First things first, big thank you for all the free knowledge you are sharing here and all other platform. I am learning a lot since I am following you.
Secondly, I would be curious what training principles or tips you would recommend to a father of 2 under 3, plus demanding office job. I have been sleep deprived for years now, irritable, low drive, frequently sick etc. I took the test twice, type3 without a doubt. Anytime I tried to do a serious (heavy) workout, I was wrecked after.
I am lucky enough to have a bench and couple sets of dumbells at home, and a fully equipped gym at my workplace for free, so circumstances are there.
My main goal is to be a fit, functional and aesthetic father and husband. Thank you, sincerely appreciate if you share your view.
Coming from another Type 3, I can’t stress enough how important sleep is. For me, sleep is crucial especially as a type 3. I have a bedtime routine that helps me get a certain amount of sleep, within a reasonable range of course. Take care of sleep and yourself mentally first. Good luck!
Can not agree more! I was always a big sleeper, easy to fall asleep. But since the kids were born, even though we still get like 7 hours a night, it is interrupted several times. As years went by like this, now I sleep awake always, which sucks. Guess it will be normal again as they grow…
I have 3 kids 5 and under and what helped us was sleep training. They sleep in their own beds. Only our 10 months old wakes up once a night sometimes. Otherwise they all sleep all night long.
How is your diet? When do you eat in relation to training? Do you use lots of caffeine or stimulants pre-workout?
You didn’t give a lot of info, but if you’re not already ,I would think about;
Getting More healthy fats in your diet, Never training fasted and making sure to get some nutrients in really close to training, and Avoiding stimulants.
Also, you might need to start kinda easy for a couple weeks to build up your fitness before you jump into a “Serious” workout. If you’ve been sleep deprived and training has been poor for years, you may need to rebuild your base of conditioning.
We intentionally working on their sleep, and it is getting better, but this is only one aspect. Having kids is not easy, day and night, and I can see myself having low tolerance and capacity for these tasks compared to others, nevertheless I give my all and my best.
I have always needed my sleep, alone time, silence for charging up and staying in balance, and it is absolutely off this years. I just wanted to know how can I tailor my training, not to dig a bigger hole for myself, but to somehow improve:)
I am tracking calories (shooting for maintenance) but not macros, I would say 60%-70% whole food sources. Given the amount of stress, it is impossible to stay 100% clean.
Caffeine is around 2-300mg daily, otherwise I am not functional at my job, it is for simply making up for the lack of sleep. Every once in a while I get to sleep deep, I almost immediately feel the difference, and drink less coffee that day.
I am implementing the nutritional strategies that CT is sharing in his youtube video for type3, it helps. Work capacity took a huge dive, if I try to increase intensity or getting close to failure even on one set, I feel drained.
I am in a slightly similar situation, but presented it more vaguely in this thread. Hopefully you can pick up some advice here, as I found it really uplifting. It truly is some fine fellow trainees on here!
A friend of mine is 100% a type 3, also father of 2, and he train 3x/Week, very very few sets to failure, and he follow the planned progression everytime 100%.
Exemple for the bench Press or compound movement :
W1. 10-10-10-10@80kg
W2. 10@82kg 10-10-10@80kg
W3. 10-10@82kg 10-10@80kg
…
Or for isolation movement :
W1. 10-10-10-10@30kg
W2. 11-10-10-10@30kg
W3. 11-11-10-10@30kg
… to 15 and then he had weight and start again
The progression is planned for weeks, no training to failure (he start his cycle at RPE 7). He follows this plan for 3 years, great progress and his physique shows it !
That is very clear cut and simple, I like it, thanks for sharing:)
When I was not stressed (like 5 years ago), I was a pure 2B, go by the feel, did not like numbers and the pressure to do certain amount of weight. I read from CT, that when you become stressed, you move to the right on the spectrum, which explains why the test result was highest on type3 (2B was still decent, others are low).
This is a nice progression routine - but there will be a lot of sets when adding muscle groups to complete a workout, no matter type of split. Lot of sets means need for more time to train. This can result in a hard time keeping consistency.
That being said, if you do 1-2 muscle groups a day, you may be able to do a 30 min workout. Keep in mind this is just my opinions based on my tired state as a father of 3 small kids.
Same thinking here, I always come to the conclusion that I should samehow train almost everyday (smart way), because this way I can minimize invested time and effort per session.
That looks like a managable split to me, thanks for sharing! Training everyday would be possible only at home, which is a madhouse at the moment:)
I figured a 2 day split, with lower emphasis on legs:
Great thread.
I have 4 kids, oldest is 8,and i sometimes say “i haven’t slept in 8 years!”
The older 3 are fine now but the youngest doesn’t sleep well.
I use a lot of caffeine lol.
I think something like this would be my go-to in your situation. It’s frequent, but short and there’s no “must hit this number” type progressions. When sleep and life is unpredictable, I far prefer the habit of just knocking out “easier” sessions each day to having less frequent but “more important” sessions. What if you only have two sessions a week, and one of them you didn’t sleep at all and have a hugely stressful work day?