Get A New Body In 60 Minutes Per Week?

One of the biggest adjustments you have to make once Junior is born is the complete lack of time you now have to do usual bloke stuff, like workout.

It sounds a bit trite seeing it on paper or on a screen and, if you’re not yet a Dad, you probably think it’s all fine and you’ll deal with it as-and-when.

Which is a perfectly good approach.

But if I was having my time again, I’d pay heed to this and try to do something to prepare me for the apocalypse.

Pre-baby things kind of go like this. Get up, hang out with the Doris, exercise with the Doris (if she’s sporty this can be for hours which is a major bonus), go for brunch, read the papers, watch some sport, mooch around some shops, meet friends for drinks, watch a movie or go out with friends.

It may not be exactly like that but you get the drift.

Post-baby, this heady idyll no longer exists, you hear me?

Your time is no longer yours.

In case you didn’t hear me, Ill say it again: YOUR TIME IS NO LONGER YOURS.

Well, not unless you want to be some kind of absent Father who ain’t there to watch your kids grow up.

[On the above – I’m feeling this for just a few months and believe me, it sucks more than you can imagine. Not recommended – you feel c*ntish].

And the weird thing is doing what on the surface seems like nothing – feeding the baby, changing the baby, soothing the baby, bathing the baby, all on the face of it fifteen minute tasks (or less) – take up your entire life.

At first I thought this was just me being a shit parent, not cut out for this line of work.

But I hear the same thing from everyone I speak to: big Alpha males who manage a team of 100 employees; smooth-groove operators who never seem flustered by anything; entrepreneurial types who have many fingers in many pies; Super Fit Dad subscribers who email me or respond to surveys.

The struggle of new fatherhood doesn’t discriminate, brother.

Anyone I speak to faces the same challenges. And the knock-on effects can be damaging in terms of not having the time or motivation to exercise and the feelings and mindset that can create.

I recently asked a group of Dads what is the one thing they would change about their lives right now and 37% said their body or their weight was the #1 thing.

So given that we have a perfect storm of limited time and negative self-image and frustration with our bodies, is there a remedy?

Yep, there sure is.

I think an hour of intelligent exercise per week could be enough to arrest weight gain, reduce body fat and start to build muscle or, at least, firm up and strengthen our upper bodies.

The Perfect 60 Minutes Of Workouts

Here’s how:

Minutes 0-5        Sprints

Minutes 5-10      Sprints

10 rounds of 15 second sprints followed by 15 seconds rest gives you a massive fat-burning boost as well as a solid all-body workout.

You need a stopwatch, phone with a timer or just a watch with second hand.

Start the time, sprint the width of a football pitch and rest for the remainder of 30 seconds.

Do this 10 times for a total of 5 minutes twice per week.

Sprinting has no equal amongst exercises for Dads.

But hardly anybody does it because a) it’s freakin’ hard, and b) you’re a bit scared of looking a twat in the park.

My message is this: looking a knob in the park to people who don;t know who you are is a tiny price to pay for creating a fat-torching engine that works for hours after you’ve finished your 5 minutes of sprinting based on the principle of Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption.

Onto The Next Part

Minutes 10-14    Tabata 1

Minutes 14-18    Tabata 2

Minutes 20-24    Tabata 3

Minutes 24-28    Tabata 4

The Tabata (click link for description of the Tabata protocol) we know and use now is a far cry from what Dr Izumi Tabata devised for speed-skaters but the fact remains that it works and delivers massive results.

We’re going to do two Tabata workouts each week, each one featuring 2 Tabatas, with 1 minute rest between each one.

Now, and this is where it starts to get a bit spicy, at the end of our little workout of 2 Tabatas, we’re going to rest for 1 minute and then go straight into a finisher of 1 minute of kick-sits.

Ain’t it fun and glorious?

Now, if you’re confused, the workout/s will look like this:

Workout 1

Tabata 1 (4 mins)

Rest 1 min

Tabata 2 (4 mins)

Rest 1 min

1 min Max Kick-Sits

Workout 2

Tabata 1 (4 mins)

Rest 1 min

Tabata 2 (4 mins)

Rest 1 min

1 min Max Kick-Sits

You can pick your own exercises but try the following if you’re stuck.

Tabata 1 – push-ups, jumping squats, mountain climbers, sit-ups

Tabata 2 – squats, burpees, hand-release push-ups, sit-ups

All of that jazz brings us up to 29 minutes of actual exercising so we’re half way through our total.

If you do the sprint workout on, say, Monday and Wednesday, and the Tabata / Kick-Sit workout on Tuesday and Thursday, you’ve well on the way to uncovering a new and improved body – one that’s shedding fat well beyond the measly 5 or 10 minutes per workout.

Not Sure What A Kick-Sit is? Watch This 45 Second Video

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The Halfway Point

Wow, we’re killing it.

I promise you, you do these workouts for the first 4 days each week, you’re setting yourself up for success. And not just in terms of your health and fitness.

The knock-on effects will be off the charts.

The Next 10 Minutes

A 10 Minute EMOM (C’mon, man, you know this stands for ‘Every-Minute-On-The-Minute’ by now).

Even minutes we’re doing 10 or 12 push-ups, depending on fitness levels.

Odd minutes we’re doing 20 or 25 bodyweight squats (or air squats), again depending on fitness levels.

Do this after you get home from work on Friday, before you settle down with the family.

The Weekend

I make that 40 minutes, give or take 1 minute.

You could stop now if you like. That’s 40 minutes of hard graft for the week.

If you do this consistently for 4 weeks, I defy you to gain weight over the period. If you do, you’re working pretty hard at eating a lot. A lot of the wrong stuff.

But you don’t want to quit now. Let’s not leave anything to chance, huh?

Next Up…

Saturday

Minutes 40-45 – 5 Minute Burpee Challenge

I’m not gonna lie. This is going to suck. A lot.

But it’s a mental challenge as much as a physical one and the biggest thing is just getting started.

Don’t prepare, don’t plan, don’t psyche yourself up.

Just start, and then keep moving (no matter how slowly) for 5 minutes. It will be over before you know it.

Start the timer and perform as many burpees as you can in 5 minutes.

Record your number and aim to beat it next week. Yep, you’ll be doing this every week.

If you;re super-keen you could add another 5 minutes of sprints here to take you to 50 minutes.

Sunday

Guess what?

We’re done.

Today is a “rest” day which means get outside, run around with the kids, have fun moving around and be thankful that you are able to move around because although a lot of this shit seems to hard and you can’t be bothered half the time, there’s people who would give anything to do the kind of work that we’ve just done this week.

Like Des McFarland from our village who has a motor-neurone disease or my Mum’s friend Lisa who has been house-bound for the last 15 years or thereabouts.

Catch up on anything you’ve missed during the week because, let’s face it, sometimes life gets in the way.

The other truth is that, although I’ve prescribed 45-50 minutes of exercise here, in truth the actual time commitment is a little more because you’ll need to get loose and warmed up before a lot of these workouts.

This can be done really quickly though – 2/3 minutes of the following can everything flowing nicely:

20 seconds each of:

Jogging on spot

Jumping jacks

Air squats

Air deadlifts

Mountain climbers

Burpees

And voila, you’re ready to go. But take it steady, yeah? You’re not 21 anymore.

Conclusion

So the title of this post is somewhat disingenuous; you’re actually in for more than 60 minutes per week in total.

But I’m prepared to guarantee you this: you do the 60 minutes of work here per week for 4 weeks and there’s no way you’ll not lose some weight.

Try it and let me know how you get on.

SFD