Getting back to the gym after fatherhood

[vinnyxgunz]

Hi everyone,

So the past year has been crazy. First I got in a really bad car accident and shattered my femur. Then I had my first baby. Then I got a great new job that requires a lot of traveling. Then I bought my first house.

Because of all the life changes, working out has taken a back seat. For the past 15yrs I've done mostly a 5x5 workout or a typical 4-day split workout. I don't look "bad", yet I'm not fitting in my clothes the same way and I'm not happy with the way I look when I get out of the shower. I don't look good for "me".

I just turned 32 and I'm gaining fat on my sides/lower back. When I don't workout I gain fat on my sides lower back and my legs get really skinny (bad combo). My cholesterol numbers are bad. When I was in my best shape ever I weighed 165lbs. Right now I weigh 175lbs, but with less muscle and more fat.

Fortunately, I always get it back pretty quickly. I was planning on doing a 3-day 5x5 workout, and do first thing in the morning jogging on an empty stomach for 20min the other 3 days a week. It's just hard to make the time with the baby, yardwork (the house has 2 acres), work, and traveling for work.

I was going to do a DAA/Agmatine/AD3 combo after a few weeks (I have some left over). To start I was going to just do multi/protein/fishoil. And supplement bcaa and glutamine with my protein. It's often difficult finding the energy, so I was looking for a good pre-workout.

Any opinions? Suggestions? I'm open to anything.

[WolfRose7]

Hi everyone,

So the past year has been crazy. First I got in a really bad car accident and shattered my femur. Then I had my first baby. Then I got a great new job that requires a lot of traveling. Then I bought my first house.

Because of all the life changes, working out has taken a back seat. For the past 15yrs I've done mostly a 5x5 workout or a typical 4-day split workout. I don't look "bad", yet I'm not fitting in my clothes the same way and I'm not happy with the way I look when I get out of the shower. I don't look good for "me".

I just turned 32 and I'm gaining fat on my sides/lower back. When I don't workout I gain fat on my sides lower back and my legs get really skinny (bad combo). My cholesterol numbers are bad. When I was in my best shape ever I weighed 165lbs. Right now I weigh 175lbs, but with less muscle and more fat.

Fortunately, I always get it back pretty quickly. I was planning on doing a 3-day 5x5 workout, and do first thing in the morning jogging on an empty stomach for 20min the other 3 days a week. It's just hard to make the time with the baby, yardwork (the house has 2 acres), work, and traveling for work.

I was going to do a DAA/Agmatine/AD3 combo after a few weeks (I have some left over). To start I was going to just do multi/protein/fishoil. And supplement bcaa and glutamine with my protein. It's often difficult finding the energy, so I was looking for a good pre-workout.

Any opinions? Suggestions? I'm open to anything.

3 day full body sounds like a good plan, plenty stickied at the top of this section if you need one.
you really don't need all those supplements, multi/fishoil if its hard to get with diet sure, whey for convenience but the rest is a waste of money. Save it for good food instead
Best pre-workout IMO coffee+a banana.

As for cardio, you don't need it for weight loss or strength gain (though it's obvs beneficial for health reasons) you wanna lose a bit of weight make sure your staying in a calorie deficit. apps like myfitnesspal make tracking pretty easy.

Good Luck with it

[KyleAaron]

My experience (5yo and 5 month old) is that we can work out often, but not for long. 30-45' a day rather than 60-90' three times a week. This is particularly so if you're going to have to travel to a gym. You can usually get half an hour without being interrupted by a kid's poonami or something, but if you drive to the gym, change, work out, shower, change, drive home, it could be 2-3hr in all and when you get home the place will be a godawful mess, and it'll be a tossup whether it's your wife or your kid screaming louder. So try things at home with short workouts 4-6 days a week.

With 2 acres you have room somewhere for a shed or temporary carport to put gym gear under. The most bang for your buck in terms of time and effort invested will be barbell stuff. Then look at something like one lift a day - cycling through squat, press, deadlift, bench, once a week each. That's the goal, to do each of those four once a week. If you end up doing squat and press on Monday, then Tuesday deadlift, Wednesday bench - hey, you might get in squats again on Thursday. If you do manage 6 workouts (unlikely) then take the 7th day off.

Do warmups and then your 3 sets of 5 work sets, except deadlifts which are 3x3. Get microplates so you can add 1-2lbs instead of 5 on press and bench when they get hard.

If you just get a barbell and plates with no rack, that's fine, the workouts now are clean it up to front squat it, clean it up to press it, deadlift and floor press. But then I would do triples rather than 5s.

[vinnyxgunz]

Alright, thanks guys. Good tips. Yeah, those days of 1hr lifting and then 2hrs of basketball are long over.

[Jasonk282]

Doesn't your gym offer a daycare type of service?