Training Troubleshooting: Get Fit in Fewer Days

I recently started this "Training Troubleshooting" series with an article giving you tips on how to condense individual workouts when you're short on time – without losing all the results. (Find that article here: Get Fit in Less Time )

Here, I want to touch on another common "real life" situation and help you troubleshoot it...

The Problem: You Have a Limited Number of Days Per Week to Train

In other words, you want to do one of my programs that calls for training six days per week (like Super Shredded 8 ), but with work, school and/or family obligations, you're only realistically able to get to the gym 3-4 days per week. That means you can't do SS8, right? Wrong!

The Solution: Stretch Out the Program to Fit Your Schedule

Here's the thing: Yes, SS8 is a six-days-per-week program, but you can still do it in fewer days. As written, it lasts 8 weeks. If instead of doing six workouts per week you only do four, it then becomes a 12-week program (48 total workouts divided by 4). If you do the program only three days a week, it'll take you 16 weeks. That's fine. Will it yield the exact same results as it would with six training days a week over eight weeks? No. But the SS8 program has enough volume and intensity that even doing it three or four days a week will provide great results.

Just make sure you do every workout in the program in the exact order listed. What I mean is, if by the end of your first week you've only gotten through the Week 1 Day 4 workout, start the next week with the Week 1 Day 5 workout – as opposed to starting with Week 2 Day 1. This way, you're training all muscle groups in proportion with each other instead of doing, say, a chest/shoulders/triceps workout on Friday and then training those

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