How to fit my strength training into my schedule

Jorge · Post by **Jorge** » Mar 10, 2006 12:17

Hello there.

I used to do weight training (bodybuilding type) until I stopped to recover from a shoulder injury (more than a year ago). After I recovered I started Aikido and I train 3-4 times a week, Monday to Thursday late in the afternoon. In winter I also do Snowboarding so I drop one of the Aikido training to fit it into my week. I am planning now to get back to weight training. However, this time I want to do more of the Olympic lifts as I want to get functional strength on my muscles rather than just the looks from bodybuilding. I will also like to incorporate the isometric stretching into my workouts so that I can achieve splits and in fact for good general flexibility. My confusion is how to schedule all these properly.

I only have the weekends (Friday to Sunday) to do my strength workouts, meaning no rest in between them if I do 3 times a week as recommended (I am very aware of the importance of recovery time for the body). I have read that when doing Olympic lifts it is possible to do them in consecutive days without falling into overtraining as far as you get recovery time within the week (true?). My other option would be fitting the strength training early in the mornings (say Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday), I could not do it at any other time because I have a full time job (8:00-5:00). Even though Aikido is a soft style of Martial Arts requiring little strength effort on your body there is a lot of squatting and picking yourself up from the ground when thrown that could make a good workout for the legs. Doing Olympic lifts at 3 times per week means that I would be doing about 6-7 sessions of leg workout in total during the week. Would I get my legs overtrained with these two different types of workout anyways?

Could anybody please advice?

dragon · Post by **dragon** » Mar 11, 2006 05:37

I'd drop 2 of the Aikido sessions to incorperate a strength workout and rest day.
For example,Monday-Aikido,Tuesday-strength training,Wednesday-rest,Thursday-Aikido,Friday-strength workout,weekend rest.

I have heard that some power lifters train for 6 days in a row working the same bodypart (they have a saying-"To lift a lot,you have to lift alot".Meaning if you wish to increase the amount you lift you have to increase the amount of times you attempt the lifts)but,1:-they don't train to failure and are usually still relatively fresh after each workout.2:-This is their sole purpose of training.Yours is martial arts.

Dragon.