Three Lessons Being a Parent has Taught me About Training

If you’re a parent, you how much having a child changes your life. 

Every part of it.

My wife and I have four kids. Our house is full of love, stress, joy, chaos, laughter, cries, hugs, and conflicts, all at once, all the time. 

This morning I realized that many of the lessons I’ve learned as a parent apply directly to training, as well–both for kids AND adults.

Here are three nuggets I’ve taken that you may relate to as well.

1. Exposing my weaknesses showed me what I needed to work on.

Parenting has both highlighted my character flaws and made me a better, stronger man. I’ve discovered I’m not as patient as I once thought I was, and that has given me the gift of improving my ability to remain calm in tense situations…like when three children are all asking you questions at once while the other is squirming during a diaper change and you’re trying not get poop on the carpet and the questions keep coming and all of a sudden a ball hits you in the face and you still have two baby legs in your hands strung up like a chicken and there’s still poop there and you can’t find the wipes all of a sudden and…and…and…

Just me?

In training, we may find you are great at 8 out of 10 things, but you may need some work in two areas. Maybe your leg muscles aren’t as strong as they should be, you fall over when you close your eyes due to poor balance, or maybe an athlete has poor sprint form that could lead to an injury.

Whatever it is, knowing your strengths and weaknesses is an advantage. As the old saying goes: “know thyself.”

2. Kids do everything better when it’s fun.

I can bang my head against a wall asking my kids to clean up the living room, or I can call the cleaning robot–a character my sons LOVE to make-believe. 

Cleaning robots job is simple: he cleans! All I have to do is hand my son my phone, call it from my wife’s, and then ask for cleaning robot. 

Boom. All of the sudden I get the cooperation I was looking for. 

If training was boring, would kids still come? Yes, some.

But if training is fun, not only will more kids come, but they’ll enjoy themselves more while they’re here, be more committed to the workouts, and get better workouts. 

Ultimately, that means more kids are moving and building healthy lifestyles. 

The same is true for adults, by the way. If you find a way to make it fun, you’re more likely to get the work done!

3. It doesn’t has to be perfect. Respect and enjoy the process.

Are your kids perfect? Yea, mine either (and neither am I, and neither are you!). 

If we’re cleaning up and my kids put a toy in the wrong spot, well, at least they’re trying. I may correct them if necessary, or I may just qtly appreciate their efforts and move the toy myself. Or just leave it.

There is an acceptable range of behaviors and outcomes. There are, of course, certain behaviors we can’t let slide. But there are lots of things that wont be perfect, and I’ve learned to be ok with that. Like putting the toys away.

Does form need to be absolutely perfect on every rep of every workout? Just like the behaviors mentioned above, there is an acceptable range of technique.

Hear me clearly: I’ll never let someone, adult or youth athlete, do a workout with technique so bad they could hurt themselves. Never.

But part of learning is making mistakes, and if I never let anybody lift unless it was perfect, then no exercise would ever get done!