Having a new baby is tough.

It is often a death knell for a dad's fitness routine (at least short term).

It gets sacrificed amidst sleepless nights, new responsibilities, helping out more around the house and still keeping going to work.

Here's how I managed the situation 👇

I don't work a 9-5 anymore.

But I did when I became a dad in 2018.

At first, I really struggled to see how I'd continue fitting training into my life now I was juggling work, fatherhood and extra responsibilities.

My old routine involved getting up at 5am, getting the train to London, training before work and getting home at 6:30pm.

Becoming a dad (to a baby who liked to stay awake all night and also get up at 5am) changed everything.

The routine was over.

Here's what I did instead:

I cut my training routine by 80% and squeezed what was left into my lunch breaks and evenings or weekends at home.

I could fit in 20 minutes at lunch with walking to and from the gym, showering and training.

Each training session was devoted to one exercise, and I could fit in 5-6 hard sets before I had to leave the gym.

That was 25-30 sets across the week, for my whole body.

I used machines at the gym, and dumbbells and a pullup bar at home.

I increased my rep range so I wouldn't be training with heavy loads - these require more preparation, warming up and build-up sets to lift safely.

I lifted on every set to the point where I had 0-1 reps in reserve, then rested 3 minutes before repeating.

I used the leg press or hack squat machine...

Did romanian deadlifts or the hip thrust machine...

The t-bar row or seated row machine...

and the chest or shoulder press machines (or smith machine).

Machines cut down my workout time because they're generally faster to set up, load and unload.

The extra stability also reduced my need for warmup sets to practise technique.

At home I did pullups and chinups on one of the evenings or a weekend to ensure I was hitting the vertical pull movement pattern as well.

I spaced my workouts out so that muscle groups were rotated and getting at least 3 days recovery time before the next session that would involve them.

Was this perfect?

No.

Was it about a zillion times better than doing nothing?

Yes.

P.S.

There's many ways to adapt this 20 minute approach to different circumstances...

If you want a load of example programs and the full thinking behind it fully explained then check out this course!

See the contents here (70% off today)👇

https://t.co/jAlDkEfE9B

I transform tired, busy & overweight dads into lean and energised champions for their families using my 20 Minute Muscle system and smart nutrition strategies.

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