One Year of Low Volume Training | John Petrizzo

[stef]

​As the years have gone by, like most of us, the available time that I have to train has become more and more compressed. I have always worked multiple jobs...[i]n the fall of 2020 my wife and I welcomed the birth of our son. At the same time my mother was dealing with complications from a stage-4 cancer diagnosis. To say that life stress was at an all-time high and available time to train was at an all-time low would be an understatement.

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[Chris_Richard]

Thank you for writing this. I am 44 years old, and have 4 children ranging from 14 and 12 years old to 19 months, and a newborn. I too love training, consistency had never been an issue, but man is time at a premium. There is some very good stuff here. Also, I think you are pretty damn strong. Good numbers, well done John.

[John Petrizzo]

Thank you for writing this. I am 44 years old, and have 4 children ranging from 14 and 12 years old to 19 months, and a newborn. I too love training, consistency had never been an issue, but man is time at a premium. There is some very good stuff here. Also, I think you are pretty damn strong. Good numbers, well done John.

Thanks so much, Chris! I really appreciate it.

[Brandon81]

John, excellent article! I too find myself in a similar training predicament due to family and occupation responsibilities. The thing that really stood out in your article regarding training is the programming similarities of those you describe and those that lifting legend Marty Gallagher prescribes-starting with the sets of 8 and eventually working your way to sets of 3. Interestingly, this is his prescription for his military special operators, who have little time to devote to weight training, yet yield much benefit from becoming stronger. The program is to squat and bench one day, then a few days later deadlift and press, and done- go take care of your other responsibilities. My point- when several successful practitioners describe a similar method of a achieving a common goal, it’s well worth consideration.

[CommanderFun]

It's always interesting to read the results of people's programming experiments.

[John Petrizzo]

John, excellent article! I too find myself in a similar training predicament due to family and occupation responsibilities. The thing that really stood out in your article regarding training is the programming similarities of those you describe and those that lifting legend Marty Gallagher prescribes-starting with the sets of 8 and eventually working your way to sets of 3. Interestingly, this is his prescription for his military special operators, who have little time to devote to weight training, yet yield much benefit from becoming stronger. The program is to squat and bench one day, then a few days later deadlift and press, and done- go take care of your other responsibilities. My point- when several successful practitioners describe a similar method of a achieving a common goal, it’s well worth consideration.

Thanks so much, Brandon! I have read a lot of Marty's work and I know he is a big fan of linear periodization as well. I really appreciate the kind words. Good luck with your training!