How many days per week? What is your schedule?

[mikhou]

So, I'm just curious. How many days per week do you workout, and what is your typical schedule including rest days. For example, during the first six weeks, I still sometimes workout 5x per week and not only 4. Is your schedule pretty rigid, or is it flexible? Just curious.

mikhou

[Melky6]

Currently I do 4 days a week YAYOG mon, HIIT Cardio tues off Wed YAYOG Thurs and HIIT Cardio Fri. For me 4 days works, so If I miss a day I can make it up on Saturday morning. The weekend belongs to the family so I like to keep it open but if we go to the park, walk the beach, etc it's bonus to get some activity in.

[Cecilia]

Currently, I'm 6 days on 1 day off. Sometimes in addition to YAYOG I'l swim or bike...If I'm really sore - which suprizingly is happening more during the 1st Class program than the basic program - I'll take a rest day after 2 days on...

[bark50]

I guess my routine falls in the semi-rigid/flexible category. Monday through Thursday I'll probably do two HIIT sprints consisting of 30 seconds an all-out sprint followed by 90 seconds recovery jog and repeated 8 times. On one day Mon-Thur I'll run up the stairs in the 17 floor building where I work – run up till I want to throw up a lung, slow down my pace, run again, etc until I'm at the top and then take the elevator down and repeat 4 more times. Run is probably not the right word since I can start out gangbusters but will wilt quite a bit during the third and subsequent trips up. Also, Monday through Thursday, I'll do 2 or 3 bodyweight sessions of various flavors for about 20-40 minutes each session.

Fridays are typically rest days. At night, I'll probably ride the bike to a local pub a couple miles from my home for some diet Coke and live music. If I'm up for it on the ride home, I might intermittently hit the pedals hard but just for short periods.

Saturday afternoons I'll bike easily for about 30 minutes and then stop off at an exercise park where I'll do a slow jog interspersed with bodyweight exercises. I'll do this for 30-40 minutes. I'd like to be able to jog faster during these sessions but combining a run with bodyweight exercises is really hard for me. You know those horizontal playground ladders? (This is what I'm talking about: http://www.aaastateofplay.com/horizontal-ladder/) And those playground parallel bars? It's tough getting myself across those things. It was tough when I was 10 years old, and now over 50 years later it's still tough. Where's the progress in that???

Finally, if I've had a good enough Saturday afternoon nap, there's a 50% chance I'll walk a mile at night to another local pub for more diet Cokes and music. When I leave, I'll come home doing interval sprints of varying durations. A couple of weekends ago I was sprinting home across a park when I realized I was rapidly coming up within a few yards of some guy walking across the park. It was around 1 in the morning at the time, and I'm pretty sure I scared the crap out of him. Sorry, pal. If I would have seen you earlier, I would have given wider berth.

Cool topic, mikhou! I'm interested in other people's responses. Funhog, where are you??

[senorchupacabra]

I follow YAYOG pretty religiously, and, quite frankly, I've gotten the best results of my life. I'm stronger, faster and my endurance has gone up a notch. On my off days, I work on my static holds (front lever, tuck planche, elbow lever, handstand etc.), flexibility and "feats of strength" (one armed pushups, progressions for a one-armed pullup). But I'm not religious about working on the statics or feats of strengths. It's more like if I find myself with 10 minutes or so to spare, I'll get in some work on that stuff.

[Human_Bean]

Since January I also intensified the frequency.
For the ladder block I worked out daily – no rest days.
For the other blocks I usually rest on Tuesday, but 2 Yayog sessions on Sunday. If possible also 2 Yayog sessions on Saturday. This depends on my work schedule but I admit that often 8 Yayog sessions per week would really be too much.

Works very well and I am progressing fast. I gained around 1kg lean mass per month. But the calorie demand is extreme:
>5000kcal/day for interval and superset weeks and it is often nauseating to eat so much. During undulating block and the ladder weeks the calorie demand was much higher and it was virtually impossible to eat enough to just keep my body weight. As I am really skinny now and as the training goal for 2012 is to build mass and develop strength this is a major problem. Therefore I am only doing Supersets and Interval sets currently.

[crispy8888]

I stick to the one day on, one day off regimen. So that means that if I were following Mark's 10 week programs, I'm really working through an eight-day week for weeks 1-6, and then in weeks 7-10, I'm working with a 10-day week. So I might be cheating myself a little, but I'm a strong believer in the "slow and steady" approach. I find the 1:1 ratio perfect for my schedule; I can easily double-up on days where I need to work around a commitment where I can't exercise.

[mikhou]

crisyp,

Just curious, but having read your report after your first 10-week cycle, you seem to have made tremendous strength gains. My question is if you would attribute those gains as much to rest as you would to exercise. My schedule is constantly changing, and right now I am debating something like 5 days/week (3 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 1 day off) or 4-5 days/week (a constant 2 days on, 1 day off). I just enjoy exercising so I would never have considered 1 day on, 1 day off.

I'm curious if you think that a rest day every other day is needed for you to improve? Thanks.

mikhou

[thomasjack]

I did work out one day on and one day off. In a week i did 3 time work out in a gym. It is due to my busy schedule of working hours. I have my own business and all in all. I did upper as well as lower body work out. It help to keep all body fit and build body stamina. I also do cardio work out like running, swimming, sprinter. I get better and strong result beyond my thoughts.

[crispy8888]

@mikhou,

I'd say that my strength gains are partially due to rest, but more importantly, they're also due to pushing myself pretty hard for my "on" days.
If you have a crazy schedule like me, then you might find that you can commit to the one day on / one day off approach, and squeeze in more exercise days as time permits. Sometimes I've had to take two days off in a row, but I immediately follow that with two exercise days in order to catch up with my schedule.

I find that the "rest" day in between is a great psychological boost. Knowing that I have a rest day tomorrow allows me to go "balls to the wall" today and push myself really hard. If I know that I have to exercise tomorrow as well, then I'm tempted to go a little easier on myself today so I have some energy left for the next day. So it's really a mind game that you're playing with yourself.

Also: in the first few weeks of YAYOG, if I was really sore (especially after a Push day), I'd take an extra day off. I don't see the sense in exercising muscles that are still sore.

I think the bottom line with any program is to find a rhythm that works with your schedule, and encourages you to stay on the program for a long time. I'm going to try to stay on YAYOG for a year and see how I make out.