Fitness for New Dads

Becoming a father is one of the most life-changing events in a man’s life. As a new father it is important to be present in the moment, but also to look within, look ahead, and reflect on the gravity of your new role. You are now responsible for the future of a little person that will one day become an adult. 

It’s wild to think that my little guy is almost 2 years old already. Fatherhood has taught me a lot about myself and what I’m capable of. It’s been rewarding, fun, and certainly challenging at times, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m sure as the years go on, the lessons will continue. I’ve done some things wrong, and also enough things right where I think I have developed some decent insights about the early stages of fatherhood. 

Some of what I discuss below may be useful for generally busy people, older dads, or even new mothers as well, but I can’t pretend to really understand all of the unique physical and emotional challenges that new mothers experience. I can only speak from my own experience, so I’m tailoring this specifically to new dads. 

Fitness has been a huge part of my life for many years, and I had no intention of that changing when I became a dad. I view fatherhood as an opportunity to lock in even harder. I think every father should prioritize their health, vitality, and longevity. It’s easy to fall into unhealthy habits as a parent. Taking care of yourself might at times feel selfish, but it’s absolutely not. Arguably, it’s much more selfish to burden your family by developing a preventable chronic disease due to years of self-neglect. Ultimately, your fitness is an investment in your family’s future. 

Kids absorb everything their parents do, both good and bad, and they process and mimic behaviors from a surprisingly young age. A strong, healthy father sets a positive example for his children. His physique is a sign of self-respect. His self-discipline and mental fortitude permeate into other settings and endeavors, and garner more respect from others. There is a lot more that goes into being a good man, husband, and father than being jacked, but let’s be honest – no one wants to be the dad who’s embarrassed to take his shirt off at the beach. If a father leads by example, his kids are more likely (not guaranteed, but more likely) to lead healthy lifestyles in their own futures. 

A father needs the energy to provide, protect, play, listen, and be present for his family’s milestones. With all else being equal, the better shape a man is in, the better he will be at all of these things. Being tired simply isn’t an excuse to neglect your wife or kids. Dads need to be able to do dad shit, and be ready to step up when times get tough. It’s easy to forget this with the modern world’s conveniences and comforts, but a father’s role will never be obsolete. 

Realistically, most fathers are not going to have many hours per week to devote to becoming a super-soldier giga-dad with an 800 lb deadlift and a 5-minute mile, but that doesn’t mean you should resign yourself to the “dad bod” of a doughy IPA drinker. Whatever your specific fitness goals are, it is possible to be very fit without spending a ton of time away from your family. 

Since becoming a dad, I feel that my fitness has actually leveled up in many domains. I’ve made some lifetime strength PRs, put on some muscle, and maintained a level of leanness that’s not far from my prior bodybuilding contest condition, while easily being able to run, play, and contort myself into the various odd positions that you find yourself in as a parent of a baby/toddler. I won't claim that my max strength or endurance are at their all time best right now, but they're not far off. My efficiency and time management in all areas far surpasses what it used to be, to the point where I wonder what the hell I did with all the free time that I used to have. If I’m not at work, I’m prioritizing family time first, and in between sneaking in various house and yard projects. I can mow my backyard in 19 minutes now. I have a very hard time just sitting down and just doing nothing these days. 

Anyway, with the preface out of the way, let’s get into the meat and potatoes. Here is my outline for being a jacked dad. 

1. Be in the best possible shape before you become a father. This should be obvious. If you are in great shape before becoming a father, it is much easier to maintain this than to fight an uphill battle getting in shape after your life gets substantially busier. The work done and the habits developed during the years preceding fatherhood pay dividends later on. If you were a bit obsessive beforehand, it gives you leeway to scale things back when you’re busier. With that being said, if fatherhood was the reality check you needed to get it together, it is certainly much better to start late than never. 
2. Choose the right wife. This, too, is usually (but not always, no judgment) done before becoming a father. The person you marry is one of the most important choices you make in your life, and it’s important to make sure you align with that person in various different domains. If your spouse also cares about health and fitness, or at least is understanding that it is a priority to you, it will make the whole process easier. 
3. Commit to two days per week of hard training. As a new father, especially in the first few months when sleep is poor, your wife is still recovering from childbirth, and you’re both still figuring out what the hell you’re doing, you absolutely cannot expect to be training every day. My advice is to commit to two days per week of hard, efficient training. It is far better to be consistent with a sustainable program than to overcommit to a 5-day per week program and miss workouts. The lower frequency will also match your reduced recovery capacity from sleep deprivation.
4. Become a morning person. While your children are young, you do not get much alone time. You have to adapt and make the time. My best suggestion is to become a morning person and wake up before your family at least a couple of days per week to work out. It will put you in an awesome headspace for the rest of the day when you’ve already accomplished more by 6 AM than some people accomplish in an entire day. I like this much better than trying to train at night, which is much more unpredictable, especially if you don’t have a home gym. I have some specific insights on early morning training which I’ll detail in a separate section below. 
5. Prioritize compound lifts. As far as what to actually do during those twice-per-week workouts, my opinion is that they should be focused on heavy compound lifts. If I have 2 hours to work out per week, I am not spending a minute of that time running in place on a treadmill, trying to isolate different divisions of my pecs with 5 different exercises, or doing some half-baked lackadaisical “mobility” warmup. Full-range heavy compound lifts provide the most bang-for-your-buck on limited time, providing benefits to strength, body composition, mobility, metabolic and cardiovascular health, balance, and coordination. “Compound” means multi-joint, so there are plenty of machines that do fit into this category, but in my opinion nothing beats the basic barbell, dumbbell, and bodyweight lifts: squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, pullups, and their variations. I would recommend a full-body or upper-lower split, focusing on 1-2 compound lifts per session, filling in the gaps with some basic accessory work. Add weight and reps gradually over time, and don’t make things too complicated. When in doubt, spam squats and pullups. 
6. Find the right gym for you. For the first 6 months after my son was born, I trained at a YMCA which had childcare, so my wife and I could work out together on weekends. Eventually I was able to build a home gym with everything we need, and have been training exclusively at home for the past year and a half. Overall, having the home gym offers much more flexibility and saves time. I’d recommend it to anyone who can swing it, but it’s not a necessity. 
7. Make fitness a family event. Like I said, I would never want to spend any of my solo workout time on a treadmill, but that doesn’t mean to neglect cardio entirely. You can begin taking stroller walks with your family almost immediately after the baby is born, and when they’re old enough you can begin using a baby carrier or backpack for walks and hikes, which becomes like a progressively overloaded little weighted vest. You can also work in micro-workouts of bodyweight or other light exercises at home if you have the time. If you’re lucky enough to have a full home gym, once the baby can safely be in a playpen, set one up in the home gym and work out as a family. My wife and I do this every weekend with our son. We even got him a baby barbell set which he hoists while watching us. 
8. Perfect your diet and meal prep. While sleep typically isn’t optimal in early fatherhood, you can make up a lot of that recovery deficit if your diet is on point. Being busy is no excuse to order Doordash every night or to waste money buying mediocre lunchslop at work. Devoting a few hours per week to prepping your own meals and having some healthy convenience foods like fruit, protein shakes, and overnight oats on hand goes a long way. Eat protein at every meal and don’t graze absentmindedly. I have the same breakfast every day which I can prepare in 10 minutes. I take a few hours every Sunday and prep all lunches and meats for the week, and we have a rotation of basic, healthy dinners. Meals don’t need to be complicated – protein, complex carbohydrates, fruits, and veggies. It’s also good to start exposing your kids to healthy foods from a young age by sharing meals as a family. 
9. Cut during the newborn phase. Early fatherhood is actually a great time to focus on fat loss with a cut. Since you’ll be busy with minimal time to go out to eat, drink alcohol, or snack on garbage, adherence is easy. Sometimes, you even just forget to eat. 

If you train like a maniac twice per week, stay active with your family, and eat right, you can look, feel, and perform at a very high level, even when your sleep isn’t great. As time goes on and sleep normalizes, you will gradually be able to increase workout frequency and add other modalities back in. But don’t underestimate how much you can do with only a couple of hours per week. 

My tips for training in the early morning 

I train at 5am a few days per week, and admittedly it is a huge adjustment if you’re used to working out in the late morning or afternoon. There are several important considerations and adjustments to make very early workouts more sustainable. 

1. Prepare the day before. Have whatever clothes, pre/intra/post-workout shakes, and showering supplies prepared the day before training, to minimize the number of to-dos in the morning. You want to be able to get up, put on some clothes, and head right into the gym without having to think too much. 
2. Fuel up. I would not recommend training completely fasted in the mornings, though I have done this before. I don’t have time to consume and digest a full meal before training at 5am, but I find that my performance and energy is better if I consume intra-workout carbs and amino acids. I begin sipping an intra-workout drink before I walk downstairs to my gym and finish it by the end of the workout. There are several good formulas on the market. I use Intra-R3 from Hosstile, but combining powdered Gatorade with a half-scoop of whey protein is also a cheap and surprisingly palatable option. Pre-workout creatine and caffeine are also helpful, though I usually save my caffeine for later. 
3. Focused warmups. Presumably you won’t have much time to mess around if you’re working out very early, so your warmups have to be efficient and focused on preparing the muscles involved in your compound lifts. Warmup movements should take less than 5 minutes and can be supersetted with your warmup sets for the main movement. For example, I do band face pulls, pull-aparts, and pushdowns between my warmup sets of bench. Additionally, you want your body temperature to literally be warm, so I’d suggest dressing warmly and using higher reps for your warmup sets. 
4. Accept the fact that you will be (quite a bit) weaker in the morning. You will obviously not be as strong immediately upon waking as you will be later in the day, but this can be a difficult pill to swallow if you’re used to handling 225 for reps on bench and you have to drop to 185 for your morning workouts. Early mornings are NOT the time to push for maximal loads on low-rep sets to failure. You will only end up achy and disappointed. I recommend performing higher reps, more submaximal sets, and lowering rest periods in the morning. Think of these workouts as building a base and work capacity, rather than demonstrating strength. Save heavier work for the weekends when you have more time for the workout, and more time to wake up. 
5. Minimize setup time and dead space. Since time is of the essence, you don’t want to waste it setting up equipment. Minimize setup time with thoughtful exercise pairings and sequencing. For example, deadlift from the floor, and then strip some plates and do barbell rows for the next exercise. Standing overhead presses and squats can be done from the same position in a power rack. Moving between pin-loaded machines requires no changing of plates. Dumbbells require essentially no setup for most exercises. Supersetting sets of chin-ups in the power rack between squats builds density into the workout with minimal interference between exercises. Agonist-antagonist supersets are particularly useful and efficient.

Here is an example of what I would typically do on a week where I only have 2 days to train for about an hour per workout.

Sample 2-day-per week workout 

• Day 1: Full body (5am, Wednesday) 
• Warmup: Superset 
• Ab wheel: 3 sets of 15 
• Hyperextension: 3 sets of 15 
• Superset: 
• High-bar squat: ~65% 1RM, 5 sets of 8 
• Supinated grip chin-ups: bodyweight, 5 sets of 10 
• Superset: 
• Dips: 5 sets of 15 
• Dumbbell upright row: 5 sets of 15 

• Day 2: Full body (9am, Saturday) 
• Warmup: Superset 
• Dumbbell rear lateral raise: 3 sets of 20 
• Leg curl: 3 sets of 10, increase weight each set 
• Incline bench press: 4-5 ascending straight sets to a top set of 5-8 reps, followed by a backoff set of 10-15 reps 
• Romanian deadlift: 4-5 ascending straight sets to a top set of 5-8 reps, followed by a backoff set of 10-15 reps 
• Superset: 
• Hammer curls: 4 sets of 12 
• Dumbbell rolling triceps extension: 4 sets of 12 

 

Every dad should prioritize working out and being healthy, fit, and strong. Not only does it make you a better father, but it creates a great bonding opportunity as a family. Fatherhood is an opportunity for you to learn what you are capable of as a man. If you take fatherhood seriously, take your health seriously. 

Credit where it’s due: Jim Wendler’s writings have been a great source of inspiration and guidance in my own approach to training. In particular, the below articles have heavily influenced my approach to training as a new dad. 

https://archive.t-nation.com/training/effective-training-for-busy-men/ https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/training-for-inconsistent-and-busy-men https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/training-with-a-newborn