Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 72: Training around shift work
Transcript
- Cameron: Hello and welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. So in today's episode, I've got Harry with me and we're going to talk all about how to juggle your training around a shift pattern. So for those of you who don't know, Harry is both a full-time online coach as I am, but he is also rescuing cats from trees. That's what I presume you do, right? That's what being a firefighter is all about. Basically, he plays dress up and rescues cats from trees. Harry: Thank Cameron: That's what you do. yeah, I think we'll just kind of like preface this with like a little bit of context. Talk to me about what a week of being at Fireman Sam looks like for you. Harry: Okay, so I'm an on-call firefighter, so it's a part-time thing. It's not my full-time job. I'm basically available when they need me, basically. So what that means is inconsistency in schedules. You never know what's gonna happen. You never know when that little pager is gonna go off and you need to be able to run out the door at a moment's notice and you might be out for a little bit of time doing something which could be pretty intense and pretty crazy. So it depends, some weeks can be a bit busier, some weeks can be a bit quieter. ⁓ But yeah, it's just juggling, juggling everything and being available really. ⁓ So it does come with its complications, its difficulties. It can be quite restrictive sometimes. Sometimes I'm stuck to the house because I've got to be near my car when that pager goes off. ⁓ So yeah, it brings up lots of... issues that a lot of people struggle with around shift work, right? You know, having different shifts, different patterns, working different hours, sleeping patterns, potentially being thrown off. It could go off in the middle of the night and I get called out. It could, you know, it does all these things. You get days where you're tired because you've been out on a big job and things like that. So it all brings up lovely little opportunities ⁓ to kind of figure out the plan because that's the thing, right? If you are a shift worker. ⁓ It's difficult. It's more difficult than if you weren't. it's doable. It's completely, you know, you can work around it. I've definitely had to adjust my training and all that kind of stuff to fit for it. But we will help you with that. Cameron: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things is, I was gonna say it's nice, it's probably not nice for you on the end of it, but one of the things that's a good example of this is like, your shift work is, although it's not night shift, which is definitely like, that's tougher, right? I know you can be called out earlier, but broadly it's not like night shift. But what's good or potentially bad against your work is that it's unpredictable. And that means that it probably gives you a lot of context in terms of... juggling things with it being unpredictable because it's one thing if like if I work from 2 to 10 every day five days a week although that's a shift pattern that might not be the normal 9 to 5 it's predictable right you know exactly like I know that I'm not going to say I'm going to go to the gym at 8pm because well I work at 8pm and you probably get a slap on the wrist for going to the gym in the middle of your work hours but for you like obviously it's quite unpredictable so I want to kind of talk through a little bit like if I was looking at a week ahead for Harry how would you approach your training? So let's say this week, you could obviously be on call at any point and we know we're coming into summer months, so likely it's gonna get busier as it does for you. But talk me through like, in this week, how would you, how do you think about your training? How do you think about getting in your sessions and what do do when things come up that mean you can't do what you originally planned? Harry: Yeah, it's really important because like you said, it's unpredictable and like to the point where if I need to go for a wee. I used to kind of go, I need to go to the toilet in a minute. Let me just do one more check in. Right now it's like, as soon as I get that feeling, I'm like, I want to go because I could get called out if I'm holding it and I get called out. That's not a nice position to be in. Same with food, right? Same with same with a meal. If it gets close to lunchtime, for example, and I start to get hungry before I'd be like, oh, you know, I do a couple more client check ins, then go have lunch. Now I'm like, I've got to go and eat now because I don't know what's going to happen. I could get called out and be out for X amount of hours. So, yeah. But as far as training, absolutely, it will. disrupt it. So what I do is front load my weeks. If I can, basically find the time to get workouts in and I prioritize them at the start of the week. So if, for example, I typically train kind of three to four times a week, I will try and get as many sessions in the first three days as I can because what that allows me to do is if I'm planning to go Monday and then I get called out and I can't go, okay, cool. I'll go Tuesday. If I get called out Tuesday, okay, cool. I'll go Wednesday. It's unlikely that I'm going to get called out multiple days in a row. Cause like I said, I'm not, it's not my full-time job. It's just on call. ⁓ so by front loading my week, allows me space to catch sessions up. throughout the rest of the week. And that is the most important part for me. If I was kind of like, ⁓ I'll go to the gym on Wednesday or do my first session on Thursday, chances are. I could get called out and then I start losing and start skipping sessions. So that is the biggest, biggest, biggest tip I can give is to front load your week and front load your day. If you can get it done in the morning, get it done in the morning. You know, I might be on the way to the gym and get a call out. might be at the gym and get a call out, but at least I can try and do it as soon as I can. And that is the biggest tip I would probably say. Cameron: Yeah, and it's funny because obviously I am not an on-call firefighter, although I did joke about this to Harry that it's really, really funny because... Long-term one of things I want to do is I want to volunteer for a mountain rescue. I've always wanted to do that. So obviously right now I'm based in Edinburgh, which is mildly problematic because slightly the issue with geography and that there's no mountains nearby. Although there are penlands, but I think the border's rescue is based in like Peebles, which is some distance away. But one of the things that like is the case for me as well is like sometimes the nature of our work as well. It's like. it can be a little bit flexible because you don't always know necessarily how long certain things are going to take because sometimes you're going to be going into more depth, someone's going have a tougher week, sometimes you're going to be jumping on a call like, you know, last week I had a couple clients who just were having a lot going on in their personal lives, so we just had a bit of a catch-up call because I felt that was a better fit than a check-in. So there's an element of unpredictability that sometimes a seven, eight hour a day might actually become a 10 hour a day or 11 hour a day. But one of the things I swear by is exacting and I use the same terminology I do is front loading my week. Like I always swear by getting a training session Monday, Tuesday, and this week I couldn't do that. So like my big priority for today is like, it's non-negotiable at like 6 p.m. and going to the gym tonight, which of course is carnage because that's peak time. anyway, in a gym it's just too small for the amount of people in it. But hey ho. But the point is that, like, I swear by that as well, is that if you front-mode your week, if you are really deliberate about getting a session or two in early on, it makes life much easier. Also, don't know about you, but I quite like sometimes if you have a week where things do go to plan, which happens about once every 25 weeks, like, it's really nice because you can sometimes get to, Thursday and you're like, cool, like, I've done all my training this week. And then you have that nice position where you're like, oh, maybe a do-fancy Saturday session is like a bit of a bonus session, which is cool. Or sometimes you're like, actually just want chill out and you can also just chill out as well and I think that's quite a nice feeling if you kind of get to Thursday and you're like great I have three sessions to do in four days you often find it motivation wise a bit taxing and you'll probably find this too hard imagine Harry it's on your mind you're of like conscious you're like I've got three sessions in four days I've got this to do in the garden I've got like for you right now and you've got maple to look after and it's like how do you juggle all of that? Like, I think that's the other thing for me is like, I'm a big advocate of that. So it's not always possible to train early in the week, but where you can getting something done, it's such a big deal. It might be a run, it might be a gym session, but I think anything's better than nothing early in the week, isn't it? Harry: Yeah, a hundred percent. And yesterday was a prime example of that. I was kind of planning my day and I thought, right, I'd do this and be ready to go to the gym about kind of three o'clock. And then just like you said, the day kind of took a little bit longer. It got to about 10 to five and I had basically an hour spare before I had to go to my drill night at the fire service where we do the training. And I was like, I have a choice right now. I can either go, you know what? I'm going to chill for an hour. and then... you know, whatever, or I can go to the gym now is at five o'clock. I don't want to go at five o'clock because like you said, it's busy, but I was like, I could go now and just do something. And I thought it's going to be busy. I don't want to kind of try and navigating my program. So I thought, well, let me do my cardio. Let me go and I'll either go on a bike or go on something and I'll just do what I can in the timeframe that I can. So I went and I did 45 minutes of cardio, felt really good for it, got home, had a shower, got changed, went to drill night. Good. And like I'm going in like it's currently Wednesday, I've done two sessions this week already. I'm going to do my third straight after this podcast. And that's three sessions done in the first three days. Brilliant. You know, yeah. Cameron: Yeah, 100%. I think seizing the opportunity is quite important. I think that sometimes you can be like, I'll get to it later, but there's a real danger there that your work can run away or, you know, like I say work, because obviously like I don't have kids, for example, but like if you have kids as well, they can have 101 things or they can get a bug, which as far as I understand it, children get ill every third day. I think that's how it works, That's how it works, isn't it? It's like every third day they get a new bug or whatever to bring home and 50 % of the time they share it with their parents. So like, I think that's often the reality too is like the more you can be diligent about just doing it when you get the opportunity, it's so important. Cause I do think if you have that tendency to put it off and put it off, like there are definitely weeks and I put my hands up and I'm sure you'll be the same, Harry, where there are weeks where you've missed a session and you're like, I didn't need to miss a session. I could have been more proactive. And it was because I kind of thought, I could maybe do a shorter session or no session at all I'll just do it later and then of course nothing gets done So yeah, just wanted to talk a little bit about that So we wanted to just cover that off for this particular mini episode if you are interested in coaching then in the show notes There is a link to my whatsapp So no sending me any abuse about the fact that I probably need factor 70 for when I go to it away to Spain in nine days time if you are interested in coaching and you'd like to get a little bit more info just ping me a wee message there or any questions that you have but otherwise Otherwise, have a great day and speak to you soon. Harry: Cheers guys.