Fit To Be A Dad

By Harald Breiding-Buss

Dads, like mums, are getting older all the time. The average age of a man to have his first child is now over 28 years, with many men and women not starting families before they are 35 or even older.

For males, the hormone testosterone is a tremendous energy source, responsible for the maintenance of our muscle bulk, the strength of our bones. Testosterone levels in our blood peak in the late teens or early twenties before beginning their gradual decline.

By the mid thirties many men start to feel an occasional ache in some bones, often a loss of their strength and increasing tiredness. Testosterone is withdrawing its support and unless we have a job involving physical labour or exercise regularly our muscle bulk and bones are deteriorating.

Many of today’s men have their first child at an age, where previous generations would expect to be grandfathers.

Perhaps, some problems we have with our youth today are partly due to a parent generation that quite literally has lost its energy to deal with the physical demands children and adolescents put on us.

For most men, climbing up the career ladder generally means less physical work and more and more administrative and managerial tasks, at a time when our bodies need it least.

Being fit means being more able to focus on your child without having to compromise on your other favourite activities, it means less need to budget your energy carefully, it means having some energy to spare for your children when coming home from work and fewer nights being “too exhausted” for more romantic activities with your partner.

Obviously, sports is the key. While many dads support their children’s sports, doing it the other way around may be just as good or an even better idea.

If you’re going for a run, junior may want to accompany you on their bike. Most children love taking to the water and regular family trips to the pool can be combined with lap swimming for dad.

(Body)surfing, canoeing and some other water activities can all be combined with family events, or the children can be involved while dad still gets enough of a workout for his lungs and muscles.

In fact, having children around offers the perfect excuse if you’re just starting to do a bit more exercise but are worried that your lack of fitness will make you look a bit ridiculous at whichever activity you choose.

Some exercises are better than others. For an all-round approach to maintain or improve your stamina, strength and flexibility in your joints nothing beats swimming – however it is a rather solitary activity. For stamina alone, both cycling and jogging are excellent fitness builders, also tramping (or brisk walking), aerobics or rowing.

Stamina is probably what you need most to keep feeling good as a parent.

Many of the more popular New Zealand sports are not all that ideal for our health. Squash, while good for your fitness and your body’s flexibility, is the number one killer for men over forty as far as sports go – quite a few drop dead from a heart attack while on court.

Rugby is the most dangerous sports of all concerning injuries – on average one significant injury per 20 games or training sessions. Cricket’s main health effect seems to stem from the fresh air you get – it does almost nothing for your stamina or strength and in this respect ranks equally with golf.

From a health point of view, especially the health of your heart and lungs, it is hard to do too much sport as a man, as long as you don’t make any sudden changes in your activity levels. However, if you feel exhausted rather than invigorated afterwards, you’ve trained too hard.

The experts recommend about 20 minutes exercise three times a day will keep you heart in hape, but you don’t have to worry about any of this if your job involves a lot of physical labour.

You can’t overestimate the feel-good factor of exercise. Work or family stress disappears (at least temporarily) when you take a good, hard run.

Exercising reasonably hard and taking a nice shower afterwards will flush your system with endorphines, the same feel- good hormones that are released after an orgasm…

Stamina

Excellent: Swimming, Cycling, Jogging
Very Good: Athletics, Circuit Training, Football, Rowing, Skipping, Squash, Brisk Walking, Tramping
Good: Badminton, Tennis, Normal Walking
Don’t Bother: Cricket, Golf, Karate/Judo, Weight Training

Body Flexibility ( Suppleness )

Excellent: Swimming
Very Good: Badminton, Circuit Training, Football, Squash, Tennis
Good: Athletics, Cricket, Cycling, Jogging, Karate/Judo, Golf, Weight Training, Skipping
Don’t Bother: Walking, Rowing

Strength

Excellent: Swimming, Weight Training
Very Good: Athletics, Circuit Training, Cycling, Football
Good: Badminton, Jogging, Rowing, Skipping, Squash, Tennis, Brisk Walking/Tramping
Don’t Bother: Cricket, Golf, Karate/Judo, Normal Walking

Next: Im A Dad, Listen To Me!