The 2072 Plan- A New Years Resolution To Start your 2024 Fitness Journey
Challenge yourself in January. Let this be your foundation for the rest of the year.
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Why this matters?
Back when I was a cop I followed an interesting high frequency program that had me complete the following almost every day for two months:
Push Up x 10
Pull Up x 10
Lunge x 10
Add a rep every day.
At that time in my life all I did was work and train, and I thought this fit my life perfectly. I always had a few minutes to do a little extra, so why not add this as my warm up? As the reps increased I would simply do a few reps in between sets during my actual workout. Then as the reps got even higher I would work in the reps multiple times throughout the day. Most of it wasn’t terribly fatiguing unless I wanted it to be and I thought it would be an interesting experiment.
Naturally, I got better at all of these movements. The more interesting piece was after I completed the program and dropped the extra work, recovering from my usual training felt much easier. I have noticed similar feedback from programs like the 10,000 Swing Challenge from coach Dan John.
In hindsight...would I do this again? No.
Or at least not like it’s written. Approaching 40 with over a decade in the military the last thing I need is high volume horizontal pressing or even high volume pull ups. If you started at 1 rep and for 6o days added a rep you would do a total of 1,830 pull ups/Push Ups! They’re both great movements, but like many who’ve spent years putting city miles on themselves I don’t see the value in hitting already overused patterns for too long. It almost never fails, you wake up one morning and some old injury you forgot will show up.
So what do we do if we are older and want to challenge our bodies and build our work capacity? Or what if we are younger and we want to attend basic training or the police/fire academy and need to work off the hours of Call Of Duty?
Remember our basic human movements:
Push
Pull
Squat
Hinge
Loaded carries
With these in mind, we could build a more complete high frequency program for tactical populations.
I’ll call it…
The 2072 Plan:
Take a weight you can overhead press 10 times (this will keep the load reasonable) and complete the following:
Overhead Press x 5
Goblet Squat x 5
Row Variation x 5
Hinge Variation x 5
Each day, for 28 days, add one rep.
Day 2 would be 6 reps of each exercise, Day 3 would be 7, and so on. If you did this for 28 days by day 28 you will be doing 32 reps of each exercise. The last day could be 4 sets of 8, 2 sets of 16, 16 sets of 2 in a circuit, or even a ladder that builds to the total…whatever.
This can start to turn into its own workout depending on your fitness. If you do the math, and you complete the full 28 days you will do 518 reps of each exercise. Multiply that by four for each movement and we get 2072 reps...see what I did there? The 2072 plan.
For some that could be a lot, but view this as a New Year challenge. Also remember we are slowly building the volume. You may still feel this as the reps climb and the volume accumulates, but this will also depend on how you complete the reps. If you do a slow breathing ladder build up, this might not be as fatiguing. Smash through this as fast as possible on day 15 and it could be pretty intense.
I know the astute reader has noticed I dropped loaded carries. I chose not to include these because this program can already take up your time and I am not sure how a sensible planned progression could look. If you think you could do them feel free to throw them in with reasonable distance and load.
I would suggest taking a planned day or two off during the week once the reps start to add up and/or you feel a little run down. The 28 days do not need to be directly in a row. Not only that, if you feel like you need a little bit of variety, just vary things like your stance or hand positioning. Still use the same load, but if you’re doing standing presses stagger your stance a bit different than you had been doing. Or do a few kneeling or half kneeling sets. Or for rows use an underhand grip if you started with an overhand. Try different stances for your Goblet Squats. These minor changes will be enough for most high mileage tactical populations to avoid overuse injuries and relieve boredom. I did this challenge a few months ago and a bit longer but I even went back and forth between single and double kettlebell movements.
If you complete this at the start of the New year, by February you’ll be finished and probably sick of the extra work. However, when you drop these workouts and you start a more traditional program you will be shocked with your ability to recover. Your baseline of what you deem as work will change. Everything will feel easier. Not only that, if this was your primary workout you’ll be sick of whatever movements you chose to use and you’ll be ready for something new. You’ll have formed new habits, and when you start a 3-4x a week training schedule you will know maintaining this is very doable.
Test Subject
A buddy of mine, a busy patrol sergeant, tried this when I told him how the extra movement felt great on my joints. He later said the same, and essentially turned it into a conditioning workout. As time went by he saw body composition improvement and said some of his nagging shoulder pain was disappearing. He unfortunately had to stop early due to his schedule, and his body started to lose some of the improvements. His wife also mentioned it to him as well...thanks honey. He has now bought a heavier kettlebell and is getting ready to give it a go again.
One comment he made:
“Other thing I noticed was how fast my capacity built even at my age.”
He is in his 50s. My guess is the key here was letting the volume and time do the work. He is also a driven man, and a bit different (I mean that as a complement), but you can do this too. There is nothing stopping you. Fit this in however you can. Break it up if you need to. Do a few reps here and there throughout the day. If you also clean up your diet you might just need a new wardrobe and a tailor for your uniforms. Attack this. If you’re a cop and you let yourself go a bit, let 2024 be the year that changes.
This isn’t just for you. It is for your family, coworkers, and the community you protect.