Choosing Which Days to Workout
In this article:
Specific Stimuli Required to Reach Your Goals
MovementLink’s Workout Day Types
How to Build Your Well Rounded, Weekly Workout Program
A well-rounded workout program that transfers into the body we want to have requires heavy planning and organization, but don’t worry - at MovementLink, we’ve designed our workout program in a way that ensures we are getting the correct dosages and the correct stimuli to reach our goals!!! Show up, workout, and start building a functional and healthy body. Jump down to the bottom of the page to put a program together or just continue reading to learn what is required to develop each specific aspect of our fitness…
Speed/Power/Agility
This category is all about developing fast-twitch muscle fibers and coordinating them in functional way to produce explosive movement. This is an interesting category of training as it is typically very minimally fatiguing. Most people think exercises is only effective when we have to crawl out of the gym, but certain aspects like speed, power, agility, but even like our lactate zone 2 endurance work, don’t produce a ton of fatigue.
Speed, power, and agility are only improved when you are able to work at 90% + of your maximum capacity. Let’s use sprinting as an example - if we are trying to increase our spiriting speed, only when we are actually running at 90% or more of our top speed are we working to improve our top speed. If you are too fatigued, and your training speed drops below that 90% mark, you may be working cardio, anaerobic thresholds, etc., but you will no longer be improving your top speed. So, this type of training typically consists of extremely short duration intervals with very long relative rest, so that you can put maximum power and effort into each interval.
Because of this need to be able to work at 90% or higher of your max power, this type of work should be done first thing after a great warm-up. Note, you can put 90-100% speed and power behind any weight on a barbell, so those percentages are not referencing percentages of a 1 rep max. This is all about recruiting as much force as possible as quickly as possible and we want to be able to do that effectively with a variety of different weights and exercises.
Adaptations in this category tend to be highly neurological and because of the minimally-fatiguing nature of this type of training, the weekly frequency can be high. If you are in a speed, power, agility sport, weekly frequency may be in the 4-6 days a week, but for most of us, direct exposure once a week is plenty, especially because in warm-ups and our other exercises we do while in other categories, will be exposed to things that fall into this speed and power category. The main thing is making sure our central nervous system is recovered and ready to fire when we are targeting this, so we want to make sure we are not organizing our only speed an power day after days of brutal, grinding workouts as we may go into the workout carrying too much fatigue to produce the power levels we need.
Hypertrophy (Building Muscle)
Even if we are not trying to “bulk up”, building some muscle mass is extremely important. Increased muscle mass not only lays a foundation for strength and bone density, but additional muscle mass on our body is an energy hog, meaning that the muscle increases our daily calories burned as our body works to build and maintain the muscle mass which makes it a great fat loss tool! Don’t want to get bulky? Then include only 1 lower body and 1 upper body session each week and lean on the other program day types to fill in your week. Want to bulk maximally? Include both lower body and both upper body days in your schedule!
To build and maintain muscle mass, we need 1-2 overloading hypertrophy workouts per week for each muscle group. Luckily, because we do functional fitness training, our compound exercises allow us to work multiple muscle groups at the same time without having to rely on a bunch of isolation exercises. We group our hypertrophy workouts into distinct upper body and lower body workouts. Hypertrophy workouts typically will have multiple, “hard” sets of an exercise utilizing a rep range between 5-30 reps per set. We typically perform our “hard” sets anywhere between 0 and 4 RIR (Reps in Reserve). This also correlates to an RPE (Relative Perceived Exertion) of 6-10. For an example, if we could perform 15 reps of a selected exercise variation and weight, for a Hard 2 RIR set, we would perform 13 reps. That would also be an RPE of 8, but we find RIR (Reps in Reserve) to be more intuitive to follow. Not all of our hypertrophy work will relay on “hard” sets and a lot of it will show up in the Conditioning piece of workouts as well.
Hypertrophy work generates a growth signal that lasts for 24-48 or more hours. So, during the days following our hypertrophy session, our body will be rebuilding and adapting to the stress we put on it. So, to get maximal benefits from the effort we put into our hypertrophy work, adequate recovery time is needed. Depending on the fatigue level of the exercises, 48-72 hours should space apart workouts that 1) use the same muscles, 2) use those muscles through full ranges of motions, and 3) are at a level that is above our minimal effective volume of that exercise. Separating and balancing these fundamental principles is taken care of in the MovementLink workout program, so if we are sore from a workout, it is OK, the program has planned for it accordingly.
To avoid plateaus, we allow our bodies to recovery and re-sensitize to hypertrophy training by taking a week break from hypertrophy-specific training every 3-4 weeks.
Hypertrophy training increases strength directly some, but mainly increases your potential for more strength. Strength-specific work is needed to make big progress in strength.
Strength
The way we like to think about the difference between hypertrophy and strength training is that hypertrophy is increasing the size and potential of muscle. Strength training is increasing your body’s ability to produce force with that muscle. This is why bodybuilders may have larger muscles than Olympic weightlifters, but Olympic weightlifters can lift heavier weights. The bodybuilders may have more potential in muscle, but until they train the specific demands of Olympic weightlifting, their athletic potential in that sport will not be realized.
To build strength, we generally need to lift heavy about 1 time a week for upper body and about 1 time a week for lower body. Although there are strength gains to be made through hypertrophy work, and vice versa, to make big progress on strength, heavy means lifting weights that are 75% or more of our 1 RTM (1 Rep Technical Max) while utilizing set and rep schemes that work above minimal effective volume from the start of a cycle and move to maximal recoverable volume by the end of the cycle.
Like the hypertrophy protocol, to get maximal benefits, adequate recovery time is needed. Depending on the fatigue level and because we include hypertrophy training with our strength training, 48-72 hours should space apart workouts that 1) use the same muscles, 2) use those muscles through full ranges of motions, and 3) are at a level that is above minimal effective volume.
To avoid plateaus, like our hypertrophy protocol, we take a week-long break from strength-specific training every 3-4 weeks. Additionally to build a body that has more potential for strength, we periodize our training and take 1-2 months off of strength training every 3-4 months to put more focus on hypertrophy training. Even though the focus is not strength, there are still strength gains to be made when we are focusing on our hypertrophy training, especially because we’ll use average intensities of around 60-65% of 1 Rep Technical Maxes during these cycles.
A Note about Barbells: We have found that some people have an aversion to barbells. We understand that if you have never done strength training, barbells can be very intimidating! But, consider this: To develop strength, like we described above, we need to lift weight at 75% or more of our own 1 RTM. The barbell is hands down, by the longest shot ever the best tool for this job as it allows you to start as light as you need to and also scales up infinitely as you progress. The barbell is more elegant than it looks!
Strength training should be worked 1 time a week for each the upper body and the lower body. Depending on the cycle, to continue to increase strength, but to emphasize building strength potential, the 1 strength workout can be replaced with a hypertrophy session. MovementLink’s workout program takes care of this as part of it’s yearly plan and cycles.
VO2 Max / Anaerobic Threshold (or Lactate Threshold)
We like to think of this area as our high-intensity engine. VO2 max is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen someone can use during high-intensity efforts. Typically, the higher capacity someone has, the more potential fitness they have. Anaerobic threshold is highly correlated and it the point at which the our oxygen demand exceeds the supply or the level in which lactate is being produced at a higher level than it can be recycled.
As we push and try and sustain our intensities, the fast-twitch muscle fibers burn mostly carbohydrates and produce a lot of lactate, heat, acidity as a byproduct. Slow-twitch muscle fibers will run mostly by oxidizing fat and this recycled lactate for energy. Where endurance work is within a level where the lactate, acidity, and heat build up is sustainable over a long time duration, this category is unsustainable by design. As we push high paces and power outputs, we generate lactate, heat, and acidity at a level that is unsustainable and eventually, slows us down. With shorter duration workouts, as we try and maximize how much work we get in, we are trying to work at intensities that only allow us to maintain our pace for that given, shorter time duration.
A major part of our training protocols include work in this area helping our body get more and more resilient to the effects of these elevated levels of lactate, heat, and acidity. There are also major speed, power, strength, muscle building, and cardiovascular carry-overs that can come from well designed workouts focusing in this category, so this type of high-intensity training should be a major staple in most functional fitness programs.
When referring to high-intensity exercise, this is typically the area being targeted. High-intensity exercise is incredibly effective, but also incredibly fatiguing, especially long-term. When programs are too heavily weighted in the amount so of high-intensity exercise, people’s central nervous systems have a hard time keeping up, which produces lack of motivation and lack of performance as fatigue accumulates. Rest days, lower intensity days, along with just general lower total minutes of high intensity work are ways to mitigate the long-term accumulated fatigue.
Because the types of workouts and exercises we use in this category have great carry-over to speed, power, strength, and muscle building, we love to pair days with those focuses with high-intensity workouts using exercises that compound the work done in the other areas. As an example, where a powerlifting program may squat heavy and then perform accessory exercises in a more bodybuilding fashion, we may squat heavy and perform some lower body exercises in a high-intensity workout to compound the strength work while also benefiting many other aspects of our fitness.
Of course, many people are different and the amount of high intensity exercise and one’s recovery lifestyle will highly impact this, for most 2-3 days in a row of high-intensity exercise is the max that is sustainable long-term. After 2-3 days, a rest day, a lactate zone 2 day (see below), or just an easier day where you take a high-intensity class, but don’t push it 100% (what you’ll hear Coach Kyle in the gym call a “mail it in” day) can do wonders to continue making progress as you manage long-term fatigue.
Muscle Stamina / Lactate Recycling
For longer duration efforts, we need to the ability to flex muscles over and over again. Surprising to most, lactate, which is a biproduct of exercise (especially high-intensity exercise), is actually an amazing and prefered fuel for our body. Like hypertrophy build strength potential, lactate zone 2 training builds long slow distance potential and high-intensity performance potential. Lactate zone 2 is performed at an effort level that stresses the mitochondria of muscle cells to get better at utilizing oxygen, fat, and lactate as fuel. The better our body is at using lactate as a fuel, the more efficiently we can stay below our lactate thresholds.
You should shoot for at least 1-4 Lactate Zone 2 training session each week.
Like strength training, to build our ability perform at high-intensities for longer, we need to build on our lactate Zone 2 training base, longer 30+ minute low intensity workouts. Additionally, it’s a great idea to upgrade those sometimes, 1-8 times per month, to a 75+ minute session.
These lactate zone 2 sessions have carry-over into boosting our high-intensity thresholds, but the training is also almost identical to a heart rate that has tremendous cardiovascular benefits.
Cardiovascular Endurance
Cardiovascular endurance refers to our body’s ability to deliver oxygen to the required areas. This involves many things including:
our heart’s ability and capacity to pump blood containing oxygen and other nutrients through our body’s vascular system,
the robustness and efficiency of our body’s circulatory system to deliver the blood around our body and remove waste, and
the effectiveness of our cells mitochondria in converting oxygen (along with fat and lactate) into fuel.
Cardiovascular endurance is developed through adequate minutes of exposure to heart rate zones 2-5 and lactate zone 2. As intensity rises (or as we go up in the heart rate and lactate zones), the amount of time required to develop cardiovascular endurance decreases, which is why we love the time-efficiency of our High-intensity and HIIT training. There are many benefits from high intensity exercise that simply cannot come from lower heart rate and lactate zones, there are also many benefits from lower intensity levels that high intensity exercise alone cannot produce. To achieve maximal benefit from exercise, dedicated time should be spent in each specific zones with the majority of time being spent polarized at the fringes of the lower intensity, lactate zone 2 or the upper end, high intensity zones. Additionally, we aim to reach at least heart rate zone 2 every single day - dedicated walking can usually get us there.
Along with the high-intensity workouts we do that have huge cardiovascular benefits, we recommend a minimum of 1-6 Lactate Zone 2 workouts which correlate to targeting a specific heart rate range that is greatly beneficial to cardiovascular endurance. It’s a wide range of lactate zone 2 workouts and highly dependent on your goals, but at least 1 workout a week like this should be included. For those die hards who want to do 2-a-days, lactate zone 2 workouts are usually the best second workout as they are very productive and carry minimal additional fatigue.
Mobility
To build strength, flexibility, and stability through full ranges of motion, we do 10+ minutes of dedicated mobility work every day. To support his, we also do dedicated mobility work in every warm-up and cool-down. We also perform our exercises with full ranges of motion with techniques that support 1) maximizing athletic potential and 2) long-term tissue and joint health.
Balance
Consistency is crucial to develop balance and the good news is that when we dedicate at least 1 minute to balance every day, our balance improves dramatically.
Putting it Together
To create a well-rounded workout program that delivers the body you’re after, we have created day types that allow us the flexibility to create customized workout plans that fit our protocols above and to allow us the opportunity to have a general workout program or to bias our program towards any aspect of fitness that we may want to put a heavier emphasis on.
Build Your Plan
To help you build options for your personalized plan and to ensure your are getting the right exercise exposures to reach your goals, choose your day types using the information below:
First of all, if your goals include: Look Great, General Health, Functional Fitness, Longevity, Cardiovascular Endurance, Mobility, and/or Balance, there is no need to choose specific days as all of our days take into account the possibility of the previous workouts you have done and our program is centered around provide enormous benefits in these areas. The one consideration, is to get exposure to both upper and lower body class days, we recommend that at least once every two weeks you attend one lower body specific day (Mondays or Thursdays) and one upper body specific day (Wednesdays or Sundays).
For additional specifications, please see chart below:
Because a variety of people potentially dedicate a different number of days per week to exercise, and sometimes that changes week to week, and because some people play sports and participate in events and exercise outside of MovementLink classes, and for many more reasons, the MovementLink class program is designed for maximal effectiveness with maximal flexibility. If you’d like to sit down with Coach Kyle and exploring potential day types and schedules that would fit your goals and your life, just let us know!
Now that you understand how to select your workout days based on day-type, if you want to get a better feel for how we customize each workout specific to your goals and your level by selecting correct barbell weights estimated off of your 1 RM, how to select dumbbell (DB) and kettlebell (KB) weights, how to select the right box heights, how we describe different levels of effort for cardio exercises, and how to scale bodyweight exercises like pull-ups and push-ups, you can explore more through the buttons below: