Time is short for most people. With a new baby, it’s even harder to get to the gym and exercise. Gone are the days of long strength and cardio sessions and more dads and dads-to-be are leaving their gyms behind and exercising from home. It makes even more sense once the new baby is home.
You need to keep you energy levels high so you can better endure long periods of little sleep.
You need to keep stay strong because you will need to handle more of the chores and manuals tasks as your wife spends half her waking hours with a baby on her breast.
My solution is to keep my workouts short and intense, enabling me to stay refreshed and strong. By restricting myself to shorter workouts (often 20-30 minutes, sometimes shorter) I run out of excuses.
If you are new to this style of exercise, or are looking for inspiration, below you will find some ideas to get started and branch off of.
Tools
Dumbbells or Kettlebells. I prefer kettlebells as the shape makes it easier to move between exercises. Dumbbells, on the others hand, are adjustable and allow you use a greater variety of weight in one workout. For the workouts below I’d recommend sticking with one weight for the entire session. Great exercises to use:
- Swings, Snatches, Clean and Press, Squats, Lunges, Rows, Turkish Getups
Jump Rope. This is a great conditioning tool to use as active rest between set or as an Anchor (described below).
Pullup Bar. This is optional, but opens up vast possibilities in strength development.
Body. This is your best tool for most workouts. When using external resistance, I like to keep to simple variations of the following movements:
- Pushups, Burpees, Squats, Lunges, Jumps
Because short workouts need to have a balance of activity and rest, you should also have some sort of timer. There are a number of free ones online. The best type of timer allows you to cycle between two intervals, so you don’t have to keep pressing reset and start every time it beeps. I recommend the GymBoss trainer. The best $20 you’ll ever spend on your health.
Methods
There are countless ways to workout in short time periods. Below are a few of my favourite.
Straight Sets. This is just as it sounds. Pick a few exercises that cover the whole body (such as upper push, upper pull, lower push, and lower pull). Then just complete each exercise for a pre-determined number of sets and reps.
Endurance sets. Very similar to straight sets. The only difference is that you pick one exercise and keep going until you reach the desired total. I use this method to test myself on some key exercises. Examples are 500 Swings or 50 Pullups in as many sets as needed.
Timed Circuits. This is my favourite method and one that can be great demanding. The GymBoss timer is perfect for this purpose. Choose an activity period (ex. 60 seconds) and a rest period (ex. 30 seconds). Then choose a few exercises. For each exercise, go hard for a minute, then rest thirty seconds before moving on to the next. Keep repeating the circuit until you’re done. You will know when you’re done.
Rounds for Time. This is a combination of straight sets and circuits. Choose a set period of time, such as 30 minutes. The pick a few exercises that cover the whole body and group them into a circuit. Try to complete as many of these circuits as possible in the set period of time.
Anchoring. This is my second favourite method of organizing a workout. Using the Timed Circuit method, pick one exercise as an ‘anchor’, such as the Jump Rope or Swings. Then choose a few other exercises that target other parts of the body and alternate for as many rounds as desired. I’ll show an example of this below.
Putting It All Together
Let’s lay out three workouts that use the tools and methods described above to illustrate the effectiveness of short, intense workouts. You can complete all of these at home without causing much of a disturbance for the wife and little one. Or just wait until they’re both out on a walk.
Example 1 – Timed Circuits
60 seconds work, 30 seconds rest; Complete 5 rounds total
- Swings
- Pushups
- Clean and Press
Perform each exercise for 60 seconds; rest 30 seconds, and then move on to the next. Once you complete one round, start again at the beginning. Keep going until 5 rounds are completed.
Example 2 – Rounds For Time
Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes
- Pullups x 3 reps
- Pushups x 6 reps
- Goblet Squats x 9 reps
Keep going through all this circuit as many times as you can in 20 minutes. Rest as needed. Goblet Squats are performed by cradling dumbbell or kettlebell vertically in front of your chest, basically as you were holding onto a very large goblet.
Example 3 – Anchoring
60 seconds work, 30 seconds rest; Complete 5 rounds total
- Jump Rope
- Squats
- Jump Rope
- Pushups
- Jump Rope
- Swings
- Jump Rope
- Burpees
As with Example 1, perform each movement for 60 seconds and rest for 30 seconds before moving on to the next movement. As you can see, this method involves using one movement as the “anchor” and arranging the others around it. This is a very simple example and there are countless ways to “anchor” movements. I like using this method when I want to focus on one exercise in a session, but still get a great full body workout.
There you have it. Endless combinations are possible to keep you going until the baby is in its teens. You can progress over time by shortening rest periods, lengthening work periods, using more demanding exercises, or increasing the load used.
Posted by Neil 
