1 hr sessions: What to do?

[IanGeda1]

Basic rundown: Upper Body for an hour on one day and lower body for an hour on another.Client is 42 yr old woman with no previous injuries and at 5'4 has 25% bf.What type of workouts do you perform in the given time without overtraining the client?

Warmup (5 min)
Cool Down: (5 min)

Routine:A higher intensity with 1 or 2 two barbell movements along w/ supersetting or not machines and bodyweight exercises

3-4 exercises per body part: 2-3 min rest

Body parts:Chest-Shoulders-Back-Arms 16 exercises total for 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps with 2-3 min rest between sets equates to 48 min total with 10 min combined of warmup and cooldown to 58 minutes

Correct if I'm wrong

[MrBillson]

Personally I wouldn't split upper and lower, just have two full body workouts.

Really depends on the primary goal of the client though.

[joekingpt]

Personally I wouldn't split upper and lower, just have two full body workouts.

Really depends on the primary goal of the client though.

Yep.

I also always like to include 10-15 minutes of corrective exercise (if applicable).

[slbross]

How long has she been training?

I assume this is your two sessions with her in a week. How often is she going in between sessions? If she's a beginner I also agree that two full body sessions would be better.. If she's only doing a few workouts a week, that volume might be more than she can complete and she'll cheat or skip the last few sets. But if she's more intermediate and going pretty often she'll need more recovery time and so splits would be good.

Also need to know her goals. Sometimes if there are two programs that a beginner client is alternating both in session and independently, I like to keep one more "functional" (i.e. what I see the client needs to prevent injury and improve ADL) and one more goal specific (muscle gain, strength, fat loss), provided the rest days are programmed appropriately. Example: current client who wants to gain muscle mass was running "Workout A" which was things like step-ups, pushups, an RDL-curl-press combo, and other exercises planned around her specific weaknesses and needs (quad dominant, unstable hips, etc) and "Workout B" was focused on time-under-tension and mostly compounds to put on some mass (ectomorph, beginner). She was alternating them each time she was in the gym, and was going 3-4x a week. After about five weeks she made significant improvement in ham and glute activation and overall strength gains were on point. Because she was more stable due to the functional day and made gains from the mass day, it was appropriate to put her on a split of big heavy compounds followed by lighter assistance, 2 day split, up to 4-5x a week.

[IanGeda1]

How long has she been training?

I assume this is your two sessions with her in a week. How often is she going in between sessions? If she's a beginner I also agree that two full body sessions would be better.. If she's only doing a few workouts a week, that volume might be more than she can complete and she'll cheat or skip the last few sets. But if she's more intermediate and going pretty often she'll need more recovery time and so splits would be good.

Also need to know her goals. Sometimes if there are two programs that a beginner client is alternating both in session and independently, I like to keep one more "functional" (i.e. what I see the client needs to prevent injury and improve ADL) and one more goal specific (muscle gain, strength, fat loss), provided the rest days are programmed appropriately. Example: current client who wants to gain muscle mass was running "Workout A" which was things like step-ups, pushups, an RDL-curl-press combo, and other exercises planned around her specific weaknesses and needs (quad dominant, unstable hips, etc) and "Workout B" was focused on time-under-tension and mostly compounds to put on some mass (ectomorph, beginner). She was alternating them each time she was in the gym, and was going 3-4x a week. After about five weeks she made significant improvement in ham and glute activation and overall strength gains were on point. Because she was more stable due to the functional day and made gains from the mass day, it was appropriate to put her on a split of big heavy compounds followed by lighter assistance, 2 day split, up to 4-5x a week.

This is a scenario I made in order to get a better understanding of how to approach this situation in the future. Let say she's been training on and off for 3-4 yrs now without any significant improvement in fat loss.She has lost weight but wants to build more lean muscle ( or in layman terms " get toned" ) What is time under tension: holding a certain position for a period of time? So you're saying at first she goes to the gym 3-4x a week including my 2 sessions. Let's say she does steady state cardio for an hr ( not beneficial to her goal, but she doesn't realize that).We have her do more supersets on Workout B to elevate heart rate to where it reaches above 65% to target fat burning? CORRECT IF I'M wrong.

[slbross]

Time under tension mostly relates to how long the muscle is contracted, or related to the cadence of the lift, e.g. count to two while contracting, four while lowering. I focus on time under tension for a lot of beginning clients because a) if I'm not there with them they tend to just throw weight around to complete the reps and b) greater blood flow and hormonal response.

It's definitely possible to have her, especially as an intermediate trainee, to keep her heart rate up to burn more calories. Alternately you could just program HIIT at the end of workouts. If she's already a fan of cardio and has a 1 hour cardio day, I'd maybe just teach her what HIIT is and have her do that instead on her cardio day, with reduced time of course.

You'd need to be aware of a lot of her needs in general to figure out exactly what overload is appropriate. It could be two full body days with cardio days mixed in, or a two day split with cardio after. A better answer would be to pick a goal and work on that, then go on to the next goal, but most clients don't like hearing that.

[IanGeda1]

Time under tension mostly relates to how long the muscle is contracted, or related to the cadence of the lift, e.g. count to two while contracting, four while lowering. I focus on time under tension for a lot of beginning clients because a) if I'm not there with them they tend to just throw weight around to complete the reps and b) greater blood flow and hormonal response.

It's definitely possible to have her, especially as an intermediate trainee, to keep her heart rate up to burn more calories. Alternately you could just program HIIT at the end of workouts. If she's already a fan of cardio and has a 1 hour cardio day, I'd maybe just teach her what HIIT is and have her do that instead on her cardio day, with reduced time of course.

You'd need to be aware of a lot of her needs in general to figure out exactly what overload is appropriate. It could be two full body days with cardio days mixed in, or a two day split with cardio after. A better answer would be to pick a goal and work on that, then go on to the next goal, but most clients don't like hearing that.

Thanks.I will definitely keep all this in mind when I start.

[PeteratCastle]

This is a scenario I made in order to get a better understanding of how to approach this situation in the future. Let say she's been training on and off for 3-4 yrs now without any significant improvement in fat loss.She has lost weight but wants to build more lean muscle ( or in layman terms " get toned" ) What is time under tension: holding a certain position for a period of time? So you're saying at first she goes to the gym 3-4x a week including my 2 sessions. Let's say she does steady state cardio for an hr ( not beneficial to her goal, but she doesn't realize that).We have her do more supersets on Workout B to elevate heart rate to where it reaches above 65% to target fat burning? CORRECT IF I'M wrong.

Why is steady state cardio not beneficial to her goal of fat loss?

It might not be the most effective way of doing it but saying it's not beneficial is incorrect. Just one of my little bugbears all this "Stuff that has been working for people for years is now wrong" malarky.
If she likes her one hour of LSD cardio a week, let her keep it it keeps her moving for another hour (just my opinion obviously)

[KyleAaron]

OP is overthinking it.

She just needs to do some sort of squat, some sort of push, some sort of pull, some sort of hip hinge and some sort of loaded carry, and to do some sort of cardio and (possibly) some sort of mobility.

Previous exercise history is not mentioned ("3-4 years" means nothing, it could be 3-4 years of pink dumbbells and light cardio, or it could be 3-4 years as a champion weightlifter), but if she's a gym newbie then overtraining is extremely unlikely. She doesn't have the strength or fitness to work hard enough to overtrain, provided her trainer does have her do anything absolutely insane like 200 burpees. Likewise, for a newbie time under tension is irrelevant, it just needs to be nonzero, ie to lift weights that actually challenge her.

[JoeCannonMSCSCS]

Is this woman a beginner? if so, DON'T do a split routine or you'll make her so sore that she will hunt you down and kill you! That is the very least you would do with her. your routine might put her in the hospital!

low intensity - not high intensity
1 set per body part.
light weights.

Circuit strength training for the total body is the safest way to train a beginner.

[marketing1]

thank you for this topic

[joe8512]

You could incorporate some stretching into the cool down if you don't already.

Other than that I think if you are waiting the alloyed 2-3 minutes in between sets. In my experience, it would take about an hour for 4-5 exercises at 3 sets a piece. That doesn't include any kind of aerobic excercise. Focus on the bread and butter stuff and she will improve.


Don't overthink it just focus on her goals.
You'll be fine