Tactical Fitness: Adapting Workouts to Fit Personal Schedules

Here is a question that is fairly common when people start workouts they find online or in books and ebooks. The thing to remember if you buy a book or follow someone else's workout is that you may have to make modifications to fit your schedule, abilities, goals and time available to train.

I'm not sure if you get this question a lot, but I've read your Army Special Ops 10-week workout plan and have a few questions about how you do the workouts.

Are you meaning for the workouts to be completed in one setting? Is this meant to be one complete workout each day from start to finish?

It is up to you and your schedule. No book or workout plan is personalized for you unless it is developed around your fitness level, facilities, time to train, schedule and goals. If I were personalizing this workout for you and your daily work schedule, I would have you break it up through the day. Do your run and PT exercises in the morning and the lifts and rucks in the afternoon or evening. Nothing is wrong with breaking it up throughout the day.

My soldiers and I usually do not have the time to accomplish all of that in one hour, so we would do as much as we could and split it up into two workouts a day. Is that how you designed this? Otherwise it seems like these workouts are very time-consuming. I am now a civilian and have maybe an hour to an hour and a half to do these workouts.

I tell people all the time who are preparing for a special-ops school: There is no 30-minute gym workout that will prepare you for a day of spec-ops training. You have to put in your time.

Think of an Ironman triathlete. They have to put in the time each day for multiple hours if they hope to finish a race that takes the top performers 9-10 hours to do and the average guy more than 12 hours. Your average day in the spec-ops world is 12-18 hours on average -- sometimes more.

I don't mean to sound like a slacker, but could you offer some guidance here? Thanks.

No problem. Break up the workout as needed; you can even divide it into 2-3 sessions. During training, you will have several events through the day with breaks and meals. Getting used to moving through the day is smart. You still can fit it into your professional job; it just takes some creativity and planning. So divide and conquer and enjoy.

Stew Smith is a former Navy SEAL and fitness author certified as a Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) with the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Visit his Fitness eBook store if you're looking to start a workout program to create a healthy lifestyle. Send your fitness questions to stew@stewsmith.com.

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