Commitment-phobic to Programs

aweigh2go

I go to the gym to lift weights because I enjoy it. I look forward to sessions when I can go in, lift heavy stuff and go home. I've had programs developed by trainers and I've picked programs up from websites and magazines. However, I often find that, my interest in the program drops after a week or two. I have found that my best sessions are when I just go into the gym and lift without a program. Don't get me wrong, I'm not wandering around wondering, "Gee, what am I going to do" but some days when I get there, I just want to do heavy sets of squats and deadlifts and maybe a little bit of accessory work and go home. Some days, I may want to just do 4-5 sets of 12 reps for chest, back and 3-4 sets of shoulder work with a little tricep and bicep work at the end.

My goal is not to "bring anything up" or bench "three fiddy" but to work toward losing fat. Do I have to follow a specific program or can I, for a lack of a better term, "wing it" when I get there?

SideSteel

aweigh2go wrote: »

I go to the gym to lift weights because I enjoy it. I look forward to sessions when I can go in, lift heavy stuff and go home. I've had programs developed by trainers and I've picked programs up from websites and magazines. However, I often find that, my interest in the program drops after a week or two. I have found that my best sessions are when I just go into the gym and lift without a program. Don't get me wrong, I'm not wandering around wondering, "Gee, what am I going to do" but some days when I get there, I just want to do heavy sets of squats and deadlifts and maybe a little bit of accessory work and go home. Some days, I may want to just do 4-5 sets of 12 reps for chest, back and 3-4 sets of shoulder work with a little tricep and bicep work at the end.

My goal is not to "bring anything up" or bench "three fiddy" but to work toward losing fat. Do I have to follow a specific program or can I, for a lack of a better term, "wing it" when I get there?

Strictly in terms of fat loss you can probably wing it. It may sub optimal with respect to strength gain and it COULD possibly be sub optimal with respect to lean mass retention but you'd have to wing it pretty badly for that to happen IMO.

Now all that being said, that doesn't mean winging it is best.

You would probably do well on some sort of flexible method of training. RPE would be one thing to look into and there are also other forms of autoregulation to consider so that you can go hard when you feel up to it and you can back off a bit on days that you're not feeling as strong. Mike Tuscherer has some good info on it as do the 3DMJ guys.


You could also consider some sort of loose structure so that you at least have an idea of what movements you're going to do.

So one example might be that you have a plan on doing 4-6 sets of 6-8 reps of a given exercise and you're scheduled to hit 250lbs for those sets +/- 10%. So that 10% gives you a range of loading and the set and rep scheme gives you another flexible parameter to allow you to do more or less total work based on how you're feeling.

I'm sort of rambling here. There's many ways to do it.

My ultimate answer is that winging it entirely is going to depend on how good you are at winging it. I think you might get better results with SOME form of structure but it may be able to be a very flexible system.

EDIT: Also, shoot me a PM sometime in the next week if you're still looking at doing some one-on-one work. We had chatted about a month ago or so -- I'll have a few slots open hopefully in January.

stumblinthrulife

You might look at Wendler 5/3/1 and read a bunch of his articles at jimwendler.com. He's a big proponent of doing more when you're having a good day, and less when you aren't. He also keeps the accessory work flexible - he does have exercises he recommends, but ultimately he says just work body part x with whatever exercise you like best. Since I'm a clueless newbie, I just follow the program as written, but if you're smarter and more experienced it looks easy to switch things up.

Could get you the structure that's needed for consistent progression, with the flexibility you need to keep yourself interested and having fun.