Fitness & Fatherhood Part 3: Sleepless Nights and the Garage Gym Advantage
It’s been tough the past few months trying to workout while not always getting a lot of sleep. Anyone who knows anything about working out will tell you the most important part of the workout is recovery, and the best way to recover is to sleep. Well if you have an infant that wakes up throughout the night that really puts a damper on recovery. Having said that I’ve been able to workout 4 days a week pretty consistently over the past couple of months.
There have been two key components that have enabled me to keep my workouts consistent:
Having a supportive wife.
Owning a garage gym.
A few years ago I decided to buy some gym equipment to put in the garage with the idea that it would make it easier to workout when we had kids. And I have to admit it has worked out great, no pun intended. I can take a deeper dive into how I built the garage gym some other time. The important thing here is that it was a big help in allowing me to workout. It did not, however, solve my sleep issue. There is really nothing I can do about that. Basically I’ve just had to stick it out even though I don’t always get enough sleep. Believe me it isn’t easy waking up at 4:45 am so I can workout when I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, but I have to workout.
My garage gym. I snapped this photo around 5:00 am just before I started my workout. This gym setup has enabled me to continue to workout over the last few months. Also, it should be noted the benefits of owning a garage gym is not only convenience, but also economic in the long term.
Note: If you’re interested in starting a garage gym then check out this link from garage-gyms.com that takes a look at the pros and cons of owning a garage gym. Gym Memberships vs a Garage Gym – The Numbers Also, check out the rest of the website since it is the best website for garage gym equipment reviews and info on the internet.
On occasion I may skip a workout because I’m just too tired. Also, Saturday and Sunday are automatically workout days which means I only have to wake up super early a couple times a week. Other than that there has been no magic solution or idea that somehow enabled me to workout. I just do it even if I’m tired. I’ve said for a long time that anything worth doing is hard, and if it’s easy then everyone would do it. At some point you just have to suck it up and get it done. I guess the only thing I’ve really changed is that I’ll lower the intensity of the workout if I’m super tired.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been able to make up for some of the gains that I lost during the first couple of weeks of being a father, which has been great. And, overall things have been getting better as my daughter has started to sleep a little longer during the night. So things are definitely looking up. Hope everyone enjoyed reading. See you soon.
