It's probably not as much as you think...
Hey team, how are we doing?
Welcome to the inaugural post of Dads Fitness Blog, where I'm going to take you under the hood of the finer points of health and fitness and give you only what you NEED to know. We're dads, we don't have time for nonsense and we don't have time for things that don't actually work.
ICYMI, I'm Justin. I'm a long time fitness coach and personal trainer and I live in Calgary, AB with my wife, two young sons and two fur children. My mission here with DFC and Dads Fitness Blog is very straightforward: simple, honest and accessible fitness. Nothing more, nothing less.
The internet has been taken over by dumbasses and scam artists, and the online fitness space is possibly the worst of all. I'm hoping to put a dent in taking it back.
Yes, I have services to sell. But I purposely make them lower cost, and I'm not going to make any outlandish claims about what my services can do for you. I'm going to give you what you need, I'm going to be sarcastic while I do it, and I'll probably go off on a lot of tangents.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Let's get to it then, yea? For today's inaugural post we're going to discuss how much weekly lifting you actually NEED. Spoiler alert: it's probably not as much as you think.
So... how much then?
In the year of our lord 2026 I'm sure we've all been on social media enough to see the videos. You know the ones. The "daily grind" videos, the "no days off" videos and worst of all, the "we all have the same 24 hours" videos.
Gouge my fcking eyes out.
Perhaps the part of these videos that you missed though, is that 99% of them are made by people(men) in their early 20s, who work in fitness and have no partner or children. Their only responsibility is working out and their social media.
That doesn't apply to us. And I don't even just mean dads, that doesn't apply to 95% of adults in general. We have jobs and some of us might have more than one, we have partners and we might have kids, and as hard as it is for fitness influencers to believe, a lot of people simply don't want to dedicate so much of their lives to a fitness routine.
So let's discuss what you NEED to do to stay healthy, stay strong, and carry around a little bit of muscle on your body.
Looking at the numbers
You've probably heard us fitness pros say that something is always better than nothing. That's not just a platitude to make you feel better about not lifting very much, it's really true.
Raise your hand if you've heard the term "all cause mortality". Anyone? Bueller?
If you haven't, all cause mortality simply means the death rate from literally any cause.
If you lift AT ALL, like even once a week for 30 mins, your all cause mortality risk drops by about 15%. In statistics terms that is not insignificant. If you combine that with something as simple as increasing your daily step count it drops by even more which we will discuss at length at a later date.
What about muscle growth? Studies have shown that muscle growth can happen with as little as 3-4 sets per muscle group per week. Not 3-4 exercises, 3-4 SETS. So if you do 2 sets of bench and 2 sets of incline dumbbell press you can experience chest growth from just that.
Okay, that's cool Justin, but what about strength? Would you believe me if I told you that you needed even less than that for strength gains? It's true. About 2 sets per muscle per week is enough to gain pretty significant strength even if you're an experienced lifter.
There's a caveat here because of course there is. For these gains to happen at these volume numbers, these sets have to be very hard. Like they have to go to the point of discomfort and then past it. You should be making all kinds of weird faces by the end. If you go in and half ass your effort not much is going to happen for you.
Now these volume numbers aren't enough to MAXIMIZE your strength or muscle gains. But they are absolutely enough to make gains and reap the health benefits of strength training. If you're looking to become as strong or as jacked as you can possibly be, you'll need to do more.
This reminds me of a story and my first tangent, but it relates I promise. One of my best and longest serving clients was woman in her 50s that only strength trained once a week in her weekly session with me. In that weekly session I kicked her butt. We lifted heavy and hard and she pushed herself harder than most other clients I had. The results? She built muscle, all her lifts went up substantially, a nagging knee issue resolved and she could do her favourite activities with no struggle.
Outside of our weekly session together she went on a lot of walks, ate well most of the time and took care of her sleep. That's it. She didn't take any weird supplements and she didn't eliminate all her carbs and sweets. She followed the basic principles with consistency and effort for a long time.
So what should I do then?
I'm so glad you asked. If you're somebody that's just starting out with strength training I recommend beginning with 2 lifting sessions of 30-45 mins per week. I want those lifting sessions to be built around the following:
- Squat
- Hinge
- Vertical push
- Horizontal push
- Vertical pull
- Horizontal pull
- Carry
If your program consists of one of each of those for 2-3 working sets each, you'll have the most important bases covered. A sample first day could look something like this:
- Dumbbell goblet squat: 3 sets x 5-8 reps
- Assisted pull-up or pulldown: 3 sets x 5-8 reps
- Dumbbell chest press: 3 sets x 8-10 reps
- Suitcase carry: 3 sets x 30 seconds
- Dumbbell curl: 2 sets x 10-15 reps
You might be thinking that this looks too basic and simple. Basic and simple is where fitness is built when it's combined with effort and consistency.
Put that shit on a tee shirt.
I think that banger is a good place to finish for today.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll become a regular in our club.
See you next time.
- Justin
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