A good fitness program should balance resistance training and cardiovascular work. It should have enough variety to keep it interesting. Finally, a good program is flexible enough to be easily modified to fit changes in your schedule. After over 30 years of sports and exercise, I’ve come up with a system that works well for me and meets these criteria.
My weekly program consists of a number of modules that I call “actions.” An “action” can be either a discrete activity or a group of exercises. Cardio actions are activities like spin classes and cycling. Resistance actions – i.e., weight training – are further divided into six muscle groups: biceps, triceps, shoulders, legs, back and chest. For any given resistance action, three muscle groups are included. Each muscle group is broken into three exercises and each muscle group is worked out at least twice a week. Each month, I change my resistance exercises, in order to keep my muscles from getting used to a particular motion. There are also cross-over actions (e.g., tennis and boxing) that encompass aspects of both resistance and cardio work. Finally, I do some kind of core work (e.g., crunches) most days.
Although I don’t have set days for particular activities, some (e.g. spin classes) are constrained by my gym’s schedule. It is also important to build in some recovery time. Each week, I have at least one skip day and every three months, I take a week off.
The approach I take is flexible and doesn’t lock me into a rigid schedule. By having a dynamic approach to exercise – indoor and outdoor activities, individual and group activities, the monthly rotation of resistance exercises – I avoid falling into a “work-out rut.” This keeps exercise both fun and a key part of my life. The system I’ve come up with makes exercise something I look forward to, a time to focus on my health and fitness while affording me enough control that I never feel like I have to chose between either working out or some other aspect of life.
