Bob asks:
“I am currently focused on getting my weight back under control and improving my card deck tearing. Currently I am working on completing as many military style burpees as possible in 15 minutes, jogging (more for the mental health aspect) and working on card tearing every 3 days or so (depending on how sore my hands are). I have found myself using way too many exercises over the last several weeks and decided to cut back to only those above. What would you suggest for training frequency and number of exercises if this my focus?”
Don’t I know the woes of trying to do too much!
You’ve got an interesting mix there.
One of the things I talk about in The Master Keys to Strength and Fitness is covering the foundations.
I like to think of the foundations of strength being big. And to cover most of the body this involves upper body press, upper body pull, squats and hinging. Another foundation is some form of conditioning.
You’ve got the conditioning part down between jogging and burpees. The burpees involve a bit of the strength component, but it might be worth adding more on top of that.
Hand training is important and often neglected. Card tearing is a specialized form of that. (Of course, this does use the whole body, but the hands are the weakest link and most trained.)
Training frequency totally depends on training intensity and severity.
In other words, I know some people that have made great progress on tearing cards once or twice a week. I also know people that have torn cards every single day. Both can work, it all depends in how you do it.
(And in fact, if/when one path stops working, switching to the other route can be a helpful way to bust through the plateau.)
This applies the same to the other exercises too. Some runners run every day. Some run once or twice a week.
Sorry, I can’t give an exact answer, not with a bunch more information, but I’d rather give you the truth then mislead you.
Still, here are some helpful questions that will point you in the right direction.
How constrained is your time?
For example, if it is not and you enjoy the feeling you get from running then you could do jogging every day. If you don’t have much time, then narrowing this down to once or twice a week is worth doing. Again, this idea applies to all exercises.
What is your priority? Is it weight management? Or is card tearing? Or jogging? Or burpees? Knowing which aim is primary, secondary, tertiary and so on is very useful for constructing a plan.
Are you making progress on everything with your current plan?
If so, then maybe stop overthinking it and just keep going. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But if you are getting stopped up, you’ve got to look at why. Is this in everything, or just regarding one aspect?
How is your recovery?
Regarding what you’re currently doing are you bouncing back stronger and better conditioned? If not, you may need to lower frequency. Another option is to aim on boosting recovery.
What is worth cutting out or focusing on at another time?
This is something Bob already did. Once you’ve prioritized your goals and exercises, it can be helpful to decide what doesn’t fit…for now.
These are just some of the things to think about when putting together a training plan.
Again, it is easy to overthink it or do to much, which is why some of these questions aim to eliminate and reduce the complexity that can be involved.
A good starting place to understand more of these foundations is The Master Keys to Strength and Fitness 2nd Edition.