The Virtues of Skipping Leg Day

I weighed 130 pounds when I graduated high school. Not a great look for someone one unyielding quarter-inch shy of six feet. I started lifting weights because I was sick of being scrawny and had big dreams of one day being described as “skinny” or, be still my heart, “thin”.

As is my custom, I deployed my Type A personality and borderline-obsessive need to record my progress in all areas of life and got into a good groove of hitting the gym three, then eventually five days/week.

But even as I made solid progress in packing muscle on my upper body, the story down south remained the same: stick thin legs and a purely theoretical caboose.

Slowly but surely, the following thought crept into my head: “If I’m not committed enough to really get after it and start building my legs, maybe I’m just wasting my time.”

Gradually my workout frequency dropped from five days/week to three days/week to two days/week if I was lucky. And then it went to zero and stayed there for nine months.

A picture of me and my daughter getting ready for our annual Daddy-Daughter-Day in which I swear you can discern the distinct shape of my skull brought me back to the reality that a consistent weight-lifting habit is an absolute necessity for my physical and mental health. But I was afraid that I would do the exact same things as before: Maintain a solid routine for a period of time, get discouraged because of how much I dreaded leg days and how slow my progress was, then convince myself that half-assing it was a waste of time.

So here is what I decided to do: Go all-in on half-assing it.

Full-ass half-assing it, if you will.

Only work out my upper body. Spend one of my three weekly workouts entirely on arms. Focus strictly on beach-body muscles and exercises that I like while not giving a single shit about squatting less than I bench press.

It worked out fantastically well. Like before, I made relatively quick progress on building my upper body which gave me motivation to continue. What I didn’t necessarily expect, but was a huge bonus, is that after a few months, the concept of occasionally adding in a few sets of legs wasn’t so terrible. After a little longer, it felt right to add a few more.

This photo of me was taken three months after resuming my workout routine.

The end result is that my workouts look pretty much the same as they used to, but instead of feeling shitty that I’m not giving my legs enough attention, I use the motivation I get from the workouts I truly enjoy to occasionally give those reeds a little love.

Because I saw first-hand the potential cost of letting the “all-in or nothing” mindset run rampant, I made the conscious decision to define success on my own terms.

If you haven’t yet realized, DadBods are unbelievably sneaky sons of bitches. One of your DadBod’s favorite nefarious tricks is to convince you to make perfect be the enemy of good. 

Your DadBod is going to consistently try to sell you on the idea that if you’re not doing everything you possibly can to improve an area of your life, then it’s not worth doing anything.

It will tell you that cutting out dessert during the week is bullshit if you’re not also going to count calories and go low-carb.

It will tell you that three 30 minute walks per week is less physical activity than most retirees get and at your age you should be in peak physical condition.

It will tell you that just tracking your expenses won’t make a single dent in your credit card debt and you probably don’t make enough money to pay it off, let alone start saving.

You need to expect these types of messages from your DadBod and then you need to remind yourself that the single best way to tell it to fuck off is to take action, any type of action, toward accomplishing your goal.

An even subtler trick your DadBod will try to play is to convince you that if you need a specific type of motivation to do a DadBod-busting task, you’re weak or inadequate.

Don’t fall for it!

If the promise of a fancy coffee drink afterwards is what it takes to get you to the gym on Saturday morning, I hereby give you permission to buy the most ridiculous, pumpkin spice infused, hand-crafted, caffeine bomb that your favorite coffee shop has to offer. Put whipped cream on that son of a bitch! But don’t get it until after you put the work in.  

I encourage you to reflect on exactly what it will take to motivate you to attack your DadBod. The easy way out is to decide that this extra motivation shouldn’t be necessary, that you should just do it because it’s good for you. But that’s not how human beings work.  

Destroying your DadBod is about finding what works for YOU, and then making it a habit.