Irregular training schedule

[Caleb]

I hope this is the right sub-forum for this topic...

I am a retail manager and as such have a variable schedule from week to week. I work five days a week but that is the only consistent aspect of my schedule. I may have to be at work as early as 8am and stay as late as 9:30 or 10pm (occasionally even earlier or later). Times in/out and days on/off vary from week to week.

As such, I have managed to hack out a training "schedule" which centers around work. I lift before work 3-4 days a week entirely dependent upon my schedule. Some weeks I have to push through 3 days in a row. Other weeks things are more spread out. I am also limited by my gym's hours (which are generous). I have been doing some variation of this training structure for about 18 months.

Now, obviously this isn't ideal and it means I can't commit myself to a more structured training program such as TM, as the stress/adaptation cycle and rotation of volume and intensity days cannot be consistently applied. On weeks where I have several training days in a row the last workout can be a grinder. I also fully realize that my gains will be slower than they may be otherwise.

However, I have found success with this training structure. I took my 1RM squat from 365 to 425, bench from 295 to 325, DL from 455 to 500, and press from 190 to 200. All of these were achieved this spring before I had to lay off for most of this year due to the birth of my son.

I have learned two things that have allowed me to progress. The first is to focus on one lift or upper/lower split each training day in the spirit of a Westside-type program or 5/3/1. Second is to push the volume either through more sets/reps of the main lift and/or through assistance exercises. The rest days will take care of themselves.

So here's why I'm posting: anyone else experiencing the same thing? I'm curious to see what worked for you or not. If you have done something similar for a length of time were you able to still consistently make gains? Challenges?

[RussB]

I've recently moved my family to a new state, new house, and have a new job. House is 150+ years old, needs lots of work, and I have three kids under the age of 7. Changing jobs was also a complete career change as well so I have plenty of learning to do on my own. I lost a lot of strength over the last couple months of transition, and am slowly redoing my LP now, and I've found that I need to listen to my back, since it doesn't recover well and I have been reinjuring it. I think there's a fine balance between pushing too hard and wimping out that I need to find. But it sounds like you're having success with your approach. I'm starting to consider whether once I get back to intermediate, whether I'll need to skip TM and take a less intense approach to my intermediate programming. In that vain, Andy Baker has some good info on HLM in the programming sub-forum.

For now I'm doing the novice progression while realizing that I sometimes need to lift when I can and when in doubt, take the extra recovery day rather than consistently staying up late to get the workout in and compromising recovery. I'll probably go to 5 pound increments much sooner than I'd otherwise need to, and move to squatting twice only per week much sooner as well.

So basically, being too aggressive while redoing my LP has set me back a bit. I hurt my back deadlifting 325 in August, then reinjured it twice, once pulling out baseboards and once squatting 280. Simply because I never gave it the recovery it needed. Now I'm back at 235 on my squat sets, belted, working on perfect form. If my recovery was in order (mostly sleep) I think I'd have been fine.

Before I lost strength I was still somewhere near the middle or beginning of my intermediate stage, it's hard to say since my recovery sucked then too: at 5'6" and 190# my best lifts were Sq--345x4, Dl--415x4, Bn--265x1, Pr--160x1

[Eiji]

IMO a split would work best so that even if your working out every day for a stretch your not doing the same movements each workout.

Dan John's 2 lifts per day would work. If you know your schedule ahead of time you could alternate a FB routine for when youre working out every 48hrs or more, and a split routine for when you have to fit in your workouts everyday.