In yesterday’s post I brought some light to the condition of Program Hopping. If you’re frequently changing programs without completing them, or attempting to do much all at the same time, you’re likely not seeing the best results possible.
I also confessed to my own reoccurring program hopping, which has included hybrids of everything. My friend Tony said, “But what’s infinitely worse than program hopping is when you ask someone what they’re doing and they say “Well, I’m doing a 5/3/1 slash Sheiko hybrid, but I’m also doing A.M. fasted cardio and Dan John’s 10k swish challenge but I might do a Tough Mudder and…” – you get the idea.”
Combining things isn’t all that bad, provided that there’s a rationale for it. Thing is, its often done in such a randomized way that nothing gets significantly better, and we accept mediocrity on all fronts. This is typically called CrossFit. (Ooohhhwee, that was a good one!)
You may be thinking, “All right Mr. Program Hopper, what are you doing now?”
After 3 months in training Limbo after a painful ouchie in my back, I’m following a training program, and it’s a hodgepodge of everything. If you like potentially pretentious fitness acronyms, this is your baby! We start with that SMR, move to PRI then DNS, include some HFT strategies, use aspects of TriPhasic Training, address TUT in multiple rep ranges, and I’m pretty sure the ORAC value is realllllyyyy high. Not positive though.
The big take away for me, is not that it draws on other programs or that it’s another hybrid. The big fact is that it’s all things I need to work on. There’s a major emphasis on moving well and with control, paving the way for more dedicated “strength training” in the future. It’s made up of two days, which are:
The days are essentially a lower body day and an upper body day, and they each include barbell Romanian deadlifts as well as dumbbell bent over rows. Since those are both being trained 4x per week, that’s my pairing of high-frequency work. They both happen to be movements where I tend to compensate, so having focus on them each training session allows me to focus on technique.
This specific program is designed for me to feel better in my movement. There is more emphasis on tempo and tension than I’ve had before. I’m also working on perception; making things feel as easy as possible, and having more fun while doing them.
Warm-Ups for each day are exactly the same, include 6 exercises, and take approximately 5-10 minutes. As a slow warmer upper, this is awesome. More on that later, in a post called, “All of your excuses for not warming up suck.” <– Working title.
Cooling down on both days consists of doing 5-10 minutes of baby crawling, rolling, and a positional breathing reset. I’ve found this helps calm me back down and helps to turn me back on after focused training session. Baby crawls differ from bear crawls, and I’ll let Tim Anderson hit you with the difference:
Is program hopping a big deal? I’m not sure. It depends on your goals and the specifics of your upcoming competition. If two events are significantly different, I tend to think that they will both be limited. If that’s cool with you, it’s cool with me, but I have a feeling that we all prefer hitting our goals. (If you want, I can help.)
What are you working on right now? Is it fat loss? Developing strength? Are you trying to move better? Let me know!
Harold Gibbons 
Sir ~
This nails it for me: ” … more emphasis on tempo and tension than I’ve had before. I’m also working on perception; making things feel as easy as possible, and having more fun while doing them.”
I’m playing with the same, like the common roots between feeling solid dancing and feeling solid deadlifting (the latter is very new to me; lifting is in general). Variances in tempo and tension, i.e. what’s loaded and when, are so awesome and so overlooked—if looked at at all—in general, eh? So that too. Mostly around waking up the posterior chain and opening up those hiiiiiiips. Those ones.
A mellow-on-the-spectrum CrossFit gym has been my latest playground, and I love it, and I also love that you bash it (very tactfully, of course) because yes, just doing different shit and calling it good is kind of dumb. But just as of course, there are good gyms, and good trainers, that have methods within madness.
Anyway … that’s what I’m working on right now, thanks for asking 🙂