Buff Daddy

One of the greatest achievements a man can accomplish is to take on the responsibility of raising a family. Having children and providing for them takes tremendous courage, perseverance, integrity, honor and responsibility. Any man can become a biological father, but it takes a real man to be a DAD.

Being a Dad requires unselfish discipline and unconditional love. For some men, having children is a burden or a detriment to their life. The responsibility is too much to handle and they end up disregarding their children and the family unit. They end up giving up their family to go back to their selfish ways. Not every man has what it takes to support a family, emotionally, physically, and financially.

Being a Dad is honorable. There is nothing greater than to have the opportunity to teach a child the ways of the world and to see them change into a meaningful and purposeful human being.

Marriage the formal union of a man and a woman, typically recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife (Webster's Dictionary, 2010). When you enter into a marriage you are accepting the role of being a partner. A partner is someone who is there to help provide unconditional support. When I got married I knew that my single ways of living were done. The single life could only satisfy certain needs. Marriage has allowed me to become a better man. It has allowed me to become a husband and a Dad.

To me having a family is by far the most rewarding process of life. Before I got married I only cared about one thing--ME! My focus was only on sports and my career. Everything was centered around my training schedule. No matter what commitments I had I planned it around training. I had to be at the gym at a certain time every day and nothing was going to get in the way of that. I had no time for relationships or friendships as they only got in the way of my goal. My goal was to learn everything about the human body I could and to compete in bodybuilding contests. I didn’t have time for anything or anyone else.

Then when I got married I realized that it was not all about me anymore. I had to “man up” and take on the responsibility of supporting a family. I became a home owner and a business owner, two life changing commitments that put you face to face with responsibility. Many men run from the idea of settling down. The thought of having to take care of a wife and kids is the biggest threat to a man’s selfish freedom.

Though being married changed me in positive ways, I had to give up certain aspects of my life. But one thing I never let go of was my undying love for bodybuilding. I had to learn new ways to train in order to maximize my time in the weight room without going beyond my family obligations. I don’t believe that men have to give up their body once they get married. I know many men who were athletic, trained hard, and looked good only to become lazy and fat when they got married. They looked old. When I asked what had happened to them, they would tell me that they didn’t feel like they had to impress anyone anymore and that they don’t have the time to train. Marriage made them complacent. They didn’t have the desire to train and they ate whatever they wanted without much regard for their appearance. They got busy in their lives trying to support a family. I truly respect that. Supporting a family is the hardest thing a man can do. It separates dinks from real men. The dink is the one who can’t handle the responsibility of supporting a family. They are the ones that cheat on their wife, disregard their children and are abusive bastards. The real family man on the other hand is the one that takes life head on and forges through all adversity to do whatever it takes to support his family. However, the family man doesn’t have to give up every aspect of their life.

This book is written for the family man who puts an honest days work in and goes home to their wife and kids and loves being a Dad. Even with all the stress and responsibilities we are faced with every day, there is still time for us to train and look great. I love my family and I love bodybuilding. Rather than giving up bodybuilding I learned how to train differently to maximize my time. Now I train just as hard as when I was single and look just as good or even better than I did before I was married. Life is based on choices and challenges. How you perceive these challenges is based on the choices we make. You can choose to stay fat and lazy, or you can choose to look great and still be a “Buff Daddy.”


The Buff Daddy System
Program I
Foundation Phase: Weeks 1-3

This first program is designed to build the foundation of the neuromuscular system. It is important to establish neural conductivity between muscle cells to enhance contractibility. During a muscle contraction the neuron activates a sequence of chemicals that elicit the muscle cell to turn on and contract. This process is sensitive to resistance. If the workload is too much then the synaptic transmission becomes weak. The weak signal forces the nervous system to release stress hormones to help stop further damage to the tissue. When the motor units of a muscle cell are overworked they begin to receive only fragments of the neuronal signal. A shaky, weak feeling is felt in the muscle. This is known as overtonis. Once this feeling occurs exercise should be stopped. Continuing to exercise will only produce a negative effect and could result in loss of gains, or injury.

This program is designed to help establish an adaptive integration of exercise and neurohormonal secretions. You will be improving your sympathetic tone. The sympathetic nervous system is a subdivision of the autonomic nervous system. It is the “fight or flight” regulatory system the body uses as a means of defense. When the body is threatened or excited the sympathetic nervous system turns on and changes to the homeostatic physiology of the body occur. Blood is diverted out of the digestive system and goes to the extremities, blood pressure increases, sugar metabolism increases, and neurotransmitters (epinephrine and norepinephrine) are released. This sympathetic reaction is designed to only last in short durations, just long enough for the individual to react to the stimulus being presented. When a person is threatened by a stimulus the sympathetic nervous system turns on. The person then must decide to flee from the situation or to stay and confront the threat. Regardless of which choice the person makes the sympathetic nervous will soon begin to wane.

Exercise is stress on the body. Rather than being involuntarily provoked by a threatening stimulus, exercise promotes a voluntary stressful reaction. Once we begin to exercise our sympathetic nervous system reacts. The condition of all of our systems (cardiovascular, muscular, neural) will determine how well the sympathetic nervous system will respond. This is known as sympathetic tone. I often hear people mention that they want to be toned. To them being toned means being muscularly defined. What “tone” really means is that the sympathetic nervous system has been conditioned to withstand greater levels of stress. So rather than the sympathetic nervous system turning on quickly and secreting high levels of catecholamines and neurotransmitters in the blood, it will take longer for the SNS to react to the threat and will slowly secrete catecholamines and neurotransmitters into the bloodstream. In turn this will provide the person a longer opportunity to work in the stress zone. This essentially is what being fit is all about.

It is important to establish greater sympathetic tone during the foundation program. This will allow for greater muscle gains in the later programs.