Monday
Lower Body Strength/Power/Hypertrophy
Every 3:00 x 5 sets:
2 pause clean deadlifts + 3 high hang power cleans
2-3 sets
10-12 Bulgarian split squats
Accumulate
200m Reverse sled drag
Tuesday
Sustained Cardiovascular Training
2:00 on, :30 off x 12 sets (rotating exercises):
Row
Push-ups
Ski
Farmer’s carry
Wednesday
Low-Intensity Steady State Cardio + Accessory Exercises
4 sets:
2:00 pallof press (1:00/side)
2:00 machine of choice
2:00 banded hurdlers
2:00 run or machine of choice
2:00 rest/stretch
Thursday
Upper Body Strength/Power/Hypertrophy
Every 3:00 x 5 sets:
5 strict press (building each set)
3 sets
8-10 DB Chinese rows (pause :1 @ top)
3 set superset of 10-12 reps:
Barbell curls + DB overhead tricep extensions
Friday
HIIT Training
5:00 AMRAPs, rest 3:00 b/t:
- 15 wall balls + 20/15 cal row
- Max distance sled pull
- 15 Russian KB swings + 20/15 cal bike
- 15 supine leg raises + 200m run
Our training philosophy is simple. We know the benefits of all disciplines of training, so we want to practice it all so we can be prepared for life outside of the gym. Not just for the dire situations that test our health and fitness, but the situations that allow us to express our fitness to where we feel empowered. Here’s a breakdown of how we structure our daily training to get the most out of our bodies.
Monday explanation:
The start of the week always begins with lower body training. There are a few reasons for this. First, we are coming off a rest day on Sunday (we are closed), which ensures that our athletes are largely recovered from the previous week. Second, because we do a mix of endurance and HIIT, if we focus on lower body training later in the week, it would likely be hindered from previous workouts. Exercise science tells us that power and strength training have less effect on endurance training when they are performed in that respective order, unlike if the disciplines were reversed. Last, we have found that many of our members like starting the week off feeling strong and knowing that their legs/glutes are growing from their hard work.
Tuesday explanation:
Because we started the week with strength specific training, we want to have a change of pace in training style. So, our options are longer interval training or HIIT (high intensity interval training). HIIT is usually accompanied by high levels of lactate accumulation, thus high amounts of fatigue. This is also true for many exercises we perform at high reps on Mondays, so we choose longer interval training, and save HIIT for later in the week. Tuesday’s workouts then will often be long bouts on our cardio machines, mixed with some upper body and core exercises. This ensures our legs, while still being used, aren’t getting over-fatigued and are allowed to recover from Monday.
Wednesday explanation:
After two days of hard full-body training, we want to have at least one “recovery” day. While some may believe that fully resting is what’s needed, it’s been shown in research that an “active recovery” day can be more beneficial. That is what we strive for on Wednesday. At no point in the workout should you not be able to have a small conversation. Scientifically, this is called being in “zone 2”, which is about 60-75% of an athlete’s max heart rate. The goal is to get the muscles moving to the point that we can work out the soreness, while also reaping some cardiovascular benefits of zone 2 training. Additionally, we like to add in some stretching/mobility work and some “accessory” exercises. This helps with overall movement quality and builds resiliency for whatever we face inside or outside the gym.
Thursday explanation:
Just like Monday, we are coming off of a “rest” day, so we want to focus on strength, power, and hypertrophy training. This time though, we will focus on our upper body. The reason we start the week with lower body training and focus on upper body training on Thursday, is because smaller muscles, like many in the upper body, can recover much faster. If we did arms first and did the legs on Thursday, the prior days’ workouts would have too much impact on the lower body strength. So, although we perform some upper body exercises on Tuesday during our long aerobic intervals, we can recover from it over the course of 48 hours and have minimal interference before our Thursday training.
Friday explanation:
After Thursday upper body training, we default to our most intense day of the week: HIIT. Practically, this looks like high bursts of intense exercise (can be resistance exercises, bodyweight exercises, plyometrics or cardio) with larger portions of rest. Because we just stressed almost the entire upper body the day previous, there’s a large focus on the lower body during our intervals. This type of training can elicit great cardiovascular and strength adaptations. We do not want to shy away from high-intensity training. We want to dose it correctly where we can still recover from it. And while many still come to our Saturday workouts, those are typically less intense, and we know there’s a rest day for everyone on Sunday.
Finally, our training is programmed in a cyclical format. We know we can’t do everything all in one week. And while there’s variance in our weekly training, we still can’t encompass all facets of training. For this reason, and for others, we perform similar workouts over the course of 5-8 weeks at a time, then utilize a “deload” week before switching to a new cycle with new priority exercises and different formats of cardio. The deload week helps ensure we dissipate any accumulated fatigue over the course of the previous cycle by decreasing all intensity and volume across all days of training for a week. You can only get as fit and strong as you can recover from, so even if that means we slightly “over do” our recovery, we would rather that than chronic fatigue and a higher risk of injury in our athletes.