Hi all!

Your advice would be greatly appreciated please...am a bit lost!

I am going to need to drop my weight training to 3 days a week from next month so I can build in some more swimming with the season coming up. It may even had to drop to 2 days when the season is in full swing.

So, this weekend I really need to start planning my next phase.

My main problem is how to split the three days to make sure I am working each body part effectively. It is likely to be:

Sunday - Weights
Monday - Weights
Tuesday - Off
Wednesday - Swim
Thursday - Weights
Friday - Off
Saturday - Swim

(I may need to add in the third swim session on a Monday. When I can get in the lake, that will be once a week and two swim sessions in the pool)

What do you think would be a good way to break down each weight session to make sure I am working everything properly, and not neglecting major body parts like legs?

Any help very gratefully received! Am very confused...

The way i see it is your main sport is the swimming and you do the weigths to be better at swimming. So put the swimming days down and work the weights around it. Dont forget you will need to recover as well from the swimming and weights

Good advice for Galt there. I'd also look at switching to a full-body routine- the bodypart split thing is all well and good if you're a BBer (and even then I think it's debatable, but that's another topic) but I think that in a sporting context- and especially in-season- then training the body as a whole is common sense. The other thing of course is that if you e.g. thrash your shoulders to death in a session then they won't be fully recovered for your next swim; with a full-body routine then you won't be pounding any one part of your body in this way. Again, for an in-season athlete this makes much more sense to me.

Thanks guys, confirmed what I was thinking actually, which is nice to know!

What's the best way to design a full body routine?

Broadly speaking- one compound movement each for pushing, pulling and legs, and then whatever else you feel needs doing...

http://www.stronglifts.com has a good solid program that covers the bases; one nice thing with full-body training is that you can focus on compound lifts all the time instead of tarting about with isolation exercises. I know some people love triple drop-sets focusing on maximal time under tension for their upper trapezoids, I think it's boring as sin!

That's great Spit. Thank you, I really appreciate that! I've been trying to work in compounds into what I do as much as possible over the last month or so and it is so much better. Now I can start getting my plan together for the next phase.

Mucho grassy arse amigo!