day option. I think this might be your best option-go with the 2 day Defranco template and then if you have time for a 3rd day, then pick some fun stuff to do. Something fun now that I think about it would be the Defranco 2 day template and then a day from Scrapper ( BODY BY FISH )

Remember, as long as you're staying consistent and progressing, then you'll make gains. More is not better and quality over quantity.

I think WSFSB I will work very well. I think I was previously reluctant about using it because i wasn't involved in a sport, but now that I am the story is different. Thanks for your help Evo, Tony, and Focus.

The Westside plans dont have to be for athletes.

Try different things and see which works best for you. You can try a workout A and a Workout B schedule (different movements or muscles if any isolated exercises for workout A and different ones for workout B) M, W, F or you can do it Mon/Thurs and Tue/Fri. You can do an upper body/lower body split or a push/pull split. Try different things and see which works best for you. You can also put opposite of that movement right after the other to make the workout session faster (ex. bent over row right after bench press) and then rest. I am seeing myself which will work best for me. I want to do full body, but with too many movements I want to train with (3 movements for scapular and also upper body horizontal/vertical push/pull, hip/quad dominant, the 5 torso movements), it will probably take more than an hour even if I do one exercise right after the other that I think won't affect the exercise I am doing. I am trying to figure out how to do this because if I do a Workout A and Workout B (3 days a week) and alternate each session, then either workout A or Workout B will have too much rest at the end of the week (the one that is on wednesday and won't be performed again til monday) and be only worked once a week; therefore, I am afraid that gains will take longer. I am deciding how I should do this or if I should split it up into Monday/Thurs, Tues/Fri, so I will not have that problem; however, the workout that is done on Thurs will have 3 days rest and the workout that is done on Friday will have 2 days rest (2 days rest is fine, but not sure about a 3 days rest).

3 things-
Xswt has information overlead which leads to paralysis by analylsis.
This is one of the first times I've seen a subordinate conjunction used correctly.

However...
The last paragraph written should've been divided up. It's hard to read with so much information jammed into one long paragraph.

Sure, but it isn't session duration that I'm worried about, it's the levels of exhaustion I want to control. Supersetting and circuts I do anyway.

What does your split look like, swt?

odd ball suggestions from FF

Clean and Jerks - look like a olympic powerhouse, throw that stuff around some, drop the dang thing- growl!

incorporate some cario in between lifts, it will increas your sweat rate, an make the whole thing feel more intense. - ie: jump some rope, hit a tredmill with major incline (calves will explode)

how is your iron cross coming along?

yer first page says- stronger, bigger, faster, yada yada-- have you got lost in measurements and strength gains- or are you actually becoming that "force to be reckoned with" that you originally set out to become.

It's not always about the math. Sometimes attitude, aura, and penetratinly soft eyes conquer all.

breath, stretch, pulse

ohm
back to the beginning Lei man........ shimmer baby!

Good post. I think those have always been my goals, but I got too caught up in trying to do things on my own without any help, and it turned out I was just running in circles. My lifts from the beginning are similar to the lifts I'm still doing a year or two later. That's inexcusable. So when I finally swallowed my pride and started asking for help, I implemented some great advice and I am finally going somewhere.

Hahahha yes and the soft eyes are important.

I haven't practiced that iron cross in a while, although I'm better at that V sit now. The secret to the V-sit is low back strength, believe it or not.

I don't think I will EVER do any form of cardio without killing a little part of my soul so I'll pass on the working up a sweat business although getting my heartrate up is a plan. I'll opt for circut training and complexes instead

Clean and jerks...gotta do those more. Now that I'm doing lower volume I'll be fresher for big lifts which I have neglected for the past few months.