ParentSounds Guest Post: On Lifting Heavy Things
Lift heavy shit: The unexpected benefits of strength training as a parent
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This week, we have our first ever ParentSounds guest post: from
of , a publication that I stumbled across toward the end of last year and which has become required newsletter reading for me ever since.A few years ago Jen, an Australian who has since settled with her partner and two kids in the US, started the ambitious project of tracking every dollar that her family spends on food. Interestingly, she decided to also write about it and send a piece of real, physical, paper and ink snail mail out to friends and loved ones every year. Did you ever read those letters as a kid that came around Christmas from some family friend your parents knew, and wonder about who it was and how your parents knew these people? That’s basically the Sherman family newsletter, except that it’s got tables and trend lines and it makes you realize how much your household probably also spends on food every month. When I found about this I instantly thought it was brilliant.
Jen eventually adapted the snail mail concept into a digital newsletter format where she also writes weekly/ish about all kinds of other topics connected with feeding a family of four in the 2020s. It’s a great read and I love her witty, incisive writing about everyday family topics. 10/10 would subscribe again!
I was very excited when Jen agreed to write a guest post for ParentSounds about one of the activities (besides writing about food) that she uses to stay in touch with the independent, not-only-a-parent side of herself. Check it out below and be sure to share your own thoughts on weightlifting, measurable outcomes, or any other topics with Jen in the comments.
Over to Jen!
Lift heavy shit: The surprising and unexpected benefits of strength training as a parent
By
We all know, theoretically, the benefits of exercise: it’s good for your heart, lungs, muscles, bones.
I’m not here to dispute any of that. According to a rather large body of research, exercise is beneficial for pretty much every system in the body, in all sorts of science-y ways that I won’t try to distill here*. Instead, I want to offer another reason why exercise is wonderful, especially for parents, and especially if you’re a stay-at-home parent.
You probably know the main ones. Exercise will make you stronger (so you can lift the children and all of their stuff). It will give you stamina (so you can keep up with them as they run around playgrounds and neighbourhood streets). It will clear your head and give you precious time to do something for yourself (so you will hopefully be more patient with your children and less likely to lose your shit).
Then there was this lovely little benefit that I didn’t discover until I started strength training a couple of years ago, that no one had ever told me about: strength training was a way of seeing measurable progress that I had lost in every other part of my life.
Kids aren’t so good at quantifiable feedback
In the Before Times** I had done a PhD, worked in universities, and volunteered and taught overseas. During my undergrad uni days, I was working as well as studying, first in retail and then as a marketing assistant at a non-profit organisation. Ever since I graduated high school, I had work where there were bosses, managers, supervisors. There were metrics to track how I was performing, feedback that showed what I was doing well and what areas needed improvement.
Then came marriage and babies, and the realisation that with the cost of childcare and our family’s specific situation, it would cost our household money for me to work. So I became a stay-at-home parent. This occurred after the birth of our first child in 2017, and continued after the birth of our second child in 2020. My bosses became these unreasonable, irrational tiny humans who had very limited communication skills and no concept of sick leave, days off, or mandated lunch breaks.
Additionally, any way of measuring performance or progress that I was familiar with was lost. One of the trickier parts I found about parenting (and still find now, when my children are six and three), is how you don’t really know how you’re doing. My goal as a parent is to raise humans who are kind, thoughtful, and independent. I want them to think critically and become decent, contributing members to society. I want them to lead healthy and happy lives.
I have no idea if I will succeed with that, and I won’t know for many years. The daily grind of parenting is feeding them, doing the laundry, doing school drop-off and pick-up, taking them to activities and playdates, managing sibling squabbles, and making sure they’re getting to bed on time. Don’t get me wrong, there is joy, fun moments, wonderful snuggles, and great bonding time. I am grateful for all of it. But it is also repetitive and relentless and we will not see if all of these many endless small things we do for our children will have an impact for a long time.
Deadlifts during naptime
I’m not going to lie, stay-at-home parenting at times can be a bit depressing. It’s often boring! Being a stay-at-home parent meant that there was no longer work/life balance because life was work, and some days it felt like endless drudgery where I didn’t know who I was. The only identity that was foisted upon me was also one where I had no idea if I was any good at it or where I could improve. My bosses weren’t giving me constructive criticism on a chapter draft - they were crying.
And then it all changed. I serendipitously found a trainer who had started a mobile gym during the pandemic, and he would bring all the equipment for a workout to his clients’ backyards or local parks. I started not expecting to transform my body or even knowing that what I was about to embark on would be considered strength training. I just wanted to exercise again because I missed it, and here was someone who could bring a gym to my backyard while my baby (at that time) slept.
I got back to doing exercises that I had done in the Before Times, like kettlebell swings, single arm rows, and Russian twists. I did exercises I had never done before, like deadlifts. And in a “surprising” turn of events, I actually got stronger. I used heavier weights for the old exercises I had been doing for years at the gym, and with each month that passed, I could see progress.
There it was. Measurable, quantifiable progress.
Hitting triple digits
I saw my trainer three times a week, for an hour a session. I would do four circuits, three rounds each, and each circuit had about four different exercises for ten reps. I would think with each rep, round, and session that surely this isn’t enough to change anything. No one ever got strong with one curl, one row, or one squat. But that was all I needed to get stronger: to keep showing up, session after session, ten reps at a time.
I started with a 25 lb kettlebell to learn how to do a deadlift. I remember getting excited when I got to 70 lb for a deadlift, and then when I hit triple digits. Now, almost two years after starting strength training, I can deadlift 175 lb for three reps. The deadlift is the most dramatic number, but the numbers have increased for every exercise.
I didn’t have to wait years to see if what I was doing had an effect. The timescale for progress was measured in weeks and months.
There are absolutely mental health benefits to exercise, in terms of clearing your mind and getting an endorphin rush. What I discovered with strength training was that there was an additional mental benefit — the satisfaction that comes with getting better at something, and being able to measure it.
It’s not like getting a meal on the table, or putting away a load of clean laundry. I am getting better at something and look: there are the stats to prove it.
So if you are someone who appreciates measurements and outcomes and being able to put numbers to things, and if you’re finding that a bit absent in your life as a parent, I strongly recommend exercise.
Maybe you could walk farther, or run or cycle or swim faster. Maybe you can do a more advanced pose in Pilates or yoga. Or you could do what I did, and accidentally fall in love with strength training. Go lift some heavy shit and see how strong you can become. You might surprise yourself.
*If you’re interested in the topic of exercise, I thoroughly enjoyed both Exercised and The Story of the Human Body by paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman, and Outlive by physician Peter Attia.
**Before children, also known as the years prior to 2017, also known as a lifetime ago.