Strength Training for the Busy Biker



About four years ago, I was chubby (ok, I was fat!!) and weak as a kitten. My wife had just given birth to our first child, a girl! I decided that I needed to be in decent shape not only for myself, but also to be a good example for my daughter. I also wanted to be alive to see her grow up!

I had weight trained in high school for football, but I pretty much gave it up after graduating. My real passion was motorcycles, so I spent most of my focus on those. Well, I actually focused on motorcycles, girls, beer, and my buddies (the fun stuff).  Training just wasn’t important anymore. My body and health were beginning to show it.  I was 245 pounds and on medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol.

A great thing that I learned while training in high school, was the importance of the big lifts (bench, squat, and deadlift). I wanted a training program that was based on these lifts. After doing some research, I picked a 5x5 full body routine for three days a week as it seemed to be a very efficient program that would get fast results. I remembered how much I could push myself back in high school and I tried to emulate that. What I didn’t realize was that back then, I’d get between eight and ten hours of sleep. Now, with the baby, I was getting around four hours (she was a VERY light sleeper). I also was working a fifty plus hour a week job. My body wasn’t recovering from the workouts and I was picking up a lot of little injuries (back tweaks, shoulder and elbow strains). My wife also works full time as a teacher, so it was hard to justify being away from home for a couple of hours in the evening, leaving her to fend for herself with the baby. The result was missing workouts, a lot of them. I’d take off a month straight sometimes.

I was going through cycles of this for over a year - training hard for a month or two, then getting injured or burned out and stopping for a month. Needless to say, progress was minimal. Then we found out my wife was pregnant again! How was I going to focus on training with two babies to take care of along with my busy job (and my wife’s)? I wasn't making any progress while having just one kid!

Then, I watched a video from Jason Blaha detailing a two day full body routine for non-athletes. I can't say I used his exact program, but I was inspired by it. You mean I can make progress by only training two days a week? My coach in high school had driven the idea in my head that strength was only gained by training a minimum of three days per week. I thought anything less than that would be virtually useless. That video completely reshaped my view of weight training.

A little while later, I read Steve Shaw's Massive Iron and loved the method of pushing sets for maximum reps. I was used to looking at a chart to determine how many sets and reps to complete for each workout. I knew that there were certain times that I could have pushed sets for more than the prescribed reps, but the program didn’t call for it. This was yet another way that my predetermined notions on training had been changed.

I sat down and wrote out my plan of attack to progress in my training. Here are the principles: train squat, deadlift, some kind of press, and some kind of row two days per week. Warm up for each exercise and do one big working set. I used Steve Shaw's rep goal system on the working sets to progress. My goal was to hit eight reps; when I did, I added five pounds to the bar. More than anything else, this plan eliminated any excuses from getting in the gym and training.

Do you know what happened? I didn't miss workouts anymore! The nagging injuries went away! I began to steadily progress! I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and say that I'm crazy strong now, but I went from a guy who couldn't make progress to achieving an intermediate strength level. I did this all while having a pretty busy life (and still focusing on motorcycles as my main hobby). No matter what, I can always find time to get in the gym for an hour (or less) for two days a week. Last year my son was born, so I was thrown back into the near sleepless nights, but I still committed to two workouts each week.

Now, I’m no longer on any medication and I’m a lean(ish) 205 pounds. Getting stronger was great, but this was the real accomplishment! Every now and then I consider going back to a program that will provide more efficient results. Then, I say to myself that this plan is working for me. Why change it?