Training As a Parent
Training when you have kids is both so much harder and so much more important.
Over the years I have been a rather involved and prolific poster on a number of message boards. These are two of the post I made over the years:
There's a new girl who has been coming to my gym every day since New Years. She's really cute, but has the weirdest workout I've ever seen, and she wants me to spot her for pretty much everything. Basically she wants to do pulldowns with zero negative (she just lets it go at the bottom), and then does, like 1 rep of bench and curls with super light weight. It only takes me a few minutes to help her with her whole workout and then she leaves. She's really cute, and I love it when new people workout, so I'm actually glad she's there.
She is, of course, my daughter, and I’m so excited that she wants to lift with me.
And:
So I've been spending a lot of time with this girl for about a year. She's great. I'm definitely in love. We spend pretty much all our time together, and all I ask for is an hour and a half to work out. Usually she's pretty good about it, but man, for whatever reason, the last few shoulder days (which aren't even on the same weekday) she keeps calling me when I'm halfway through. She wants me to come pick her up and usually wants to get something to eat. If I don't respond quickly enough, she gets super mad at me and starts crying. Full on waterworks. It's so frustrating.
I just wish my one year old would sleep a little longer.
You probably saw where I was going with these almost immediately, but the forums I used didn’t have the picture to clue everyone in, so I had a lot of fun writing these (I had guys ready to stage an intervention for me for the second post who they assumed was a girlfriend). But these bring up two points that I think are especially important to parents.
Unfortunately, two of the key components for exercise success, recovery and time, may not be within your control anymore. You can eat perfectly, exercise with intensity, but if your 8 month old wakes you up three times a night, there’s nothing you can do about that. If you can’t make it to the gym because you need to watch your kids, the kids come first. Never feel bad about that.
As hard as it is to do so, it’s even more important than ever that you try and keep an exercise routine. We all know that we will influence our children, but we always forget that it is often our own actions and habits that influence them the most. My six year old knows that I exercise and talks a lot about trying to get strong. She works out with me (at an age appropriate level) and is so excited to do so.
My wife had always been fit, but between two children and being an attorney at one of the country’s biggest law firms, she had a hard time finding the time and motivation to exercise. Eventually, however, she realized that she was the most prominent female figure in our daughters’ lives. If she couldn’t show them an example of a strong woman who took fitness seriously, who else would? She also realized how tired she was and how hard it was to keep up with them. She wanted to play, run, and enjoy the time she had with them. I’m now very proud to say my wife has been attending Crossfit classes for over a year now and is hooked (shout out to Tani at Sharp Edge Crossfit). This is exactly the example our girls needed and now my girls want to work out with me constantly. When asked what her mom does as part of a Mother’s Day project at school, my oldest said that “Mommy exercises.”
I know how hard it is to stay motivated to exercise as a parent. There were entire 6 month periods where I was getting 3-5 hours of sleep and working out at 3am every day. It was brutal. But it was also worth it because I know that the example I set will do more for my daughters than any lesson or lecture I can give them.
You owe it to yourself, and to your kids, to make yourself into the best version of who you can be. Or at least show them someone who is trying their best.