Brian in a surgeon and his schedule is intense, frequently unpredictable and there are periods of important sleep deficits. When he tells me that it has been a particularly stressful period with little sleep, programming the next period is not a problem. Same with the opposite situation. What when we don’t know what that period will look like?
I created a system in which:
- He always has two options concerning the target movement intensity: one marked in green (more intense) and the other marked in purple (less intense)
- He must choose ONE day in each week to execute the target movement in the more intense prescribed form
- The target-movements are organized as (modified assistant forms of each movement are distributed in different days, according to a complementary approach split):
- Day 1 – bench press
- Day 2 – squat
- Day 3 – overhead press
- Day 4 – deadlift
- The CRITERIUM for the intense target-movement day choice must be recovery. Therefore, a day:
- in which you slept better the previous night
- you feel better overall
- you have the chance to have a good night sleep that day (never when you have a hospital shift after the training session, for example)
- He should avoid choosing the same target-movement in more than 2 weeks in a sequence, especially if it is the deadlift.
These are weeks 1 and 4 (out of this 8 week plan)
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