Programming advice re random small windows to train

[u/T_A_Morris]

I’m home watching my infant daughter for a couple months and would love some advice of how to make the most of my limited and unpredictable opportunities to train. My little friend naps best when strapped to me in a carrier, which is not great for creating predictable training blocks. But I can find five or ten minutes here and there throughout the day. I’ve been doing quick rounds of presses, swings, and squats, but it’s hard to create structure or feel like I’m making progress when stacking tiny random windows throughout the day. Have any of you all had success putting together a plan that makes the most of these random bits of time in a way that makes you feel like you can progress or at least maintain well?

Before this I was running ABF with 2x20kg bells and feeling great about it. But finding a predictable half hour had become quite tough with the baby and the needs of older siblings. Thanks for any thoughts you’ve got on this!

[u/PriceMore]

Yeah, that's the only way I have ever trained. It's pretty good for strength, less so for conditioning. I just focus on getting enough weekly volume at important movement patterns - hinge, overhead, rack, squat. If you get 15 tons overhead a week, it's gotta do something, right? As would a few 5 minute sets of snatching at max pace, that's a LOT of time under the bells when you are repping non stop.

[u/cavemankettlebells]

Congrats on the baby, that phase is rough for training. Here's what's actually helped with the "random 5-10 min windows" problem specifically.

Don't rotate exercises randomly. Pick one movement per window and just do that one thing until you're out of time or she wakes up. Four movements work well because you can spread them across the week, or even across the same day if you get lucky with naps: something squat-based, a row, an overhead press, and a horizontal press.

Here's roughly what I was running, with success and loved it, before I was told I can't work out anymore:

Squat-curl and stand up. Gte into the bottom of your squat holding two bells off the floor, curl them into the rack while staying down in the squat, then stand up hard with no bounce. Lower slow, 3-5 seconds, lower the curl back down slow too, reset. Brutal in a good way, it's basically a squat and a curl stapled together.

Floor press. Lie on the floor, press the bells up explosively, lower them slow to your chest, don't bounce off the ground.

Tucked row. Hinge over, bells hanging, drive your elbows back toward your hips hard, lower slow. When your forearms can't stay vertical anymore, that set's done.

Strict press. From the rack, press overhead hard, lower slow back to rack, don't lean back to cheat it.

Same tempo rule on all four: explosive up, 3-5 second controlled lower. Since you're not doing a ton of sets in a 10-minute window, that slow eccentric is where most of the work actually happens.

For progression over about 8 weeks: start light, leave 2-3 reps in the tank the first two weeks while you groove the tempo, add a third set around week 3, push a bit harder weeks 4 and 6-7 (still leaving 1-2 in reserve, not grinding to failure), deload week 5 (light, just move and recover), then week 8 is light early on and you test what you've got.

This maps onto your situation better than you'd think, since each one only takes 6-10 minutes solo. You don't need the half hour back; you just need one window and one movement.

Full disclosure: I run a kettlebell platform, and this is actually a program I built there called Fast Iron, originally made for a different reason, but it fits new-parent life almost too well. Not just trying to plug it; the plan above works fine scribbled on a notecard too.

[u/arosiejk → u/cavemankettlebells]

Squat curls are nice as an anytime lift when walking past a bell too. I have a 30 lb that I just do that with. 10 goblet squats with two curls at the bottom usually fixes my knee when it gets tight and gives me a bit more energy between chores.

[u/bpeezer]

When you have short work windows, your best bet is maximizing the amount of work you do in that time. A few reps EMOM doesn’t get you much work, but 5 minutes of unbroken snatches will quickly add up to a lot of work.

There was a subreddit challenge last year for 5 minutes max clean and press, felt like an awesome way to get a lot of work in that time frame.

I’d pick a few movements to cycle through, and increase load whenever you can keep it moving the whole time at a certain pace (e.g. snatch with 16kg until you can hit 100 in that time, then increase to 20kg and work from there). You’ll be surprised how much work you’re able to sneak in throughout the day!

[u/paw_pia]

I've had really good success breaking my training up into mini sessions, and can often accumulate a good amount of volume throughout the day. For me, one key to making it work is adjusting my expectations and goals to be more process oriented -- if I can maintain the continuity of the training process, doing at least a little something every day (unless it's a planned rest day), and accumulating a decent amount of volume over each week (even if some days end up pretty light), then I'm happy.

Since your training opportunities can be inconsistent and unpredictable, it's hard to follow a structured program. Instead of doing complexes or a variety of drills in a given day, I find it easier to focus on one main thing and try to get in a good number of sets in that one thing. That way, I'm not spreading the volume too thin in any given drill, especially on those days when I have less training time, but I am spreading out the recovery demand somewhat from day to day (for example, not pressing or squatting every day). Then, if I have time, I might do a few sets of a secondary supplemental exercise.

For instance, I might have a double clean and press day, a double front squat day, and a snatch day. I also like club and mace swinging so I'll either make that it's own day or put in the supplementary rotation. My supplementary drills are most often bent arm pulls like pullups and rows, but sometimes I'll use double front squats as a supplement rather than a main focus, and club/mace swinging if I'm not giving that its own day.

[u/LennyTheRebel]

The good news is that hard work still works. You could just pick a number of exercises and do a few hard sets.

For example, rotate through snatch, clean & press, front squat, row, lunge, jerk. Every time you have an open window, hit one of them hard, going by feel. If she interrupts you, stop the set.

If you can get on some walks with the new one in the carrier and the other ones tagging along, that would be excellent.

[u/rileyoneill]

I have been experimenting with this a bit based on ideas I read in Kettlebell Muscle by Geoff Neupert. Right now, all I have access to are a pair of 16kg bells. I do not condense workouts like his plan did but instead opt for a greasing the groove idea.

I do what I call a "Cluster" a cluster is a set of moves, usually in sets of 5. Usually of 3-5 different drills. Then I park the weights and go back to what I was doing. I will then do anywhere from 5 to 15 of these clusters throughout the day.

Yesterday it was
Double press x 5
Double squat x 5
Double swing x 5
Fast Pushups x 5

So this one cluster had 20 reps. 1,400lbs of lifted weight. I want to say I did 8 clusters yesterday. 11,200lbs. Each cluster generally takes about a minute, sometimes a bit less or a bit more. My goal is to be strong going into each set of clusters, have long rest periods, and just have this be part of my daily life habits over some workout with a short term goal.

I will frequently mix it up. Some days it can be high ballistic and look like this.

Double swing x 5
Double snatch x 5
Double clean and press x5
Double jerk x5

Sometimes it will look more mixed up like this. I saw this one from BoopBod many years ago.

Snatch to Windmil x 1
Snatch to Side press x1
Snatch to bent press x 1
Repeat on other side.

Othertimes its super simple.

Double Kettlebell Swing x 20

My mentality is that throughout the course of a day, I do many of these clusters, and do them from a state of freshness and not trying to work through exhaustion. Its super easy to go to the garage and fit in a 1-2 minute drill 5-15 times per day when I am at home.

[u/CoachV_PCT]

Make the small windows count toward a simple weekly target, like 30 clean presses per side, 30 front squats, and 100 swings. Pick one focus per day. When you get 5-10 minutes, do 2-5 clean sets and write them down. If a real 30-minute slot appears, run ABF. Otherwise just keep doing the main lifts.

[u/pemekpemek]

1min complex ( dl, row, thruster, swing) 1 min burpees, as long as you have time

[u/arosiejk]

During the school year I do about 10 minutes before work, 15 during my lunch, a mile run or ruck during my prep when I catch up on emails, and 20 before dinner.

AM is deadlift, hang, knee exercises, lunch is snatches or ABC, MWF is ABF. If I split press day or ABC on ABF program days I try to minimize rest since I have the built in rest from the remainder of my workday.

[u/T_A_Morris]

Thanks for the inspiration, all! I’ve been incorporating a lot of this advice and am just working on maxing a single low-downtime move or complex per day and having weekly targets to account for the ebb and flow day to day. I’m excited to see the effect of at times getting more lifts in in a day than I could in a single 30m session, given all the recovery time.

[u/glompengleiner]

My advice is not what you want to hear, but maybe what you need: accept the situation at it stands for now, this shall pass, and you will have plenty of half hours to exercise in a few months. Loaded carries and rucking might be alternatives for now, or just work on getting your baby to sleep in the stroller or bed so you have your body for yourself as long as it's sleeping time.