Time, where it’s gone and what I’m doing about it!

Time, Time and Time…… Something every parent warns that you will soon become short of, but still not expecting it to be so.

Yes, since the last post we welcomed our gorgeous daughter, Piper, to the world. The last four weeks have been a whirlwind of joy, tiredness, fear, frustration, happiness, love and every other emotion a person can have. One thing I can say is that no matter how many sleepless nights, poo explosions or seemingly eternal ages of un-settledness, all it takes is a few seconds of staring into her precious eyes or watching her snuggled up for a sleep and it’s all completely worth it. If you ever read this one day Piper, just know that although I’m nearly certain you are a spawn of the devil, I love you like crazy and I wouldn’t change a thing!

Back to time though and with the arrival of Piper I have obviously taken on more around the house to help out and It’s crazy to think how adding a few extra little chores can deplete your afternoon before you know it. I have come to the realisation that I was blessed with an abundance of time that I had grossly under-utilised previously and now find it to be a rare commodity. Before Piper I would dilly dally around in the afternoon with no haste, make my way to the shed (gym) and spend more time than necessary reading workout stuff, warming up (if I could call it that),  watching YouTube clips, chatting to Amy or whoever was over for the day and just generally wasting time before getting into the main workout. Oh those were the days hahahaha.

I spent a few days while I was off on Paternal leave really thinking about my goals and the time I now have to work on them. I had to be honest with myself about what I can achieve in the time allotted and how much of my spare time I wanted to spend in the gym and not with the family, although I foresee this as a form of family time once Amy is rested and ready and Piper is old enough to start learning.

After thinking and toying with ideas, these are the 3 options I came up with:

1. Minimise my training to just a maintenance style 30-45 min program and look to pick up my goals in 12months or so.
2. Continue what I am doing.
3. Keep a similar amount of volume with some tweaks to when I train.

Option 1 came from a podcast I listened to (Don’t ask me to recall it as I listen to so many every week that I can never remember what I have learnt from which one) that went through training programs from the average joe to a games competitor. The guest was talking about how a lot of the population, who have no interest in competing in any serious competitions, rarely need to do more than an hour a day of a well rounded program for good general health and wellbeing. This stuck in my mind for a bit and had me asking myself whether I was really going to have a hard crack at competing because if I wasn’t then a minimised program would do me just fine. Cue my crazy competitive side and this wasn’t really an option. I just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have some tough goals to strive for. Don’t get me wrong, I do this because I want to be healthy and fit but I also want to be really really good hahaha

Option 2 would be nice and easy but no one ever grows by following the nice and easy. That and I just wouldn’t be the husband or father that I want to be if I spent all afternoon in the gym.

This leaves option 3…. I sat down, really looked at what I wanted to achieve in the next 6 months, researched programs and programming and came up with a new plan. I needed a simple, effective and time efficient strength program to follow and after much deliberating I settled on One Man One Barbell by End of Three Fitness ( www.endofthreefitness.com ). OMOB is a 4 lift per week, 4 week cycle ( 1 lift per day only taking around 45min) and seems to be the best fit for my current situation. I’ll know if that’s the case in three months anyway. Apart from the strength portion I needed a good conditioning plan and I have decided that self programming will be the best option for me at the moment. It is something I have wanted to get into since starting my journey and I guess now is the time. I have a lot of learning, studying, practicing and perfecting ahead of me but I’m really looking forward to it. Programming for myself will give me a bit more freedom on time and I can tailor it completely to my goals over the coming months. This chapter of my fitness career has me really excited.

The other decision for option 3 was to split the strength and Metcon (Metabolic Conditioning) training into AM and PM. I have always tried to do both in the afternoon but this led to those long, drawn out session I alluded to earlier. I will now follow my strength program (One Man One Barbell) at 4:30am since this is a time of day that won’t affect my family or chore time. That leaves just a warm up + skills session and a Metcon in the PM and becomes a much more desirable schedule for our new life.

My new schedule will look like this:

Monday AM – OMOB (One Man One Barbell) Squat/ PM WOD

Tuesday AM – OMOB Overhead Press then Swim session/ PM Classic CF WOD

Wednesday AM – Rowing session/ PM Sprint session or Sport

Thursday AM – OMOB Deadlift then Swim session/ PM WOD

Friday only PM OMOB Bench then a Strongman or OCR session

Saturday – Complete rest day

Sunday – P.A.W + WOD for competition preparation

I have currently set myself three 4 week cycles of this which will lead directly into the CrossFit Open in February and then I will re assess my goals from there. My next major goal after the Open will be to compete in the WODSTOCK competition in Brisbane in April and competing live is something I am really looking forward to!

Another of my more important goals is to continue to grow The Pride Active so that’s something else I need to continue putting time into weekly. I may get a bit slower with the blogs but I will keep delivering content on our social media pages and have started filming more for our Youtube page so please follow the link and subscribe to keep up to date. We started this project to help people and learn together so if you have any feedback or things you’re interested in learning then please don’t hesitate to contact us so we can make this thing great!!!!

I could have looked at this whole thing with a negative mindset, shut down and given up on my goals completely. Instead I will welcome the challenge of finding and implementing a new way to achieve them.  I have an opportunity to learn new skills in time management, programming and goal setting which will only help me on my road to becoming a better athlete, human, husband and father.

What I guess I’m trying to say here is that if something means a lot to you then you will find a way to make time to fit it into your life. There is no such thing as no time, it’s just what you make a priority. If you find yourself saying “I just don’t have time for that” a lot then I would suggest doing as I did and having a serious look at where your time currently goes and what you want to prioritise in your life. Do you really need to watch another episode of that show you’re hooked on or would you rather study that thing you have always wanted to but never “found” the time to do it. You may just find you have a lot more time than you think!

Hell even with all of this change I have managed to find time to write this blog so that’s already a small win!!

Anyway that’s enough from me today and I really hope you can take something away from this to apply to your challenges.

Thanks again for all the support

Dice

P.s I am currently 2 weeks into the new program and I’m not going to lie, the early mornings have been tough to maintain. I will keep striving though!!