Getting Strong is a Family First Activity

By Sam Krapf, SSC. Ground Zero Strength - Twin Falls

"I can't train right now. I need to focus on my family."

As a coach, I hear some version of this often from clients or prospective clients. On the surface, it sounds noble and feels selfless but it might be the most expensive tradeoff a person can make.

I understand the pressure, and I understand circumstances where training does need to take a back seat. I'm in the thick of it myself. My son is in the middle of toddlerhood. My daughter is 9 months old and growing like a weed. Sleep and excess time are hard to come by around here. Between running my online coaching business, my gym facility, training my various physical pursuits, and trying to be the husband and father I want to be, it would be easy to justify putting training on the back burner. After all, isn't family supposed to come first?

But that's exactly why I make the time to train. My family does come first. I want to be around and in the best physical condition possible for a long time, and I want to be useful the whole way. I want to wrestle on the living room floor without tweaking my back. I want to help move the couch without making excuses. I want to go on hikes, hunt and fish, coach my kid's baseball teams, carry sleeping kids upstairs, and still have something left in the tank at the end of the day.

When you stop training, or never start, the tradeoff creeps up slowly. You start borrowing against your future without realizing it. At first you’ll feel a little more fatigue in the evenings, a little less patience after work, a little more effort to get off the floor, a little tighter belt, a little more stiffness in the morning. No big dramatic shift, but a slow erosion of your physical capacity.

Eventually, you'll start pulling back on things you used to be able to do instead of leaning in, and your kids won't understand why, only that you're not as available or capable as you once were. By the time you realize how much ground you've lost, it's usually too late to get it all back, unless you start training now.

I can't think of anything more terrifying than having to tell my children, "I can't do that," because I let myself become a fat, tired, broken version of the man I promised to be, all while telling myself I was doing it for them.

Skipping your training borrows time from your family, you just don't feel it today. The debt comes due later, and when it does, it's going to be ugly business.

Strength buys you time. Every hard set of 5 under the bar you grind through today, every workout you make despite the chaos, is an investment in being able to show up fully, now and for years to come. A strong, capable, healthy parent is a better parent: more present, more resilient, and harder to kill.

None of this requires hours a day or a fancy facility. All it takes is commitment, a plan well executed, and the willingness to do hard things consistently. A squat rack in the garage and a handful of lifting sessions per week built around a simple, hard, progressive programming framework is enough. Eat real food, get your protein in, take a few walks to the park, and mix in a couple of conditioning sessions to keep that heart pumping. Kids love watching you train (I have never missed a rep in front of my son!) and they love being part of your active life, so let them see you lift, let them tag along, and make it normal.

Your health and your family are not in competition with each other. The real question is whether your family gets the best version of you or a version that's slowly breaking down, and whether you can afford to let that happen.

Your family needs you strong now and twenty years from now. So show up, get under the bar, and be efficient about it. Proper barbell training is the best tool there is for that. Consider strength training a family-first activity, because their future, and yours, depends on it.

Sam Krapf is a Starting Strength Coach and owner of Ground Zero Strength, a Starting Strength Affiliate Gym in Twin Falls, Idaho. He trains a wide range of clients locally and remotely worldwide using barbell training as the foundation for fitness, performance, and real-world demands. Sam earned his Starting Strength Coach credential in November 2023. He is a former collegiate baseball player and coach before switching to strength coaching. He actively trains jiu-jitsu, endurance running, and is an avid hunter and outdoorsman. He lives in Twin Falls with his wife Tess, and two kids, Cooper and Chloe.