Its Just Science, Yo

You might see a trend emerging here. Since transitioning into a more traditional career and becoming a father, I've become a bit enamored with time management.

I love finding ways to be more effective and efficient. Much of this inspiration has come from following Tim Ferriss' work. If its something that "tickles your fancy" as well, I would highly recommend reading The 4 hour Workweek, 4 Hour Chef, 4 Hour Body and his podcast.

Much of his content centers around experimentation across various disciplines to extrapolate the elements that make top performers so successful. I've been able to implement a lot of this in my training, career and day-to-day life.

Basically if you do something long enough, trends emerge. By analyzing these trends (ones that work and ones that don't) you can determine what particular behaviors and actions yield the best results.

One of my big takeaways has been embracing the necessity of experimentation. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so its hard for me to let go of trying to get it right the first time. Stop overthinking and just do it already! Just use a little common sense of course.

We learn the most from getting out there and screwing up a bunch of times first. If success was measured solely by the number of times one crashes and burns, I'd probably be sitting up there with Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Francis by now. Surprising I hadn't caught on to this a little earlier.

To be fair, I've embraced and had success with much of this when it comes to training and nutrition, but I did a lot of dumb stuff for a lot of years before I saw the success I wanted. Probably from age 14-25 if I'm being completely honest with myself. I'm just surprised I haven't applied more of it in other areas of life.

If I were to give one piece of advice on how to make this work for you, it would be this:

WRITE SHIT DOWN

Like, a lot of shit. Your training log, nutrition, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, activity at work, whatever. There's no way you will know what works best until you have gathered a decent amount of data to draw conclusions from.

Now do I write everything down? Hell no. I'm not a lunatic. I don't have time for all that, but I am diligent about my training log and keeping a journal. This gives me a good amount of data to pull from. Plus its good to get it all on paper so it's not floating around upstairs.

Practical fitness example: Lets say you trained hard for 12 weeks and your squat went up 30 pounds. A smart person would have kept a fairly detailed training log the entire time. If you didn't, you have no data to determine how you accomplished this. So how will you replicate this to continue getting those "gainz"?

Same thing with nutrition. If you lost or gained 20lbs depending on your goal, how will you continue that if you didn't keep some kind of food and activity log?

This isn't anything revolutionary. Its just science, yo. So start writing some stuff down. Log your data, analyze it, and draw some conclusions.

Now for this week's training.

Training Log

Sunday - Full Body

1A. Handstand holds - 3x60sec
1B. Front Levers - 3x10sec

2A. KB Swing - 60# x4x20
2B. Suspension Push Ups - 4x15

3A. Suspension Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (RFESS) - 3x20
3B. Chin Ups - 15, 10, 5

4A. Suspension Tricep Ext. - 3x10-15
4B. Toes to Bar - 3x10

Tuesday - Lower Body

1. Deficit Deadlift (3")
135x5
225x5
275x5
315x5
3x5 @ 355

2. Front Squat
3x10 @ 175
175 w/ 5 sec pause x 5,3,2

3A. Back Raise - 3x20
3B. RKC Plank

Friday - Upper Body

1. Slingshot Bench (*no slingshot)
45x10*
135x8*
185x6*
225x4*
245x5*
285x3
315x5
315x3,2 (cluster)

2. DB Bench - 80x4x10

3A. Incline Chest Fly - 2x15
3B. Neutral Chins - 4x8

4. Wide T-bar row - 2x12

5A. Straight Leg Dead Bugs - 3x10 each
5B. Reverse Curl - 3x12

Thoughts on "Early Fatherhood" and This Week's Training

Nothing really prepares you for being a dad. We're all (hopefully) taught through life that success is about good preparation. I feel especially strong about preparation due to my time in the fitness industry. To achieve optimal results, one should really have some type of plan/program to follow.  "Fail to plan and plan to fail". Otherwise you can expect mediocre results at best. You think Peyton Manning and Cam Newton are just going to "wing it" next Sunday?

Prepartaion, at least in early fatherhood, pretty much goes out the window. Babies are some of the most unpredictable beings that exist. I thought my wife was unpredictable. Then my son came along. "How are you hungry again?". "Are you ever going to sleep though the night?"

Fatherhood is an incredible, amazing experience. It's also pretty daunting.

Prior to Peyton's arrival, many told me parenthood was a "game changer" or "show stopper". Even those terms don't quite cut it. Your life truly isn't your own anymore. Simply leaving the house for a couple hours seems like a tall order. Don't even get me started on sleep. How did everything change so quickly? It's still early, but I'm learning you just roll with it and develop new routines and systems that work.

I find myself reflecting on my time as a trainer. Many of my clients were busy parents needing my sage advice.

I asked them to do what? "You really need to get 6 hours of exercise per week". "Track all your macros". Piece of cake right? Sure Matt.

I'm not saying its impossible, just a lot harder than I knew then. Now here I am in their shoes. Sleep deprived and irritable. Its even worse for Jodie. All the pumping and feedings have her pretty pooped. She is amazing.

Speaking of irritable I'm definitely not myself at times. Patience is at an all time low. My co-workers probably think I'm an asshole. Oh well. I think I get a pass on this one. Any  parent has gone through some degree of all this.

All this said, fatherhood is awesome. All the sacrifice and change is totally worth it. There is nothing like coming home to that little bundle of joy every day and seeing him smile.

I can't wait for what the future has in store.

Training Log

As previously mentioned, I take a very minimal approach to training as far as exercise selection in concerned. I have 1 hour max to train at the gym Tuesdays and Thursdays and train 1-2 days at home in my garage. I know what is going to yield maximum results for my time investment so I stick to that. If I spend 40 minutes in the squat rack I know that is time well spent rather than wasting time moving equipment around and changing stations. This is whats known as "training economically". I'm also get shit for sleep so my energy levels aren't exactly stellar.

Training in the garage has been fun because the minimal equipment has inspired me to try some new stuff like front levers, L-sits, handstand push ups and other gymnastic movements.

Sunday - Full Body

1A. Handstand holds - 3x60sec + 1 push up (I've found I really suck at handstand push ups. I can only do 2.)
1B. Front Levers - 3x10sec of shitty looking front levers. Definitely need some practice here.

2A. KB Swing - 60# x3x20
2B. Suspension Push Ups - 3x15

3A. Suspension Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (RFESS) - 3x15-20
3B. Chin Ups - 15, 10, 5

4A. Suspension Tricep Ext. - 3x10-15
4B. Toes to Bar - 3x10

5, 1-1-2 Hammer Curls - 1x however many I could do.

Tuesday - Lower Body

1. High Bar Squat (beltless)
2x10 @ 45
135x5
185x5
225x5
245x5
275x5
315x2x5
205x4x10

2. Prone Ham Hurl - 4x10
3. Abs & Calves

Thursday - Upper Body

1. Close Grip Bench
45x10
135x5
185x5
205x5
230x3x5
185x2x10

2A. Seated DB OH Press
50x2x10
50x12
2B. Neutral Chins - 3x10

3. 1 Arm DB Row - 100x2x10

4. Triceps & Abs

Its a Bird! Its a Plane! Its a...Post?

Yes, its a post. I'm still alive and well. I wasn't abducted by aliens....or was I?

It may come as no surprise that I've been extremely busy and focused on other matters over the last year or so. I've become a father, which is awesome, and the new career has been progressing well. With all the life changes I felt it best that I take a break from writing altogether.

Lately I've been doing some reflection and realized that I missed writing. I'm very introspective (aka I think a lot), so I find it therapeutic to put my thoughts to paper. The difference moving forward is this time, I want to focus more on writing about what I'm passionate about and less on being so informative. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy dropping the occasional knowledge bomb or two, but letting things flow more organically will be a good thing.

Obviously fitness is a huge part of who I am, but what else "floats my boat"? I'm a pretty simple guy, so the list is limited to family, good food, beer, sports and binge watching TV. So that's what I'll write about. More of a weekly journal/topic on my thoughts as a lifter, father, husband, and nerd included with my training journal. Then I'll go from there. Super simple.

Training

With all the new responsibilities and changes, my training has become very minimalist. Not that this was a huge change anyway. I've always found less is more. I'm currently perform 2 heavy training sessions/week in the gym and do GPP style workouts at home in the garage. I think most busy folks can and should train this way. You have plenty of time to recover so you don't feel beat up. There is also no time for bullshit exercises. As long as you show up and work hard, progress will still be made.

Tuesday - Lower Body

1. Deficit Deadlift (3") - 3x3 @ 375
2. Conventional Deadlift (touch & go) - 375x10
3. Front Squat - 4x10 @ 165

4A. Back Raise - 3x20
4B. Stir The Pot - 3x10 each way
5. Misc Calves

Thursday - Upper Body Focus

1. Slingshot Bench - 280x9, 280x(5, 3, cluster set)
2. DB Bench - 75x4x10

3A. Incline Chest Fly - 2x15
3B. Chins (various grips) - 3x10
4. Wide T-bar row - 2x12

5A. Hanging Straight Leg Raise - 3x15
5B. Reverse Curl - 2x15