How To Train With A Busy Schedule

In February 2024 I was burnt out.

My athletes were seeing good progress, but I had nothing left personally. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this.

“How the fuck can I call myself a coach if I can’t even make time to workout myself?”

I felt defeated.

It’s now February 2025, and I just finished an ultramarathon training block (in which I ran 28 of the 32 mile race due to a foot injury) AND I set my all time bench PR of 315lbs in the middle of ultramarathon training.

The best part?

I did this on the busiest year of my life, and today I’m going to show you how.

Done is better than perfect

“Anything worth doing is worth doing partially”

I used to live by the motto “Anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing” and that worked well for me…. until it didn’t.

A young kid, high energy dog, 9-5, coaching, and growing a coaching business… when life gets busy is when our systems truly get put to the test.

And my system was not working.

In Feb 2024, I was missing workouts like crazy. I cared SO MUCH about training that I would schedule it into my day when I thought I would be able to finish it. Inevitably that time would come and I either wouldn’t actually have the time, or I would be so mentally exhausted that the idea of going to workout felt suffocating.

I knew other people with busy schedules were able to make training happen, so why couldn’t I?

I realized that perfectionism was holding me back from seeing progress.

I cared so much about completing my workouts to my high standards that I was actually missing sessions instead of going in and doing some exercise. This was resulting in me losing progress and feeling frustrated and completely overwhelmed.

In March I decided that I was going to workout every day, even if I only did the first 1-2 exercises or the first 10 minutes of my run and called it.

As a result I actually did MORE training as getting started is the hardest part.

Once you get started and get momentum going, you’re much more likely to finish your workout.

But even if you don’t finish your workout, you’re still doing more than you would have otherwise, and as we’ll discuss below, you’re probably still getting enough stimulus to make progress.

Committing to the smallest amount of training you can manage mentally means you will be more consistent and do more than you would have otherwise 

You don’t need much to get stronger

In a 2024 meta regression, Pelland et al. analyzed 67 studies with 2,058 participants to analyze the relationship between frequency and volume with strength and hypertrophy gains.

This study highlighted something I practiced throughout 2024: if you’re focused on gaining strength, you don’t actually need much volume.

As you can see form the table below, even 1 fractional set per muscle group per week showed detectable strength gains. A fractional set was defined as any set that worked the muscle, whether it was the prime mover or not.

Table from (Pelland et al., 2024)

This is precisely how I hit my all time bench PR while ultramarathon training and in the busiest period of life

When time was limited I committed myself to just getting in the gym and doing the first 1-2 lifts for the day, which are the most important heavy compound lifts due to how I structure my training.

Focusing on 2-3 heavy sets per movement per week enabled me to keep my strength, set an all time bench PR, and not burn out while doing it.

What if you want to gain muscle?

If you know anything about gaining muscle, you know it requires more volume than gaining strength.

However it might not be as much as you think.

Pelland et al. found that detectable hypertrophy was seen with 4 fractional sets per week. Again a fractional set was defined as any set that worked the muscle, whether it was the prime mover or not.

Even the “Higher Efficiency” tier of hypertrophy training was 5-10 fractional sets per week. After 5-10 fractional sets per week the efficiency starts to decline.

Table from (Pelland et al., 2024)

This means you could gain muscle on just 2-3 main sets for a muscle and 2-3 accessory sets per muscle per week. And even if you want to be more effective, you could do 3-4 sets per muscle and 4-5 accessory movement per muscle per week.

As long as you’re eating in a slight calorie surplus and you’re taking your sets close to failure, you could elicit hypertrophy in your bicep with as little as 2-3 sets of direct bicep work (i.e. curl variations) and 2-3 sets of an exercise that also works the bicep (i.e. bent over row, low cable row, etc.).

Taking the same bicep example and aiming for higher efficiency, you could do 3-4 sets of a curl variation (close to failure) and then accumulate 4-5 sets of an exercise that also works the bicep (i.e. bent over row).

It’s important to note that these accessory movements work multiple muscles. So your 4-5 sets of bent over rows are contributing to the fractional weekly sets for not only your biceps but also your lats, traps, and grip if you aren’t using straps.

You can see how much we can cut back on volume and time in the gym per week and still see good progress in strength and hypertrophy

What about running?

Unfortunately running doesn’t show the same relatively small dose-reward relationship as lifting does.

The best runners tend to be the ones who accumulate the most running volume over their lifetimes. And the same goes for other cardio methods.

For my ultra, I peaked at a 5 hour long run. Which took a lot of planning and pre-work to free up that much time on the weekend.

The good news is: if you have shorter race goals, or if you simply want to be as healthy as possible, you need a lot less.

Ultimately, the amount of time you’ll need to dedicate to running will depend on your specific goals.

That said, here are a few tips you can use to make running more doable with a busy schedule:

1. Implement 1-2 speed sessions per week to get the maximum amount of gains with the time you have

If you’re short on time but you have the mental and emotional energy to go out for a hard track session, this is a great way to get as much adaptation as possible in little time. Just don’t overdo it and injure yourself. A study by MacInnis et al. showed that when volume is equal, HIIT training may provide more adaptations per time spent (MacInnis & Gibala, 2017). This doesn’t mean all of your training should be HIIT, as all intensities have their place, but is a strategy you could use to save some time.

2. Pull back on all speed work and just do zone 2 runs.

If you have the time to go out for some longer runs, but you’re limited on mental and emotional energy to do hard workouts (as I was last year), this is a great way to get training in and use it as a time to de-stress. While the study referenced above showed HIIT training may provide more underlying adaptations per time spent, Zone 2 training will still give you A LOT of underlying adaptations and if you can do more volume by pulling back all speed work, even better.

3. Cross train

If you truly don’t have time to do all of the running you need to do, you can cross train and even multitask. An indoor bike is perfect to get aerobic work in while reading, doing work on the computer (depending on your setup), etc. I didn’t use this technique during my ultramarathon block, but I have used this before when in a triathlon training block. I actually did the bulk of my studying for my CSCS on my indoor bike trainer.

4. Save time with strength training and use that time to run

Lastly, if you’re able to pull overall strength volume back and still make strength progress (with the tips we discussed earlier), you’ll now have more time to put towards running.

Takeaways

At the end of the day training with a busy schedule is all about pre-planning and optimizing where you can. Your training program will never be as “optimal” as someone who has nothing to do but train and play video games, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make enough progress to be above average.

By implementing good training principles, optimizing the time you do have available, and focusing on long term progress, you can setup your training in a way that allows you to make a lot of progress and even be well above average in strength and endurance without burning out or giving up the other important things in your life

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References

MacInnis, M. J., & Gibala, M. J. (2017). Physiological adaptations to interval training and the role of exercise intensity. The Journal of Physiology, 595(9), 2915–2930. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP273196

Pelland, J., Remmert, J., Robinson, Z., Hinson, S., & Zourdos, M. (2024). The Resistance Training Dose-Response: Meta-Regressions Exploring the Effects of Weekly Volume and Frequency on Muscle Hypertrophy and Strength Gain. SportRxiv. https://doi.org/10.51224/SRXIV.460