How Fit Fathers Thrive

How and Why do fit father's thrive?

Why is fitness important? How do you find the time to get fit as a busy father, or if you just do not feel like it?

Will exercise zap my limited energy and will I get injured, or I already have an injury and that is why I am not able to exercise.

These are questions I will answer in today's podcast episode and also, I will give you my perspective from twenty five years of keeping fit and how it has affected my fatherhood journey.

Also, If there is a topic you are interested in me talking about or have questions, please send it to knightbri@gmail.com. You can also check out my website at brianjknight.com. I am on Facebook and have a private group called Thriving Fatherhood. I would love to connect with you there. 

Also, if you would be interested in working with me or having me mentor you on your journey back from surviving to thriving in fatherhood, then send me an email or reach out to me through my website, and we can set up a call to see if I can help you to thrive more in your fatherhood journey. 

Transcript

Welcome to the Thriving Fatherhood Podcast, where we are living and working in the trenches to go from surviving to thriving in this mission field called fatherhood. 

My name is Brian Knight. I am a father of three and my newest edition is just five weeks old. It has been a crazy last couple of months, but necessary and a time of growing.  I have said this before, but just when I think my life cannot get anymore busy, it does. Just when I think I cannot do anymore, somehow, I get it done. I say all this, because being a thriving father alone out there is tough and that is why you need other fathers around you. I have also found; I need my savior Jesus Christ. Every time I start getting out there and trying to carry all the weight by myself, I get quickly reminded that I need my savior and other men around me to catch me if I fall. 

So, speaking of getting things done, what about exercise and getting fit, where does this fall in line with helping fathers to thrive, isn’t this something that is easy to skip when life gets busy or overwhelming. 

On to today’s show where we are talking about how fit fathers thrive. I think all of you are aware of this but you might not have a strong enough WHY for you to get fit, or know where to start, or what to do. That is what I am going to talk about today.

I have been exercising is some form or fashion since I was a teenager. So, I understand I may have a different perspective than someone who is just starting out, but in this podcast I really want to share with you why I think staying fit is one of the corner stones of a thriving father. And, if you recall in earlier podcast, I talked about the five Fs of thriving Fathers. And, that was Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Future. To me fitness is a core part of thriving as a father. You may be able to avoid it while you are young, but eventually it will catch up with you and hinder your ability to thrive as a father. 

Let’s start with the WHY you as a thriving father would want to get fit. If you have a big enough WHY, you can do anything. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is fatherhood is a lot of work. I have noticed when I am fit, I have more energy to do more. I will be honest; I need my energy and capacity to be able to get things done. Both at work and at home.  Now, you may say I do not have the energy now to work out, but you would have that wrong. Working out in moderation will give you more energy and help you be more productive when you are out of the gym running your life.  Now, if you start lifting weights two to three hours a day for five days a week you are going to burn yourself out pretty quick. In my twenty-five plus year experience lifting weights only men who are under thirty-five or are on steroids can handle that kind of workload without getting burned out and over trained.

By having more energy as a father, you will be able to serve the one’s you love and your community in a better way. 

Keeping fit helps you to stay young. The reason a lot of fathers look up one day and wonder where this gut came from or why do I tire so easily or feel so stiff or have pain. It’s because they stopped being active like they were when they were younger. So, you cannot completely blame it on age. Age does have an impact, but you have to fight back and not give in by doing nothing to keep your body strong and fit. Your late 30s is where your body starts to show sign of aging and as busy, thriving fathers you don’t have time for medical problems or low energy. That is why it is even more important to stay active, lift weights, so you can keep up with your kids. There is a saying I sometimes tell people about my son. He is getting faster and I am getting slower, so that is why I must continuously train so I can keep up with him. 

I want to talk about strength. I have been training for strength for over twenty-five years. I have read many books on strength training and actually competed in powerlifting when I was younger. You only need to put in about 20% of the effort to get 80% of the results. In other words, you can greatly increase your strength off a few things each week.  In fact, I would advise against trying to stay near your strength capacity while you are in the messy middle. Reason being is it takes a lot of time and effort to keep your strength near its capacity, also it puts you at risk for injury, and if you take a week off you will lose a lot of your strength being near your genetic capability. Training near your limits, especially as you age will put your joints at risk for injury, even if you have perfect form, sometimes injuries just happen. But, by being controlled and using great form you can greatly reduce the chances of them happening. 

Being strong allows you to be confident, a protector of your family if needed, and it allows you to play with your children in ways you may not be able to if you did not train. Another thing I want to mention is it will help you prevent a lot of injuries. A strong back is a lot harder to injure than an untrained, weak back trying to lift a new dresser up the stairs, or toss one of your 50-pound kids in the air spontaneously. 

I want to transition and share with you about the how. We could go a million directions with the how to be fit, and I believe most of you know what to do it is just doing it that is the challenge. I will share with you what I personally do to stay fit. Getting yourself to do it is challenging and you will have to find a big enough why for wanting to stay fit. All I can say is it is all in your mind and it is a decision you have to make for yourself. If you want to be fit then you will find a way to make that happen, but If you do not really care about being fit then you will likely self-sabotage and not be able to keep up the habit of daily movement and lifting three days a week. Whatever works for you, you want it to be fun, because if it is fun and enjoyable you will want to do it, even when you do not feel like it.

One way to make it fun would be to involve your children. My oldest is 5, so he is a bit young, but once they are 12 or older they can start working out with you and this will help you to bond with your children. Now, I said my oldest is five, but that doesn’t mean I cannot chase him around the yard, ruff house with him, or throw him in the air or carry him on my back. All of these things are example of functional movement you can do to stay fit, bond with your child, and have fun at the same time. 

 Another motivator for me is I like to listen to some Vietnam Era music on Spotify to get me in the workout mood.

One tip I have for you, is if you do not feel like working out, just do it for five minutes and give it your full attention and I bet after five minutes you will not feel that way anymore. I have had some recent challenges with getting my workouts in, but I start playing my music and give my workouts my full attention for five minutes and suddenly I am in the zone. Also, it is always the hardest when you are just starting out or coming back from being laid off for a couple of weeks. Honestly, it gets more challenging as you age and have more responsibilities. So, make staying fit as a father a priority and schedule time to do it in your calendar. It really does not take a lot of time to be a fit father.

I want to talk with you about what I do to stay in shape. First off, I walk almost everyday about two miles. I try to break this up to different times of the day such as morning, the middle of the day, and the evening. One reason is it helps with my circadian rhythms, by having the sun come in my eyes first thing in the morning, getting some good sunshine in the middle of the day, and then seeing the sunset in the evening. Try it, I think you will find you are sleeping better and deeper and that your mood is better during the day. There may come a point when just walking is not challenging for you. In this case, I use a weighted vest that is forty pounds. You should see me walking around my neighborhood in my weighted vest.  Also, walking with your family or your spouse is a great way for quality family time and getting your exercise in with limited time available. 

I do not recommend jogging, but I would recommend short burst of sprints. If you think about humans through history when do you have to jog? Never. Jogging is something that came out of the 70s, before that nobody ever jogged anywhere, but they did walk and sprint if they need to get away from something or somebody.  Where I live it is flat, so I do not have any hills to climb for an extra challenge, so weighted vest is something I can throw on quickly and be on my way in my neighborhood.  I want to mention that if you sprint, you would do it twice a week for about 50 yards, about ten times, and you want to do it on something that gives such as grass or sand. Jogging or sprinting on concrete can wear on your knees over time in my opinion.

Next, I lift weights three days a week, or I will sometimes break this up into five days a week in small increments.  For example, on Monday, I will do bench press, squat, pull ups, and dips. Wednesday, I do military press, bent over rows, deadlifts, and Romanian deadlifts, Friday, I do bench press, pullups, and squats. Most of these exercises are done with one top set of 10 and two extra sets of 10 with lower weight for extra volume. Talk about the specifics on the podcast. Why three days, why 10 reps.

Some other specifics are I try to stretch and foam roll six to seven days a week. I really do feel at my current age of 45 that it is best to have some kind of movement such as walking, stretching, and foam rolling on the body every day. I just feel better doing this than when I am not. 

I have noticed that in my mid 40s my body does not bounce back from workouts or recover as quickly as it did 20 years ago. So I am very careful to listen to my body and to sleep the best I can by creating a great sleep environment at night and taking a nap when I can.

Sometimes, you may have nagging injuries or get injured while trying to stay fit and that is ok. You do what you can and you will come back from it. Just listen to your body. If you are ill and did not sleep the night before then you probably want to just walk, stretch, foam roll and call it a day for training and then make sure you sleep well. 

That is the basics of keeping fit, it really is that simple, but a lot of companies and industries are paid a lot of money to make getting fit seem like it is complicated. It is not.

Next time we are going to talk more about diet and nutrition and their role in keeping you fit , energized and just feeling awesome so you can thrive. What you put in your body has a big impact on your energy level, how you feel, and overall health. So, stay tuned for those episodes.

That is what I have for you today, if you feel this show has been valuable to you, I encourage you to share it with three other fathers who could gain some insight from it and want more thriving in their lives.