Interesting question ...
Message: Hello, I have been working out following your site from home for about a year now. I really enjoy it! I love the short workouts, I love the strengh and health that I have obtained over the last year. Thankyou!
I have always had a nagging question that I must ask. With whatever excuses I can give I choose to only work out 3-4 days a week, this is what I feel I can handle and seems to work with my life. I always wonder if there are certain workouts that I should make sure I do each week and others that are the better ones to skip. Since I work out from home I have more flexibility to pick and choose the workouts I do, even dipping in the lthe last few weeks workouts to pick what to do each day. But I am always wondering if I am picking the best ones for my optimal workout. So do you have any advice with 6 workouts a week which 3-4 I should do? Or does it just vary from week to week? I have all the equipment I need so that is not a problem. Of course I have to skip the workouts that are done as a team but those are not really very often. Any way to tell which workouts are the best? Thanks so much! CB
This is really hard for me to answer. There is a physiology nerd in me that wants to shout - "YOU CAN'T BE SKIPPING ANY OF THEM! It takes us 5 days to put our unique brand of fitness on you in a balanced (top/bottom, front/back, left/right) way. If you go missing one or two of them, not only will you be missing out on important aspects of fitness, you will also only be imbalanced."
So, the best answer is - "You may not miss ANY days."
However, practicality demands I answer in a different way. So the short answer is:
If you only have three days in a given week to workout, you'll gain the most benefit from hitting M,W & F workouts. Those days we usually try to balance most of the ten aspects of fitness we follow.
Thursdays are mainly days we try to hit your abs more specifically. Incidentally, it is my opinion that the reason we see so few back injuries and such amazing improvement in our heavy lifts (like the other day with so many of you PR'ing dead lifts despite only doing heavy deads 6 times this year) is because of our specific focus on your core and abs. It is also why we have stronger runners and slimmer waistlines at GPP.
Tuesdays are strength days. They are magic. HERE is why. I believe completing Tuesday workouts are essential to your ability to gain fitness throughout the rigors of all the other days. The fastest way to see amazing (no, STAGGERING) changes in your health, fitness and appearance is to do Tuesday workouts.
But, if you HAVE to skip a day, don't make it a M,W or F. If you have to choose between Tuesdays or Thursdays - don't skip Tuesday.
Saturdays are bonus days. We will always put all of our training (for optimal health) onto you by day's end Friday. If you feel you'd benefit from another workout, we program Saturdays as a compliment to your week. They are stand alone workouts not meant to sub for any of the previous days. Thank you CB for the question.
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