Reply With Quoteimo yes, most bang for your buck with the time restriction.
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A Friend Has Asked Me About Strength Training
A friend of mine (Female, 28 YO) has asked me about adding strength training into a program. She wants to start to get in shape for her wedding. She's skinny, and in the military, which because of the PFT means she wants to do 20-30mins LSD on the treadmill, which leaves about 20 minutes for strength training to work out in the time frame she's allotted for herself. She wants to go three times per week.
She originally was thinking some kind of circuit strength training but I got her interested in barbell training. I was thinking a reasonable program might be Squats Monday, Press/Bench Wednesday, Deadlift/PC Friday. Linear progression.
I'm not going to be able to convince her to spend more than an hour in the gym. I'm also not going to be able to convince her to eschew her treadmill time. (I might be able to get her to try a metcon instead though)
So, given these parameters-- 20 minutes 3x/week-- does what I am proposing seem reasonable to get someone started?
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imo yes, most bang for your buck with the time restriction.
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Just fuck her and get it over with. Problem solved.
-S.
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+1Originally Posted by nisora33
If this were a guy you would tell him to lift the goddamn weights or piss off.
Make her understand that the treadmill is achieving precisely nothing bseides burning precious calories. Which can be done more effectively with a barbell anyway.
Precisely 20 minutes of treadmill and precisely 20 minutes or "strength" training is going to be very difficult to work with. Would she consider doing strength days & cardio days separately?
40minutes of cardio one day (ideally not on a treadmill) and 40 minutes of strength on another day sounds like it would work better.
Or just mix up the cardio-fitness-weightloss thing with strength, like barbell complexes, kettlebells, ross enamait stuff. I am not sure how the progression with stuff like that works though.
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Understand that she is probably graded on her 3 mile run time. Some amount of time on the track or treadmill is probably necessary. She is also not being graded on maximal weight lifted or calories burned. As for effectiveness at burning calories, that's a complicated assertion that depends on a lot of things, not the sort of uncontroversial assertion that can just be tossed off, especially by a tosser with a 100kg squat. There's probably room for improvement in her program based on her goals, sure. But she'll need to keep up her aerobic base a little bit because she's graded on her 3 mile run.
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If I had wheels, I'd be a wagon. So the fuck what.
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Just my opinion, which ain't worth much, but I don't think a barbell-focused strength program is in order given her time constraints. Perhaps sprints though. As a past runner, sprints brought up my speed and created more muscle throughout my body. I wasn't aware of metcon, etc, but sprints will help her keep her 3 mile time down and build muslce. Just ensure she's eating correctly. Then again, try the metcon. I can only provide advice on what I know works for both her goals.
EDIT: As she sprints more, her time will go down and she'll be less worried about her 3 mile time. Then she can involve more strength training perhaps...
Last edited by jameson; 02-26-2010 at 11:39 AM.
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I find the OP's name very appropriate for this thread.
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I think your proposed program sounds reasonable given the trainee and her stated goals (wants to add strength training)--although I would suggest making sure she can do the basic lifts before starting her on power clean. Also, I might suggest starting her with either the bench OR the press (it doesn't matter which), since she would be doing these only once a week.
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Q: does anybody outside of @Fit use the "word" "metcon"? Every time somebody uses it, I feel my genitals wither a little.
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