How to Develop a Physical Training Program that Compliments Your Lifestyle

Yesterday, I renewed my membership at Costco so I could buy a 2 year membership to 24 Hour Fitness for $319.99 which is $13.33/month. Now, I’ve been eating sushi every meal for the last 12 hours. In addition to the gym membership and platter of sushi, I bought a 10lb bag of frozen chicken breast, 18 large organic eggs, beef jerky, turkey jerky, peanut butter pretzels, a bag of mini bell peppers and enough toilette paper to feed the army of moths that live in my kitchen. After flirting with every employee in the store, running a red light on my drive home (like any decent California kid) and delivering three boxes of food to fill the remaining air space in the fridge, I headed to the gym for the first time in 9 months.

After chatting with Gabby and her coworker, Samantha, I assumed the role of “I’m big and awesome and don’t talk to me I’m busy” and got to work at the Smith Machine while waiting aggressively for a fellow barbarian to vacate the squat racks. Before the Smith Machine squats I charged out an anxious 2 minute Legs warm up on the upright stationary bike and accompanied my Smith Machine sets with light dumbbell chest flies to warm up for Wednesday’s Push Day. Recovery, preparation, warm up and warm down are far more important than any time you spend beating yourself up.

What do I mean by push, pull and legs?

–MO——–TU——–WE——–TH——–FR——–SA——–SU–
————–LEGS—————–YOGA———————————–
–PULL—————-PUSH————————————————
————————————————-DANCE—-and—-PLAY–

Let me explain briefly how I developed this high level training program so that you can confidently develop one that fits your lifestyle. First, my intention is to train for full body strength, power, endurance, hypertrophy, health and flexibility. A good way to think about any training program is to consider the three major movements: squat, pull and push. In the program above, I refer to the squat movement as “LEGS” and will include squats, lunges and any other leg work. “PULL” includes rows, pull ups, chin ups and any other pulling work. “PUSH” includes bench press, shoulder press, pushups and any other pushing work. While it is useful to consider these three groups of exercises, it is not necessary to isolate them or do them on different training days. I have chosen to do so this month or six weeks, but next month I may combine Horizontal Push and Pull one day and Vertical Push and Pull another day. The next month I could combine Horizontal Push and Vertical Pull and so on.

Now apply your own personal details. These include goals, commitments and limitations. On Monday, I promptly accepted a coworker’s invitation to join her for Yoga every Thursday afternoon. Yoga on TH is now a fixture/anchor/pivot in my program. Notice that I’ve also colored intention on TH, FR, SA and SU for YOGA, DANCE and PLAY. I expect my legs to be exhausted from dancing TH-SU which leaves room for LEGS on TU and maybe MO. PUSH exercises are fun midweek and don’t conflict with LEGS or YOGA so I’ve squeezed them in on Wednesday. Avoid doing PUSH days on MO as that’s when every other meat head on the planet does Chest Day. Also, second only to LEGS, it’s important for me to recover from PUSH before dancing so that I don’t pull something while pretending I know how to Krump. I’ve spread PULL intention across SA, SU and MO for two reasons. First, separating PULL day from PUSH day allows me to safely include PULL on PUSH day and PUSH on PULL day for compliment sets as well as giving my undertrained arms, finicky elbows and delicate shoulders a chance to recover between Upper Body days. Second, I like to play on the adult jungle gym on Santa Monica Beach on the weekends which can count as a PULL workout by including a few serious sets to close out a serious session of PLAY.

The result of applying these guidelines to my own intentions is a flexible, personalized high level physical training program that compliments my lifestyle and will help me to safely and effectively achieve my health goals. Try using these ideas to develop a workout plan to help you achieve your ideal healthy lifestyle.

Geoffrey R Hale is a writer for Hale Health Blog. He began playing organized sports at 6 years old and has been developing a working knowledge of health and physical fitness since 1999. He currently focuses on Yoga, dance and total health; diet, nutrition and weight loss; strength, flexibility and hypertrophy training. He’s happy to help you achieve your health goals if you write to him at geoffreyhale@gmail.com.

Attachments coming soon!