Tailor Your Workout Schedule To Work For You

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , I hope this podcast finds you well . I have no idea . I listened to other people's podcasts and I'm like how did they come in ? And some are just still talking . The very cool people are just mid conversation .

They're like oh , I didn't notice that you joined , or something like that , like a radio host or something . And then there are other people that just have these smooth transitions . I don't know . We'll get there Wheel . I mean me and this mic in a room by myself and Justin Timberlake , my life size .

Justin Timberlake , cut out , is looking right at me right now across the room , and so the two of us will come up with a strategy , but I don't have it yet . Today , we're talking about how to divide up your available workout time , so I was going to start this episode with like make it all about cardio .

But that's not kind of what I wanted to do , because what prompted the idea for the episode was maybe one of the most common questions I get from clients who , especially when they're new with me or they've been working with me for just a little bit of time and they feel like they're starting to get on a roll , they ask me okay , what am I supposed to do

about cardio ? So for people who are training with me , they're either , for the most part and it depends entirely on the individual I've got some people doing a lot more , some people doing less but most people are training two to three days per week .

When it comes to resistance training , I do have some people who have four or five day a week programs , but for the average person for the average isn't the right word for the majority of my clients we're looking at two to three days of lifting , resistance training .

People call this different things strength training , weight training , whatever you may be , I'm doing resistance training with my clients .

Now people ask about cardio because they know in their heart of hearts that they're supposed to be doing something else in addition and that the strength training or resistance training that they're doing is not cardio and they're on the right track because for most people who are lifting , we're not elevating our heart rate consistently in a training session in the way

that we might want to have some steady state cardiovascular training in our week long . If you look at your week , you probably want a little bit of that . So people are right to or right right isn't the correct term , I don't know . I get . I care about what I'm saying , so that is why I have I take a pause . People are in the know to ask about that .

The trick here is that it's going to really depend on the goals and I know that feels like a cop out answer . So I'm going to help you sort of better understand this .

As we look at your entire fitness program as a complete whole , that is going to tell us more about what it is we want to be doing on the different days of the week and how we want to divide our time . So the two biggest factors in making a decision about how you're going to divide your exercise time is your amount of available time and your goals .

Every person is going to have a different amount of available time . College students are going to have a different amount of available time than working adults .

Parents of young children are going to have a different amount of available time than people who are empty nesters , where everybody is dealing with different circumstances as well , as these circumstances are going to ebb and flow .

So one of the most important things for us as we consider our exercise program and the elements in which we want to include in our exercise program , is that it's not always going to be the exact same .

We have to allow that to ebb and flow with the seasons of our life , so there may be times where your complete exercise program looks a little bit more robust than another time , so I want to use this . So what people are asking ? First , what people are asking with cardio is like okay , if I'm doing the lifting , what else do I need to be doing ?

What are the other ways to support my fitness ? And , of course , we want to challenge our heart cardiovascularly . We are going to do that in a variety of different ways and for some people , they're going to need or want a little bit more of that steady state , high elevated heart rate Think endurance athletes .

Those are people , people who are training for races , things like that . They're going to want more of that steady state time . For folks who are doing recreational sports , they might want to be doing a little bit more interval training .

For those who are doing physique style training or hypertrophy training meaning they want to build muscle or they want to build strength they might not actually need to be focusing a ton on these cardiovascular elements other than sort of overall health as well as overall energy burn . And when I say energy burn , I'm also talking about calorie burn .

But I think it's better for us to be thinking about it in terms of energy . When we burn more energy , we need more fuel or we get smaller . That's just how it goes . So for those who are competing in physique events who want to be smaller at a certain time , they might be doing cardiovascular exercise to burn that excess energy , those excess calories .

But that's not what everybody needs , in the same way that not everybody is going to be training for a marathon , and so they don't have to be doing the amount of steady state cardio or long endurance based cardiovascular exercise like long runs or long bike rides or whatever that may be .

So the question that a person is asking when they're asking about that cardio is also about just sort of how should their workouts be divided ? And that's what we're going to talk about today . We're going to talk about your complete fitness program picture and we're going to imagine it like a pizza .

Pizza is my favorite food and it just comes in really handy in this , in this metaphor , because you can kind of picture the pizza . So everybody's gonna have that pizza . We'll all say that everybody has the same size pizza , but everybody's division of their pizza is going to be a little bit different .

So , for a person who is , let's say , training for a marathon , more of their training days or available training time is going to go to their cardiovascular efforts . They're running efforts , they're miles , if they might .

If they're running a long race , maybe they have a few days that are long runs , a few that are short , and that's how they're splitting up the majority of their pizza . They're cutting it .

We are still , if I'm working with them and they're doing resistance training , I'm going to put resistance training in their plan , but it's going to be in support of their other goals , so they may do less of it and we may be accomplishing more total movements in one session , because I'm trying to only have them do this two times a week because when we look

at their available pizza , that's what they have For the person who has physique goals who is going to be training three plus times per week . When it comes to resistance training , their pie is going to be divided in a way that allows them to get more of that , to get some of that cardiovascular training .

So we're going to get some amount of time per week where we elevate that heart rate . The last time I saw and I haven't looked recently , the last time I saw the US government recommendations for cardiovascular exercise . It's like 150 minutes a week . So that's five days , 30 minutes .

That doesn't inherently mean going hard on a treadmill or riding a bike fast or the stair climber . That is probably falling a little bit more in the category of additional movement . Now we do want some of that additional movement to have an elevated heart rate , but it's going to depend on that , on the person and what they need .

So those are the three components . If we break it down and again it depends on the individual but if we break it down into the three kinds of components you're trying to get in your full fitness program , you want to get some resistance training . So you know , fighting resistance , which is going to be lifting weights and or body weight training , like that .

You're going to want elevated heart rate . For different people that's going to mean different things , so it's going to be slightly elevated for a long period of time or short bursts of really high intensity . Again , that's going to depend on the demands of what your goal is .

And then , third , is that category of additional movement , additional movement that is adding to your total energy burn but is not wiping you out . That is a little bit of a push , but not all that much . And that is a really key component that we forget about and can be accomplished more readily with our available open time .

Because , if you think about it , for a person who has a lot going on getting to the gym , changing into gym clothes , getting properly warmed up , getting the whole workout in can be really time consuming , and you don't have a lot of that With that third category , our additional movement category , we can get that in small spurts all day long .

You can take 10 minutes away from the desk and get a brisk 10 minute walk in One where we're not coming unless you're going outside in Florida at this time , where you're not getting drenched in sweat . A little different than that other kind of cardiovascular exercise .

Again , everybody is going to be different and you have to realize that , given what your available time is , as well as your available energy , as a human being like you can't do it all the time . We know that . We know that we can't do everything , so we do have to prioritize .

So for many of my clients who have either movement quality goals , performance goals and or physique body composition goals , I encourage them to prioritize their resistance training . We get a lot out of that resistance training . We get a lot in terms of excess calorie burn with added muscle . We get a lot out of movement quality and strength .

We get a lot out of the changes in physical appearance . When we look at it , that is going to make a big difference in sort of how that body shape appears . If that matters to you , if you want improved quality of life in terms of being able to pick things up , get up and down off the ground , we get a ton of mileage out of that resistance training .

Then we pepper in that cardiovascular training as a way to support that . That is for most people Now , people with sports specific goals . I keep coming back to the marathon , but it's the easiest one to sort of pick out . I mean , you know , sprint , triathlon or something .

When we're talking about general fitness clients and recreational athletes , that's kind of what people are training for .

If they're training for something , if you have reached a goal that you really wanted to say you PR'd on a deadlift and you'd been training with that , with , that's more emphasis on your resistance training , so you were always getting three days a weekend and you are ready for a new goal it might be an awesome time to cut back a little bit on that resistance

training , use it as a maintenance amount of time and focus on the cardiovascular training . So , again , every person is different . We do need a little bit from all three of those categories .

What we're thinking about , though , is getting our perfect pizza for us , and that you know how you get into the phases where you're like I like this kind of pizza right now , but in six months to a year , I'm ready to switch it up . That's similar to .

This sort of lifelong fitness journey is about tailoring your program , tailoring your fitness calendar , to the things that you are going to be focusing on at that given moment , knowing that that doesn't have to be forever and that it ebbs and flows . For people who are really limited on time and cannot get in tons of workouts .

I have resistance training programs for them that get a cardiovascular effect out of that training program . You're probably familiar with circuit training , where you are doing a lot of different exercises in circuits in order to keep that heart rate elevated as well as give rest for the muscle you know certain muscle groups while you work others .

That's a great way of making the most of the given time that you have .

We have to realize that there are limits to that kind of training in that like , if you want to get really strong on a bench press , say you want to lift your heaviest bench press , if we're doing just circuit style training , you might be inching up on your bench press ever so slowly , whereas if we focus on lifting for lots of sets , low reps , you could get

that higher bench press right away . But if time is limited for you , you can change the style of training to get the effect that you want . So that might be the consideration for you .

So , as I explained this , what I want you to think about is your available amount of time . Available amount of time Say how much time do I have for training , and then we're going to split that up into percentages based on your goal .

So for and I'm going to say this for the common , the most common fitness goals , which tend to be sort of body composition change overall , increased strength , overall , increased endurance , overall , increased levels of fitness , we probably want to be somewhere around the 40 to 50% of our time of our available time is on resistance training , 30% is on that added

movement and 20 to 30% is on that cardiovascular exercise . For someone who it has a cardio goal they might be looking at , more like 40 to 60% of their Training is going to be in that cardio focused area , 20% is going to be in the resistance training in support of the efforts that they're doing and 20% is going to be in that additional movement category .

You see how this is being split up based on a goal . Now you got to give yourself time to see if this works for you and then you can adjust those percentages based on how and if you're seeing results .

Another really important thing to think about when we're splitting up our fitness program is will this , the way I'm dividing this , aid in my consistency or make it harder for me to accomplish ? So you might have an ideal percentage , but then you think about like , how realistic is it for me to get to the gym for all these times ?

And I need to change how I divide up my program , my overall program . But we do need some element of all these components and this is why working with a personal trainer and or coach is really helpful , because they're thinking about the individual details and the individual needs of you .

And I want you if this is something , if you're thinking about sort of changing something in your fitness program I want you to look at how many days a week you get exercise or movement in , and I want you to count those tiny walks or that , the dog walk in the afternoon or the playing with kids outside , and then I want you to split it up and see where

your ratio is now . And then I want you to think if physique or strength or physical quality of movement is most important to you , you're going to turn the dial up on that resistance based training .

If time is really limited and you don't feel like you're getting a lot of things , I want you to turn the dial up on resistance training , but I want you to make it cardio intensive . So I want you to think about taking a little less rest , a little more reps , that style of cardio , of resistance based training .

If you're looking at your split of things and you're like I really want to be able to run a little faster or I really want to be able to participate in this race or I'm playing a sport like soccer and I'm feeling winded out of breath , I want you to amp up that cardio and I want you to find ways to incorporate long duration cardio and short interval based

work .

And then , if you look at your stuff and you're like I'm getting my workouts in but my days are really sedentary , I want you to pull back a little bit of that resistance training or pull back a little bit of that cardiovascular training and actually focus on increasing that low intensity additional movement , because it's really restorative , it's really helpful in our

sort of overall energy burn and it's going to allow us to accumulate overall more movement . I hope that makes sense . I'm looking at in my mind , I'm looking at the pizza and how to divide this .

If you have questions or you want to talk more about this , you can always find me on Instagram at foster underscore strength , or you can send me an email , betsy , at be foster strong dot com .

I can answer your questions or I can point you in the direction of someone who can , or we can , talk about coaching , whatever is helpful for you .

If this is helpful or any of the previous episodes are helpful and you're digging the pod digging the pod , justin , and I just ask I , like you can't see that I'm just staring at this cut out that you share it with somebody .

If you know , I had been doing a podcast that was geared toward trainers , so I'm hoping people are starting to pick up the fact that this is far more applicable to everyone who is an exerciser . And if you've got questions , throw them my way . But if you think of somebody that might benefit from this and you feel like you can share it , please , please , do .

All right , as always , I am so grateful that you would take your time to listen . I want you to go , I want you to push yourself , get strong , and I'll talk to you next time . Bye .