Home-Based Strength & Fitness For Middle-Aged Men: Dadbod Session #2

Short, intense, home-based strength and fitness workouts are a great way for busy Dads to fit in the physical training they need. I’ve put up an example of this on the blog previously.

Here's another example of what I mean.

It is a simple session that works all the major muscle groups of your body in a way that elevates your heart rate to provide a fitness benefit, too.

Total time: 20 minutes

Equipment: One kettlebell (reasonably heavy - for you - such that you’re somewhat tired after 20 swings) AND two moderately heavy dumbbells.

Instructions: Move through exercises 1 to 4 with no breaks. After exercise 4, take a 40s breather (longer if you really, really need it). Then start again at exercise 1.

Exercise 1: Dumbbell Thrusters - 10 reps

Exercise 2: Kettlebell Swings - 20 reps

Exercise 3: Push-ups (on your knees if needed) - 10 reps

 Exercise 4: Single Arm Dumbbell Row (with elbow support) - 10 reps per arm

Check out this video for how to do the exercises.

 This workout will be quite hard, but the duration is short. You ought to be huffing, puffing and sweating after a few minutes.

 Here's why this sort of workout is so great for busy Dads and middle-aged men:

1. It requires minimal time and minimal equipment. If you factor in getting changed beforehand, then cooling down, having a shower and getting dressed afterwards, you could knock this on the head in 40 minutes (perfect for a lunch break actually). Compare that to driving to a gym to do a similar workout, and this session emerges as the clear front runner in terms of time efficiency.

2. While not perfect for building fitness, strength or muscle mass, this sort of session does a really great job at improving these three things when compared to doing nothing, or doing more optimal sessions inconsistently. 

3. The exercises map very well onto the sorts of tasks you probably need to be strong for - like lifting and carrying - and they can help strengthen your back, which means you can attack physical work with gusto.

4. These sessions can help you out a great deal with gaining fitness and strength. They also facilitate burning lots of energy and building muscle - both of which can help you to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

5. Training this way can be really fun! (Well, I like it anyway). These workouts can be a good way to tap into beast mode.

Drawbacks of these sort of workouts:

1. It can be really hard to motivate yourself to do home based exercise because of the potential for interruptions or distractions.

2. Sometimes the dynamics in a marriage are not conducive to home based exercise. It's possible your wife may resent this time investment, thinking you should be doing jobs instead. Maybe you've spent your time poorly in the past, so her reservations are justified? Maybe not. To make meaningful progress, one idea is to propose you do two, 20-minute workouts per week for a month and then you can both review things after that.