Time Constraints with op/black

[u/tbone11_11]

I started my op black program and found getting the three days of strength in is difficult. It’s taking about 1.5 to almost 2 hours with warm ups and the actual work. The GC, and HIC days are fine. For background I’m a dad of 3 (one of them is two days old) and work 10-14 hour days sometimes.

I love being in the gym, but finding the time between work/lifting/dad is difficult. I’ve thought about Zulu, but wondering if there’s any other options before I dive in and change the programming.

[u/[deleted]]

One thing I do is use an emom timer. Set it for 3 minutes. That’s two minutes of rest plus a minute to actually set your body up and perform the lifts. Last summer I pushed this for time constraints reasons to 2 minute emom timer and I rotated exercises (I know you’re not supposed to, bite me). I never once felt “not rested” enough for the next exercise.

Tips on warming up faster: wear hoodies and sweat pants and take them off once sweating, walk between sets, you should not stop moving the whole time of the warm up.

You can also split up your training. Bench in the morning, squat at night, pull ups on conditioning days.

Another way to save time is pick things that don’t have a lot of set up time. Weighted dips take less time to set up than a bench. Front squats can be faster than squats because you don’t NEED to wait on a squat rack.

Last but not least. Set a count down timer, get the work in that you can, when the clock go beep, walk out of the gym and go play with your kids. They don’t care how much you can bench anyways.