Maintaining fitness as a newly time-poor father of a newborn

Between babies, working night shift for part of that time, and then C19 coming along, I have some familiarity with trying to squeeze workouts into adverse circumstances.

First off, a running stroller and kid backpack are your friend. Jump ropes make for a compact workout in between naps as well for that cardiovascular.

Body weight exercises like pushups, pull-ups, and pistol squats help. Shoulder pressing a kid towards the ceiling is fun for them and good for you. They’ll be happy to sit on your back while you do pushups whether you asked them to or not.

When I finally got small trips in again, bouldering and sport climbing made for more compact, efficient days.

Later, I got them going to the gym with me, which is good and bad. Auto belays can be cool since you can set em up on one and climb the other.

My basic philosophy was to become a workout omnivore/opportunist. In the end, I was not in as good of climbing shape as if I’d been climbing a lot, but I didn’t lose too much and came back quickly for having kept active.

Good luck!

Jabroni McChufferson wrote:

After year 5 of sleep deprivation your ready to climb walls in a push and the R rated pitch’s 

Haha!

Yeah, I get that. After being crushed under sleep deprivation, the long nap doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all.

Our baby turned 10 weeks on Monday. When she was first born I was able to get back to the gym pretty quickly being on paternity leave and I kept a pretty normal training schedule. I kinda lost steam on the training I was doing - I didn't really like it and with the sleep deprivation and constant stuff to do around the house I decided I needed to change things up. What I most enjoy at the gym is limit bouldering so now I just do that twice a week for 75-120 minutes. I really like climbing well and climbing hard, and initially (like for the first 3ish weeks of our daughter's life) I felt like it was really important for me to figure out how to keep training in a way that was similar to what I did before she was born. I ended up feeling like I had bad sessions most of the time and it was hard to maintain a positive mental outlook on climbing. I'm starting to feel a bit more like it's important for me to use my time at the gym/on the wall for enjoyment, which in turn actually I think is helping my climbing a bit. I'm back to bouldering at approximately the level I was before baby was born (in the gym on the set, not quite there on the boards but not too far off).

Not sure that there's any particularly helpful advice in there. Maybe my overarching point is that my experience was that it was more helpful for me to adjust my expectations and my sessions a bit instead of forcing a certain focus based on what I thought I 'should' be doing with my limited time to climb. Learning to love climbing in the gym I think is good, too, because it seems that it can take quite a while before the outdoor days start to come back into play with any consistency (depending on your access of course)

This is all awesome advice. What I'd add is to make sure to keep putting plans on the calendar. As the life pressures mount, it is so easy to let a workout go here or there and suddenly you're out of the habit of climbing. Knowing that you're going to the Red in the fall, or heading to Bishop in the winter, or even knowing that your regular weekend partner will expect you to be ready to go when the temps are good will keep you motivated to show up and keep climbing. 

Nkane 1 wrote:

This is all awesome advice. What I'd add is to make sure to keep putting plans on the calendar. As the life pressures mount, it is so easy to let a workout go here or there and suddenly you're out of the habit of climbing. Knowing that you're going to the Red in the fall, or heading to Bishop in the winter, or even knowing that your regular weekend partner will expect you to be ready to go when the temps are good will keep you motivated to show up and keep climbing. 

Exactly this. I need destination goals to keep me motivated. The Hulk and Yosemite are on the calendar for July and October, and inspired this build:

(One-foot because I tore my hamstring heelhooking on the Mini).

Having a crew of fellow parents is invaluable. And I haven't tied in at the gym since having the baby ... bouldering / boarding is way more efficient.

also, it's hard to stay on top of nutrition with a newborn. I started making spinach+wheyprotein smoothies the night before and chugging them in the morning before reaching for the espresso.

Prior to the little nugget (who's coming up on 10 months now holy crap) I was pretty bad about getting outdoors but great at getting to the gym 3-4x per week with a major focus on bouldering since my belay partner was also carrying said nugget. Since the nug was born I've stepped down to two days a week at the gym. One on boulders to get stronger, and one on ropes with the wife to have fun and forget about the stresses of being parents for a couple of hours.

I've found outdoor bouldering to be a great family activity since there is lots of just hanging around and the landings in my area seem to be wide enough for baby and baby-tender to hang while the other climbs. Plus kids seem to love being out in nature so it's a win for all of us.

Not much to add for how to train that hasn't been said already. Mainly just wanted to chime in to second needing to plan your outings/training in advance otherwise they slip away from you. The first few months are both miraculous and torturous, which makes it okay to just skip climbing all together and get some sleep/take care of your partner so they can sleep. I took the first month off from climbing but was more hungry than ever to get better after that. Since acquiring the "dad strength" mod, I've sent my hardest boulders both outdoors and indoors.

Here’s another hack…

We truck camped once with our first baby before buying this. I call it “The $10,000 Heater.” When our first baby woke up at 5:30 am on those winter mornings, it was worth every penny to crank up the heat and put a coffee percolator on the stove. 

Jesse Neal wrote:

 Since acquiring the "dad strength" mod, I've sent my hardest boulders both outdoors and indoors.

Yeah buddy! All the new dads I've talked to have experienced this adrenaline / testosterone bump as well. I didn't get to utilize mine outdoors, but I did set new PR's for benchmark flashes and projects, and on bench press. Hopefully the next Minigote will be born at the beginning of fall ;-) j/k

Lots of good advice here. I'm in the middle of ARCing on my home wall while my 9mo takes a nap. It's boring AF but I can get a solid workout in about 20 minutes with the Lattice plans. Plus it's good for crushing audiobooks, which is a bonus since I can't read with a baby. I'm sure you could do something similar with just a hangboard. Additionally, flexibility has always been a weakness of mine so I've added in some youtube yoga throughout the week. All of this takes less than an hour and has made noticable improvements in my roped climbing performance. Intentional training is the name of the game.

Also, if you're anything like me, you'll forget to feed yourself while you're busy feeding the rest of your family so the weight loss might come naturally. Don't stress it too hard, especially in the first few months of survival mode 

you'll forget to feed yourself while you're busy feeding the rest of your family so the weight loss might come naturally.

Not to worry, it'll come back in the toddler years when you end up finishing the stuff left on their plates.

Lots of great wisdom here. I'd guess that the two sessions a week alone will keep you in more than adequate shape for the adventures you want to go on. I'm not sure what your climbing habits were before baby, but you may even benefit from some more rest. 

I'm a sport climber who wishes he had more access to trad climbing. I boulder out of necessity and parenting has made it a necessity....it's also pretty rad...just way more dumb (IMO, I'm not into the try hard to get 6 inches off the ground thing. I'd rather cruise and be 1000' up)

What I've learned from the last 15 months of trying to balance being a dad and a climber....and many other things much more important than "a climber." 

- don't throw out stretching/mobility work

- embrace more rest

- work hard when you get to 

- realize you're probably plenty strong for a lifetime of great climbing adventures, even if you scaled down to climbing once a week...even less if you can keep a good headspace when back on rock

- try to get outside as much as possible (I think TRS is the ultimate hack for time-poor climbers - It has been huge for me to maintain, even push grades, since having a kid)

- keep the stoke alive - create mini objectives/challenges (car to car stuff, V points in a time limit)

- savor the days that you get to slow down and pace however you'd like (as opposed to needing to be efficient because you have a narrow window)

- bouldering is fine....and it helps to try hard

Just don't TRS on 4 hours' sleep.

I realize this is drifting a bit from the original intent of this thread, but still in the same “ball park.”

How long after a vasectomy did you return to climbing? I got mine yesterday, and I’m planning to take off a week. 

Creed Archibald wrote:

I realize this is drifting a bit from the original intent of this thread, but still in the same “ball park.”

How long after a vasectomy did you return to climbing? I got mine yesterday, and I’m planning to take off a week. 

When you feel better and things feel healed enough. First week I felt like I was kicked by a donkey and things didn't fully close up for a few weeks as there's so much movement down there. Also ask your doc.

Some really great advice in this entire chain. Dad of 7 and 4 yo here   

And a few including Col. Mustard mention something I wanted to add too.

“My basic philosophy was to become a workout omnivore/opportunist. In the end, I was not in as good of climbing shape as if I’d been climbing a lot, but I didn’t lose too much and came back quickly for having kept active.”

My reality and that of many active friends is you won’t be in the same condition and most importantly you shouldn’t expect yourself to be. You and your partner are in one of the biggest life transitions possible. Rather than comparing to the the shape you were in before and do actual training sessions on a calendar make sure you love the time you are climbing and come back home energized. Make sure to include fun climbing that fully energizes you and motivates you do more.  If that’s training for you- go get it- but I found the level of fitness I wanted was dramatically improved from making sure I was getting the fun side of climbing in regularly.