Training Around a Physical Job

Hi Coach,

Currently I work a very physical job involving moving tonnes of palletised building materials, so lots of pulling and pushing (like very heavy Prowler/Sled work) and my legs and back are taxed the most.

But I also like to train outside of work and lift heavy for low volume, So my question is, what would be a smart way to train around work and still recover as much as possible?

Currently doing an hybrid upper/lower/full body split with full body on my day off.

Any wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Not CT, but I take on this approach as well due to crossfit and other sports I play. I cannot run a full-on strength program, recover from it, and also do the other taxing activities I like to do. But, I want to keep my strength up and progress, and enjoy strength training.

Here’s an approach: Have you seen CT’s Eternal Warrior Plan? The meat and potatoes of it are:

Pick three multi-joint exercises covering the whole-body: one upper-body push, one lower-body and one upper-body pull movement. Do them for 3-6 quality reps, as a circuit. This is the core of the workout and I recommend 5 sets of the circuit.

This is my base workout, doing 5 sets of 5 at ~75%. For example, Back Squat, Bench Press, and Weighted Pull ups done as a circuit. If it is a day I have another activity, or have something coming up I want to be fresh for, I just adjust down the numbers in some/all of the the movements. So, I might do 3 sets of 5 on back squat while holding the other sets and reps the same if I have a mountan bike ride that afternoon. This gives limitless flexibility while still having a template/base plan to keep things progressing and logical.

I’ll add in some isolation work or calisthenics as my energy levels and time permit throughout the week, but don’t stress about it or track it. Some push ups and hammer curls or similar. I get my conditioning from my other activities (crossfit, soccer, mountain biking), but do try to get in lots of walking and spend a few minutes working on mobility each day.

I recommend looking at Tactical Barbell for ideas of implementing strength work into other activities. Its approach is not ground-breaking at all (pretty much like a 531 protocol or CT’s Eternal Warrior), but they give a bunch of approaches of how to program it into other activities.

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Thanks, much appreciated! I’ll dig into the suggestions. :+1:t4:

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