A 8 Week Training Routine For Busy Dads & Mums
How To Train With Minimal Equipment and Minimal Time
I am a dad to a 3 year old girl and I don’t have time to workout. When I say this while writing a fitness blog then It might sound like a contradiction.
You may think “Why the hell is this guy writing about fitness if he himself doesn’t have time” to do this ?
However, it’s the truth. Being a Dad and having a full time job makes it near to impossible to train , eat right and have a specific fitness related goal. The same goes for my wife as well.
There was a time when we did hit the gym 5 days a week, ate clean every time maintained workout log and all. Things changed when our daughter was born.
Taking care of her and managing our work took a large chunk of our life and it is the same till date. With all this going on working out for 45 mins a day, 5 days a week, eating right everyday and “goal specific” training became very very difficult for us.
Two years back I left my gym and started working out at home to save some cost because you know you have to save money to tend to other needs of life. I think the dads and mums who are reading this can relate.
Even now I couldn’t buy myself sufficient weight plates and other exercise equipment because you know how sometimes expenses grows up.
Earlier I used to have a specific goal whenever I trained . Be it training for muscle gain, strength gain or getting shredded.
Now, I can’t be the most shredded or strongest out there. Let’s face it this is the reality. Being a dad or mum is a full time commitment and training at your top level is not a priority for us.
Does this mean that you need to stop training? or does this mean that you can’t be healthy , strong or reasonably lean?
No, it doesn’t mean all that and this is what I am going to show you in this article.
The Training
I know how busy all of you are. I mean it’s in the title of this article.. right?
So, I will jump straight to the point.
The goal of this article is not to make you the leanest, strongest or fastest. This article is meant to get you back on track and give you an example of how you can still train with reasonable goals while being a parent and managing work.
The idea is simple here.
- Bodyweight exercises will be a big chunk of almost every workout.
- We will train for strength but it won’t be on the same lines like hitting a PR of 200 lbs in deadlift. You don’t have sufficient equipment at home, remember?
- This is not a rapid fat loss training because training for fat loss requires lot more commitment than you or me can have currently.
Keeping all these points in mind I have designed the following template.
- Short, intense workout- Workouts won’t be more than 20 to 30mins long. If you have more time by all means go ahead and modify the template to suit your time and need.
- Movement dominant training- We will focus on movements. Any strength component of this training will be “strength” gain in that particular movement. For example, if you are doing pushups then our goal is to become stronger in pushups.
- Conditioning focused workout- Traditional cardio requires time investment. It’s expensive for us. So, we will focus on conditioning instead. However if you have time and love to do running or other forms of cardio then by all means do it.
The Plan
Without much ado here is a sample plan →
Week1-Strength Focus
Day1-Mobility/strength
The focus of day 1 is on strength and mobility. Here is a the exercise breakup →
a) Mobility(5mins) — Do the mobility drills you like. The focus is to prep yourself for the upcoming exercises of the day.
b) Explosive pushups 5 reps EMOM 10mins — Do 5reps for every minute. If you complete all 5 reps before the 1min timer completes then you rest for the remaining time.
c) Box single legged squats 5 reps 10mins — This will be the same as above. The focus of this exercise is to build your single leg strength while teaching you single legged squat. I am not good at visually explaining exercises. So, here is a video to assist you.
- Day2- Mobility/Conditioning
The focus of day 2 is improving your conditioning. This will prep you for the workouts in the upcoming days of this routine. Here are the exercise breakup →
a) Mobility 5mins — Do the mobility work which you like.
c) Animal flow 20mins — Once again I will guide you to a video demonstrating a sample of animal flow movements.
- Day3- Mobility/Hypertrophy
On Day 3 you will focus on mobility as well as hypertrophy. The day wise breakup is as under →
a) Mobility 5mins
b) Dips/inverted row 3*10 — This is going to be a superset. Move back and forth the exercises without rest for a complete set. After each superset take 30–40 secs break.
c) Plate front raises 3*10 — Here is video guide.
b) Paused bodyweight squats 3*8 — During every rep of a bodyweight squat pause half-a-way of the squat movement for 5 secs and then move up. This completes 1 rep. Continue this for 8 more reps for 3 sets.
c) Zercher squats 2*8 — I will better show you a video rather than painting a visual picture.
I think you get the idea by now right? Each day we are focusing on a different accept. One day the focus is on Hypertrophy, the other day it’s on conditioning and so on. Now the question is how this program moves ahead in coming weeks?
Well! here’s how.
Week2- Power Focus
- Day1-Mobility/Power
a) Mobility- 5mins
b) Paused clean grip pull- 5 reps EMOM, 10 mins . During the clean grip pull pause for 5 secs. Here is a video showing clean grip pulls without pause.
c) Wall assisted Handstand pushups — 5 reps EMOM, 10mins
- Day 2-Mobility/Conditioning
a) mobility- 5 mins
b) 50 rope jumps
c) 10 reps knee tuck jumps.
d) 50 rope jumps
c) 10 frog jumps
d) 50 situps
e) 50 leg raises
f) 50 side-to-side twists
- Day3 — Mobility/Power/Hypertrophy
a) Mobility — 5mins
b) Muscle snatch 5*5
b) 50 dips
c) 30 sandwich press
d) 50 triceps dips
e) 30 bodyweight triceps extension
f) 50 good mornings
g) 50 sissy squats
h) 50 close stance glute bridge
Week 3- Hypertrophy Focus
Day1 mobility/hypertrophy-
a) Mobility — 5mins
b) 10 reps reverse lunges 5mins EMOM(holding barbell in front squat position).
c) Barbell row — 3*10
d) 50 v-ups
Day2 mobility/conditioning-
a) 50 rope jumps
b) 20 steps bear crawls
c) 20 knee yuck jumps
d) 50 rope jumps
Day3- mobility/power/strength-
a) mobility -5 mins
b) muscle snatch 5 reps 10 mins EMOM
c) snatch grip paused deadlift 5 reps EMOM(pause at knee level)
Week4- Conditioning
- Day1- mobility/conditioning
Repeat for 20 mins as many times as u can
a) 50 rope jumps
b) 50 frog jumps
c) 50 rope jumps
- Day2- mobility/power/strength
a) Landmine side-to-side lateral squat
b) landmine goblet lateral squat
c) landmine lateral lunge
d) barbell lateral carry
- Day3- mobility/hypertrophy/conditioning
a) mobility — 5mins
b) kneeling landmine press 50 reps
c) landmine rows
d) squat cleans/push press complex- 5reps, 4 rounds.
Till now you get the idea how the first four weeks would go. In the coming 4 weeks you would improve yourself on the exercises which you had done in the last 4 weeks time. This could be either improvement in the number of reps or increasing the number of sets you had done since the last 4 weeks.
The exercises in which you were able to do the total number of prescribed sets, reps, you can try to complete those number of sets and reps in lesser time then you took in the previous 4 weeks.
Conclusion
Like I always say, nothing is written in stone and this routine is also not engraved in stone. You don’t need to follow the exercises line by line. I have provided a template which I had followed and you can either use it as it is or else you can include the exercises which suits your needs.
