u/Odd-Way3519

I’m not talking legs on Monday, run on Tuesday, upper body on Wednesday and doing these certain specific exercises in this certain order etc etc. I mean if you could time your workouts literally whenever you wanted during the day and night, when would it be? So the gym is always open whenever you want, the machines/equipment you want is always free, it’s always the perfect temperature for a run/bike/whatever, you’re not constrained by family or work commitments, you can do what you want, when you want and the only limiting factor is yourself (so no ‘run a marathon, have breakfast, bike a stage of the Tour de France, home for mid morning snack, glorious sex with Taylor Swift, break for lunch.’ There has to be some relation to reality).

For me, it would be something along the lines of:

8am wake up

8:30am breakfast

9:30am workout (gym or run depending on my schedule/plan)

11am back home to chill

12pm lunch

1pm go for a bike/walk. If walk, it’ll be a chill one with a podcast in a local nature reserve or in the mountains/hills or it would vary in intensity when biking

3/4pm get home to chill

5-7pm martial arts practice 2/3 times a week followed by a stretching session- time it with the more chill walk in the afternoon rather than a hard bike

7-8pm make dinner and chill

9pm bed

Would have at least one day total free of workouts with the exception of a chill afternoon walk.

Would be interested to see how your day/week would look

So recently became a dad for the second time (we have a toddler who’s 2.5 and a 4 week old) so rip what was left of my sleep schedule. Currently (as we have help from family but that’ll stop soon as the nearest relatives live 1000 miles away) I’m able to get to the gym an hour every evening with slightly more flexibility at weekends (will be more focused on at home workouts once it’s back to just me and my wife plus the kids again). Mon-Fri I manage to get a full body workout in twice a week and 2 cardio sessions with Friday off (thats the day I do the food shopping and relax with a beer in the evening). Saturday and Sunday is another weight session and a cardio session depending on how my body feels plus how much time we have but I am usually able to get these done if I time them right around naps etc.

But my main question is about recovery. I’m 40 so no spring chicken but hardly an old man either but I defo appreciate my rest. My sleep is fairly interrupted most nights with the newborn (the toddler is usually a pretty decent sleeper) and the evenings before I put the toddler to bed are fairly physically active (his current favourite thing is me chasing him around the house) so it’s hardly the most physically relaxing. Any tips you could give me for optimising my recovery would be amazing!