Fitness for Dads

When you wake up in the morning, do you feel beat up, like you got hit by a freight train and you just want to roll over and go back to sleep? Is it hard to get through your day without a nap or drinking several cups of strong coffee? Do you feel like you have no energy left for your family at the end of a work day? My guest understands what this is like and joins us to talk about how you can naturally increase your energy, upgrade your fitness and improve your quality of life.

Drawing from his fifteen years of experience as a competitive powerlifter and combat sport athlete, a wilderness and hiking guide, and a dad, Josh Wood has developed a holistic approach to fitness grounded solidly in the pragmatic and the natural world.

To connect with Josh Wood, get coaching help or resources visit: https://strongforlife.online/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachjoshwood/

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Transcription - Fitness for Dads

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When you wake up in the morning, do you feel beat up?

Like you got hit by a freight train and you just want to roll over and go back to sleep?

Is it hard to get through your day without a nap, drinking several cups of coffee?

Do you feel like you have no energy left for your family at the end of the day?

My guest understands what this is like and he will join us shortly to talk about how you can naturally

increase your energy, upgrade your fitness and improve your quality of life.

So don't go anywhere.

Before we begin, I'd like to thank our proud sponsor of this episode and the Fatherhood Challenge in Genius Prep.

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proud to be officially recognized as the country's top college admissions consultants,

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Just click on the link in the episode description to book a free strategy call with one of Genius Prep's college experts

or you can visit ingeniousprep.com that's ingeniousprep.com and let them know you came from the Fatherhood Challenge.

Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere

to take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are

to the stability and culture of their family's environment.

Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.

Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.

My guest is TEDx speaker, educator and fitness expert Josh Wood.

Drawing from his 15 years of experience as a competitive powerlifter and combat sports athlete,

a wilderness hiking guide and a dad, Josh has developed a holistic approach to fitness grounded

solidly in the pragmatic and the natural world.

Josh, welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge.

Thanks for having me.

Okay, I gotta ask, what is your favorite dad joke?

A man is out of funeral for his best friend and it's obviously a very somber occasion and he steps up

and asks his best friend's wife, "Hey, do you mind if I say a word?"

And she's like, "Of course, you were his best friend."

And so he gets up in front of everyone.

He looks with great seriousness at all the crowd and the friends.

And he says, "Plessera" and steps down.

And with a tear in her eye, his best friend's wife says,

"That means a lot."

Oh, that was good.

So thank you.

Oh, that's how I like to kick things off.

Let's start with your story.

How did your fitness journey begin?

So I'm 35.

And my fitness journey started when I was 17.

I believe.

Yeah, I was 17.

So I was in Rochester, Minnesota working at a computer repair shop.

And one day I'm sitting there and I'm like,

"I am undersized, skinny kid, eating garbage all the time."

And I just had this realization like, "I don't want to be weak and scared of everything

for the rest of my life."

And so I was like, "Okay.

I'm going to learn kickboxing."

Because for whatever reason that is what the first thing that came into my head was.

And then I did some research and some looking around.

And there was nowhere to learn kickboxing.

So I was like, "Okay, well that's not going to work."

But then I found a, in Rochester, there used to be, it's closed for a bunch of years now,

but an old Irish family run boxing gym that was in an old auto shop, converted auto shop to

boxing gym. And in the corner of that gym, there was a Brazilian guy named Mario Roberto.

And he had a match on the ground.

And he had a little corner of the gym and he taught mixed martial arts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

And I started doing that.

And I mean, I'm visiting Minnesota right now, I normally live in Tasmania.

And I've known Mario for 18 years.

And every time I come to town, we catch up.

But that's where I started my interest in health and fitness.

From there, did you feel any calling to do anything else from that? Or was that just more

personally to get yourself kind of bulked up in a better shape?

Well, the bulking up didn't happen until I was in mid to late 20s.

But it was just a personal interest thing. Just like, you know what? I need to have

some physical capacity in life.

I need to not be so concerned with confrontation and doing difficult things.

I needed to be tougher. I needed to have more grit.

And I needed to be comfortable with physical altercation.

And from that, I followed that path for a number of years.

I moved around a lot. So I did that for about a year.

But that happened then.

So then I went over to the UK for about six months,

backpacking, and then came back for about six months and started up with a

martial arts club out of the community college.

And then moved to Australia and continued to train on and off as I moved around a bit,

a little bit here, a little bit there. And it was all just personal interest. But after a bit,

I was like, you know, and I need to, I want to learn more. I want to learn more about the body.

And so I started pursuing a career in massage. And I learned massage and studied that in

Rannick Clinic, like a clinic space for maybe seven years. I ended up working at a school in Melbourne

and teaching massage for about six years. And while I was in this phase of everything about

learning to work with the body and understand the body and treat the body, I then started studying

training professionally and coaching people. Because I kind of had this realization that I didn't

like working in a clinical setting where people came in and they complained about what was wrong.

But didn't want to do anything about it. I was like, nah, this is silly. And I found that in fitness

and personal training and coaching that people are in a better spot. They're there because they're

willing to do the work to make the changes that lead to the life they want. And I liked that

side of things better. And that's what I've been doing. I started coaching group classes and

personal training in 2011, 2012 somewhere around there. There are so many dads struggling with

their energy levels and not having nearly enough energy to give their family the way they would like

to. How did they start that change? It's such a big one. There's one word that answers all those

problems and it's priorities. Wow. Have to understand your priorities because you know what? And no one

likes me to say this because the internet is full of gurus who say you can do everything, but you

can't do everything. It's impossible to do everything and you always have to sacrifice something to do

another thing. And that means you need to know where your priorities are. The next question I really

was going to ask was about work balance for career dad. How do the balance physical fitness,

family and work and do all well, but it sounds like there really isn't a way to be able to make that

balance correctly. Well, you can do it correctly, but you can't do it perfectly. So the issue is,

you know, you have to understand what has to be done now and what doesn't. And one of the big things

with that is, you know, we, depending on what season of fatherhood you're in, you know, like I've

got two young kids, but when they're old enough to sort of go off inducing on their own, you have

more time, but when you're in the trenches with babies, you have to sleep, you have to eat well,

you have to do the minimum requirement to stay functional, but you're not going to, and that,

you know, everyone's different, but you're probably not going to pick up a new sport when you have a

newborn. You're probably not going to start training for a marathon, but if you can eat well and

sleep as much as you can, so you're functional and healthy, you're going to be winning. And then when

time starts to open up, then you start investing more into the areas that are most important to you.

So it really starts, it has to start first with you, your, your basic needs, good nutrition,

eating well, water, all of those things, getting as much sleep as you possibly can, depending on

if you're in the early stages, you probably aren't getting much, but getting that figured out as best

you can. And then work in your way out for outward from there, because really it sounds like if you

haven't made your own health and wellness the priority, you're not going to really have much to give

your family. Bingo. Like this, this is, this is the truth of it. And you know, to someone who's

always had too many things going on. And like I've always had a skill or athletic goal that I've

been working towards, you know, I competed in, in boxing for a number of years and powerlifting,

and I've done a bit of strong man. And last few years has been traditional archery. I used to

spearfish a lot like, you know, through seasons and things that I like to do. But when you have that

time, you could do that. But if you're not getting enough sleep, all that is not worth your time.

If you're not eating well enough to avoid the 50 pounds that new dads tend to put on,

you're, you're not prioritizing right. And you know, the first thing is sleep. If you're getting four

or five hours of sleep a day, and you're like, oh, but I'm not getting to the gym every day. It's like,

yeah, well, you need to prioritize and sleep is number one. And if you're eating garbage because

you're exhausted and stressed out all the time, the gym is the least of your worries. Preparing for

some sort of athletic endeavor is the least of your worries. Hit the basics first. Get your sleep right,

get your food right. Make sure you can recover. Make sure you can do what you have to do as a dad,

because that's priority number one. And then you can add stuff in when you have the capacity. And if

you're working a high demand a job or yourself employed like me, you know what? That's what you need

to do. Take care of your family. That means that has to take priority in most cases. But you can't do

that if you're not sleeping well and you're not eating well. So it also comes back to a quality of

life. If you're not healthy, if you're not where you need to be taking care of yourself, it's really

hard to fully appreciate your family. I mean, if you are around your family and it's in that's

supposed to be quality time, but you feel all the time like you've been hit by a freight train,

you can't really enjoy that. So that's incentive enough to want to make a big change. And sometimes

that might mean pulling back on everything else to be able to get that. But man, I mean, I would ask

dad's listening, wouldn't you want that full experience to be present and not just feel like

garbage when you're when you're around your family? Yeah, it's and this is coming from a guy who's

always picking up too many hobbies and things to do and has been self employed. He's almost my

whole adult life. It's hard when you can't be as productive as you want to be and can't be

accomplishing all the things that you feel like you need to do as a man. But and this, you know,

take taking me two kids to figure this out that you have to really understand your priorities and

understand that your first priority is your family and you are going to have to take a backseat in some

aspects for a little while. It's not forever, but it's for a little while. What does good nutrition

look like for for dad? Let's just say somebody that needs to make a change right now and they're

going into their next meal and they need to start now. What does that look like? If we're getting into

specifics, it would be making sure you hit your protein goals above everything else. There is no real

goals for fats and carbohydrates for someone who's not athletic or someone who is not looking for

high performance. Most dads, most average dads do not eat enough protein. They do not feel like they

are being nourished and they tend to then overeat garbage and snack and drink and things to make

themselves feel better. But if your body is nourished, you have a lot less of those cravings.

So the very first thing you should be doing is making sure that every meal you're hitting your protein

requirements. At a bare minimum, you can look at the size of your palm. So the width, height, thickness

of your palm, I think I need to have at least one to two servings of protein about the size of my

palm with each meal. And when I talk about protein sources, I mean dense lean protein sources, things like

chicken beef fish, you could do low-fat Greek yogurt. Eggs are a really quality protein source,

but they're not a high protein source. So if you're going to use them for your protein needs,

you probably need three to four at a minimum. And just focus on making sure each meal is built

around hitting those minimum protein needs. Because not only does that help you feel fuller and

help maintain good blood sugar levels throughout the day, but it helps you maintain lean muscle mass,

which you need to be functional. I know so many dads that are either type two or type one diabetic.

So if we really follow the diet like this, like you just described, we could curb so many

chronic illnesses that are centered around diabetes. Absolutely. Let's move on to caffeine.

Is caffeine good or bad for fitness? For fitness, it's great. It's one of the most researched

and common drugs in the Western world. And we've had research from almost a hundred years ago on

the effects of caffeine. It's a great, ergo genic aid. It makes you perform better and makes you work

harder when we're talking about exercise and fitness. It's a very handy legal performance in

hand-sing drug. From a health perspective, if we look at the literature in almost every case,

and I'm talking about caffeine coming from things like coffee, like there's a lot of highly sweetened

garbage drinks that have caffeine. And that the effects of those are not necessarily related to

the caffeine, but if we look at caffeine from coffee and caffeine in general, the people who consume

coffee more up and till about four cups a day tends to have more beneficial health outcomes than

people who don't drink coffee. So we find that caffeine and things like coffee tend to be beneficial.

But there's the individual component. Do you get anxiety? Do you get the shakes, the sweats? How

much are you drinking? Is it affecting your sleep? If we keep our dosages under four cups of coffee

worth a day or a cup or two in the morning and you keep caffeine ideally at least 10 to 12 hours

away from sleep, it shouldn't affect your sleep too much. And it's a net benefit not just for

health outcomes but for performance as well. So I think it's a very useful thing. I think the

the literature shows that it's actually a healthful thing as long as you don't have a

what a poor reaction to it. Because some people are chronically anxious. And if you're stressed out

and you're anxious adding caffeine to the mix is a detriment. The other thing is if you have to have

lots of caffeine to function in your day, you think that might be a really clear warning side that

everything else is is really really out of balance. Like we're not talking caffeine to work out to

enhance your workout routine. This is like I've got to have four to eight cups of coffee in the morning

when I get a just a function just to be able to get going. If I don't do that, I'm crabby and I can't

focus. I'm sleepy all day, I yawn all day long. I'm just so is is that really a warning sign?

Yeah, absolutely. There's there's the issue of it being you know it is it is an addictive drug

and you become habituated to a certain amount. And if you want to feel like you used to after

having cup of coffee, you have to have two cups of coffee and then you adapt and habituate to that

dose and then you have to have more. And so we do have this this ramping up addictive effect of

caffeine as well. But like you said, like the big thing is like this is a warning sign of something

and you know what if you feel like you need that all the time it's probably because everything

else your life is falling apart and you need more sleep. And this is where we come down to priorities.

It's like you know what if you have to get up and you've had a crappy night sleep with a new born

baby who's keeping you both up all night. Well you know what if you have to have two three cups of

coffee to get to work, get it done. It's another season in your life you got to do what you got to do.

But if you have the ability to say not stay up late watching Netflix because that's your you time

and I deserve it. And you know I'm doing this for me and whatever whatever excuses we give

ourselves if you just go to sleep earlier or and this is the thing I talk to a lot of young parents

about two is know when you have babies in the house you are not working on you know an eight to ten

hour sleep schedule anymore you're working on a 24 hour sleep schedule so your goal for you and your

partner. Your wife is to get the required amount of sleep over 24 hours you know if you need eight hours

to function you might not get it all at once but if you can take some naps you're still going to get it.

So learning how to adjust your sleep schedule and your attitude around going to bed early

and around naps you're going to deal with a lot of those issues better so you know like I always say

your adult take a nap you can do that fine time taking nap fine time or try to get the bed earlier

if you know you have to get up at five don't stay up till 10 30 watching TV if the kids are in bed

if the baby is asleep you go to sleep that's a that's great advice I've heard the whole sleep thing

described as like a bank and it completely changed the way I thought of sleep I thought of sleep is

the so if you only get four hours of sleep well that's it once you're up there is no making that up

it's gone and so your only way of of recovering whatever you lost from that is by the next

night getting a full eight hours so what you're saying is if you only get four hours you get you only

at four hours but at some point during the day if you have three hours to go and take a three hour nap

that may not be realistic or maybe break it up into two hours here one hour there you can

that still counts towards your eight hours absolutely it's not ideal because sleeping

consistently for a longer period of time tends to be better but this is actually something that

we we see in how professional athletes manage their recovery you know if we look at what athletes

needing so high level athletes typically need around 10 hours of sleep a day but they're busy too

they might have night games they might have early morning games they have travel and stuff like that

so the idea is to always get their 10 hours approximate sleep across the day so they might be

sleeping on the bus or on a plane or taking a nap before they go to training that kind of thing

it's on a 24 hour schedule and if that's what you have to do that's what you have to do

and it might help to reframe it in terms of you know what treat yourself like a professional athlete

so for that person that really has trouble getting to sleep they're anxious their mind won't shut off

they're they're just fidgety they just can't get settled in and get to sleep quickly or when they

get to sleep they're up maybe once or twice during the night is that often a sign that they're not

getting enough exercise and can exercise fix a lot of those symptoms uh can be so it could be an

exercise thing and that they're not actually inducing enough fatigue across the day but it could also

have to do you know with lift life stresses but also sleep hygiene you know if you've spent the last

hour before bed staring at your phone that blue light continues to stimulate the production of

cortisol which is the hormone that wakes you up uh sleep hygiene and the systems you have around

going to bed will affect not just how long it takes to fall asleep but your quality of sleep

you know caffeine some people like I could drink a cup of coffee before bed and go to sleep like cool

you can fall asleep but everything we know about how caffeine affects sleep tells us that it

decreases the depth and quality of sleep even if you're technically asleep so you're having

a poorer sleep even if the length is the same by having caffeine before bed you have a

harder time getting to sleep if you've been exposed to a lot of stimulating things like blue lights

coming from screens or like stimulating TVs and movies and things like that so having a system of

reducing exposure to blue light you know keeping less lights on using warmer tones to your lights

reducing screen time within the hour before bed uh you know maybe not eating a whole lot before

you go to sleep keeping your caffeine 12 hours away from your normal bedtime like all those things

coming to how well and what the quality of your sleep is so we're having a discussion the general

theme is is fitness I never expected to spend a good portion of this conversation around sleep

which just that by itself should say everything we need to know about how important sleep is to your

health why it matters so much so let's go out and look at a broader perspective of things so from what I

understood about fitness there is a there's three components to it there's there's a physical there's

a mental and there's also a spiritual component to all of this what does that look like when they're

all in harmony and why are all of those important for dads that's an interesting one so a lot of people

just do exercise because it's good for them but if you're finding and this is what I want to say to people

a lot and you know new clients and things like that is the best workout you do is the one that you do

the one that you can continue to do for a while it's not about the perfect you know optimal session

in the gym it's about what can you do forever and I think when you find a style of movement that you

enjoy that is physically rewarding that keeps you mentally stimulated but also excuse me also

fulfills that aspect that brings you joy you know a lot of times it's things like martial arts or yoga

things that cover all those bases you know find something that you enjoy and is stimulating and

gives you the physical benefits and you put all those pieces together you're going to do it forever

and the most important thing you can do is stay moving forever that's a completely different take on

on fitness I think a lot of dads are scared or maybe not scared as the word but they are just

anxious about getting started because they think that on day one they they have to bleed in the gym

I mean they have to really just just you know they have to get shredded in a month and if they aren't

seeing that kind of results in a month well they're not working hard enough and they're like I

just got off the couch how am I supposed to to bulk up like that and in you're saying

physical fitness is is not limited to just bulking up it's just it's a matter of getting off the

couch and and just getting moving doing something most average men don't need to bulk up I have too

much bulk as it is and this is a discussion I have with a lot of new clients too is

if you've spent the last 20 years doing nothing and adding non-functional weight to your body

you're gonna probably need six months to a year for each year that you've been sedentary

to reverse it like this is not a quick fix situation you spent 20 years putting yourself in the state

how do you think it's just gonna disappear in a month or six months or even a year that's absurd

and you know what what I usually start people with is you know this might be my blows of minds here

it's it's pretty cutting edge stuff but when I get people that I've been sedentary for a long time

the very first thing we focus on is walking if you're not walking there's nothing I can do for you

like it's the most basic form and easiest and healthiest form of exercise you can do is walking

and if we can get people hitting in step count is a pretty popular way of looking at this because

easy to measure but if we can get people moving more regularly every day weights just gonna fall off

they're gonna feel so much better and then we focus on building the body and building the strength

and building the physique that people want but if you just go into the gym and like you said a lot

people go in and they smash themselves and they just burn themselves out on their first session

you know that's how often can they do that not often most people do that and they're sore for two

weeks and they come back two weeks later and they're sore for two weeks and it's just a not a productive

or sustainable system I'd rather have someone go in at 50% effort two three or four times a week

and do that consistently because you will get better results if you're working at 100% once every two

weeks that's only like a 50% effort averaged across those weeks but if I get you in going 50%

four times a week where you're not hammered where you're not broken after every session well 50%

four times a week is 200% you know that's a much bigger amount of total work and potential gains

across time than just going and hammering yourself I know for me this would be something that would be

I you know you might be able to outline it for me on paper or whatever but I would get much better

results from actually having a coach having someone guide me through exactly how do I do this

and I think there is a vital accountability component that a lot of people starting to work out

routine or regiment absolutely need so this goes into my next question I mean how can a dad get a

hold of you for help or coaching or to learn more about what you're doing well you hit the nail in the

head so because I work with a lot of men and dads you know the number one issue we get into is as guys

we think we can figure everything out and do everything on our own but I know a lot of guys in their

40s and 50s who've been saying that for 20 plus years and just happen to be getting worse every year

this the issue is accountability someone to not just give you the plan give you the answers to the

questions that you have but keep you on track in the long run and that's that's so important so if

anyone is interested in can contact my website is strongforlife.online my business is strong for

life online coaching I work with people all all over the world you know us Canada Indonesia India

Europe got a guys in Ireland New Zealand Australia like everywhere because with online coaching

it doesn't matter where you are so strong for life.online if you have questions I got a lot of free

resources I've got a guide on there that's just about going to the gym for the first time it's called

the beginner gym guide you know that's that's a free sort of free thing I've got my eat like an

adult guide learn the basics of creating a healthier relationship with food that's free like there's

so many free resources on my website or on instagram at coach Josh wood uh you know you don't have to

pay for anything you could just get all the free resources and you're going to be in a better spot

just to make these easier if you go to the fatherhoodchallenge.com that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com

if you go to this episode look right below the episode description I will have all of the links

that Josh just mentioned posted there for your convenience and Josh as we close what is your challenge

to dads feeling discouraged and struggling physically or emotional to take those first steps take a

minute sit down get a piece of paper write out all the things you need to do and number them

in order of how important they are you have to understand your priorities if you don't know where

your priorities lie you're gonna keep trying to do everything at the same time and everything you

do is gonna suck you need to understand what's most important and nail that get that right first

and then move on to the next one Josh it has been absolutely an honor having you on the fatherhood

challenge thank you so much for being here and encouraging dads to step up and to take those first

steps thank you thank you for listening to this episode of the fatherhood challenge if you would

like to contact us listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or find

out more information about the fatherhoodchallenge please visit the fatherhoodchallenge.com that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com

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