Fellow Dads,
I struck a gold mine and I knew it before we even signed the lease.
My wife and I had been searching for a new place to live. We were a couple months into the search and hadn’t found anything to our liking. We needed something affordable, but desired to move into a place we could stay for the next couple years. Our 6-month old at the time was getting bigger and within the next year we were hoping to either be pregnant again or begin fostering a small baby. It was the kind of decision that was on-the-fence as it pertains to wisdom… mostly because we were considering making the leap of faith and starting our own business, both online and brick-and-mortar. In my ferocious desire to serve and sacrifice for my wife, we had pulled up to a duplex that had 3-bedrooms, but because of the location and age of the place, was within our price range.
Our duplex neighbor was heading out, so we got to meet him. Turns out, he played baseball at the same time and at the same school where my wife was a Track & Field phenom heptathlete (she would rather I say the most-improved). Also turns out that this guy’s girlfriend had owned a Crossfit gym before. She had leftover equipment that they used to create a garage gym.
I knew right then and there that I was sold. I didn’t even have to go inside the place to know that’s where I wanted to be.
Sure, the ceilings are high in the living room, giving it an incredibly spacious feeling. The yard out back is pretty big, which will be so fun to play with our little ones in. There’s even a back patio with retractable roof systems to put our long-lost grille (another story) so I can grille some cookouts.
But ever since I got married while I work working an intense and demanding corporate desk-job, and ever since I made the decision to follow my passion of health, strength, fitness, and simplifying health, I knew that I would need a home workout space.
Even living in a small one-bedroom apartment, all my fellow dads know this: if you’re going to workout within the first few months after the baby is born… it most likely is going to be somewhere you can hit the pause button and help fill up another bottle with formula, monitor the dinner that’s on the stove, or simply take the infant off your beautiful wife’s hands while she cleans up the spit-up that just soaked her shirt.
That’s just the reality.
Simplifying the difficulty of exercise consistency only gets more difficult when the babies start rolling in, and I knew that a priority I would have to act on at some point was equipping my living space with exercise capabilities.
So #1 was buying a kettlebell, TRX band, and having access to neighbor’s equipment. (I’m a people person and former athlete, so I connected with my dude from next door and we got after it!)
Here’s the kicker, though, and the second most important thing I did to make consistency simple.
I made him my workout partner. Or, he made me his workout partner. Whatever way you want to look at it.
I realized that I wake up early, every single morning. I typically never workout early because I have found those early hours of the morning to be most effectively spent on writing, reading, and praying (again, that’s another story…).
However, I also realized that some days he wakes up early to lift. Although I prefer to split my day in half and exercise mid-way through (it seems to eliminate the afternoon crash for me), this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
It had to happen: In my quest for ultimate simplified iron-hard-dad-bod, I had to make him my training partner.
Here’s what I learned through training for athletics at a very young age (I would go to the gym several times a week as a 4th and 5th grader, mostly by myself): Having a good training partner is invaluable. I mean, it’s literally priceless. I’m not even talking about 5 times a week. I’m saying twice a week is good enough to jump-start you for the other days, as well as maintain where you’re at on the weeks where you can’t get anything else in.
It’s difficult to understand the countless implications of having someone with similar drive, interests, and training style as your workout partner, but allow me to try and explain through a few bullet points:
- You wake up knowing he’s going to wake up. So you don’t hit snooze (as many times) because you don’t want to let him down. Or he’ll just call you when you don’t show up. Now, THAT’s annoying, but would you rather be annoyed or still on your way to [stereotype] dad-bod?
- He’s watching you workout [Reason #1]. That means you’ve got to have good technique or else he’s going to say something about it. ‘Hey man, you might break your back doing that,’ can go a long ways for your health.
- He’s watching you workout [Reason #2]. That means if you plan on doing four sets, he’s going to be confused why all of a sudden you want to stop after three. We all have planned on doing a certain workout, and unnecessarily cut it short because we’re [insert excuse here].
- You have someone other than your wife to talk about your workouts with. This can be huge, mostly because you wife isn’t often interested in connecting with you on that level. Unless you fell off a treadmill and smacked your face, I mean.
- You will actually stick to a program and see results. As a professional in the industry who has trained himself and/or others for thousands of hours, one of the biggest mistakes we make (yes, I make this mistake too) is switching programs too often. This will ensure you don’t just change the workout, well, because you felt like it. Make sure that you select the right one, like those elliptical workouts, which would provide you with the results that you desire.
RECAP:
These aren’t going to be possible for everyone, especially right away. But when it comes to making exercise consistency simple:
- Creating a space at home where you can exercise (equipment, etc.)
AND
- Finding a training partner
Should bump up on your list of priorities in figuring out how to take the first (or next) steps in this area.
Remember, don’t be a hero, just be consistent.
Until next time,
Simple Health Dad