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:

  1. He always has two options concerning the target movement intensity: one marked in green (more intense) and the other marked in purple (less intense)
  2. He must choose ONE day in each week to execute the target movement in the more intense prescribed form
  3. The target-movements are organized as (modified assistant forms of each movement are distributed in different days, according to a complementary approach split):
    1. Day 1 – bench press
    2. Day 2 – squat
    3. Day 3 – overhead press
    4. Day 4 – deadlift
  4. The CRITERIUM for the intense target-movement day choice must be recovery. Therefore, a day:
    1. in which you slept better the previous night
    2. you feel better overall
    3. 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)
  5. 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)

Brian - week 1 - 10-15-2019

Brian - week 4 - 10-15-2019

For evidence-based, full-referenced articles, click on “articles” at my author’s page:

click on articles

recovery-home2