Many people follow workout plans that leave them exhausted, sore, and struggling to stay consistent. These routines often focus on intensity, rewarding long sessions and daily workouts. However, this approach can lead to burnout instead of building strength.
Shannon Ritchey, a Doctor of Physical Therapy and personal trainer, offers a different framework for structuring workouts. She is the founder of Evlo Fitness and specializes in helping people build muscle without damaging their joints, hormones, or nervous system. Her method prioritizes energy, recovery, and long-term progress.
Ritchey encourages people to ask how they can structure their week so their body can adapt and get stronger, rather than focusing on how much they can do.
Spreading Out Workouts
Ritchey recommends moving away from long, exhausting workouts. She suggests shorter, more frequent strength sessions. From a physiological standpoint, this makes training more effective and easier to maintain.
Instead of cramming all lifting into two or three intense sessions, Ritchey advises working each muscle group about twice per week on non-consecutive days. This can be spread across four or five workouts. These sessions are shorter, which allows for more effort in each set without building up too much fatigue.
When workouts are shorter, the nervous system is less taxed. Muscles can perform closer to their full capacity. This leads to higher-quality repetitions, better form, and a stronger stimulus for muscle growth. This approach also supports recovery. Muscle is built when the body repairs itself after a workout, not during the exercise itself. By spacing out training stress, the body has time to respond positively.
Sample Weekly Structure
Ritchey’s ideal week blends strength training, mobility, and cardio. A sample structure might look like this:
Monday: Upper body strength, with optional light cardio if energy allows.
Tuesday: Lower body strength, again with optional low-intensity cardio.
Wednesday: Core work, mobility, or a longer walk.
Thursday: Full-body strength.
Friday: Full-body or core-focused strength session.
Saturday and Sunday: Active recovery and longer cardio sessions.
Ritchey recommends using weekends for active recovery, such as walking, hiking, cycling, or jogging. She suggests aiming for about 150 minutes per week of light-to-moderate intensity cardio. Spreading this across the weekend makes it easier to enjoy and less likely to interfere with strength gains.
High-intensity interval training still has a place, but it does not need to dominate the routine. Ritchey recommends one short HIIT session per week, around 15 minutes or less, ideally on a day when legs are not being trained.
Personalizing the Plan
A key part of this approach is responsiveness. The training week should flex with energy levels. If feeling run down, scaling back intensity or skipping optional cardio can be more productive than pushing through. If well-rested and fueled, adding light movement can be supportive.
Nutrition plays a critical role. Adequate calories and protein support recovery, muscle repair, and hormonal balance. Without proper fuel, even a well-designed workout plan will fall short. Over time, this structure can lead to steadier energy, improved strength, fewer aches, and workouts that feel challenging without being punishing.
