If I can't guarantee consistent 6+ hours of sleep a night, is weight lifting worth it?

Question

I work a third shift job and I'm a day time dad. Due to this my sleep is sporadic at best. Most days it consists of two, two-ish hour power naps when my daughter sleeps. Saturday, Sunday and Monday are typically 'free-time' days which I usually use to play catch-up on sleep or errands.

My job keeps me relatively fit as I walk around 5-8 miles per day and consistently lift heavy objects all day, but I want to put on some muscle weight by hitting a gym for the 3 days of the week that are available to me.

I'm worried a gym membership would be a waste of money if I cant fully utilize it with my current schedule.

Answer 1

In my honest opinion you're already doing a lot of strenuous work which can cause fatigue as it is. Being a Dad obviously can't be easy work either, people generally recommend 8+ hours of sleep a day to enable recovery for your muscles to grow and since you're already doing a lot of exercise and lacking the sleep I would probably say it would not be feasible for you to go to the gym but it also depends on the person. Some people need less time to recover.

However the gym is heavily diet dependant, so if you don't have the time to create a diet plan and follow it you may also be wasting your time depending on the results you're looking to get.

At the end of the day it's completely your choice but I hope this helps

Answer 2

I would try to rephrase your question as:

I have bad sleeping schedule, however I'd like to add some muscle mass, but feel like gym membership will be wasted money.

There is no way for us to know how your body will respond to training, you can only find out by trying. The fact that you "walk around 5-8 miles per day and consistently lift heavy objects" means nothing, as you have adapted to that stress. Your body will not change, if you keep doing same things.

It is also hard to judge how much sleep is enough. These medical doctors were productively training during med school and medical training. So it is possible to do weightlifting and have bad sleep schedule.

You need more stress to add muscle. That can be done via body-weight training, however heavy, compound exercises with barbells will be more efficient (results per time spent). It is hard to do that outside of commercial gyms. You might have luck finding some friends with home gym, you'll have to ask around.

I would suggest you think about training as getting biggest bang for the buck. And "buck" in that case is your time rather than money. Try getting a 3-month gym membership, pick some simple novice program (Starting Strength or even 5x5) and try sticking to it. Remember to eat above maintenance calories with 1g of protein/lbs of weight, track your weight and waist (if you want to lose/gain weight), see if that's for you.

Answer 3

As @CuriousIndeed mentioned, bodyweight exercises might be what you're looking for. Sleep is extremely important and I would recommend you get those power naps in. Spend those free time periods napping. Make sure your diet is on point and start incorporating those body weight routines while taking care of your daughter. She's lying in the crib, pop out a couple sets of push ups or burpees. Get a pull up bar on the door and do a couple of those. Crunches, hand stand raises, pistol squats, supermans etc.

All of these things you can do while looking after your daughter along with keeping a good diet. It's a perspective thing with your current active job and an infant to take care of, you have to make sacrifices but that doesn't mean you have to give up building muscle entirely.