Bodybuilder IB Analyst

Going to have to sacrifice time from something, and let me tell you, it's not going to be work or sleep.

Analyst here. I lift Thursday - Sunday and at least once or twice Monday / Tuesday. It’s basically my only hobby so I just make time in the morning or around 7/8pm.

Ignore title fyi. You’ll be fine, just don’t be the guy that’s constantly talking about macros and such when getting lunch / dinner.

Do what you can.  Find a shorter program (check out 5/3/1 BBB?), keep your cals/macros in-line, EC stack, don't booze too hard.  Will be really tough to grow but sounds like you have a great foundation to maintain.  We're all gonna make it, brah.   

Cut out alcohol, I’ve been sober since for years, eat clean as hell and find a routine that works. I gym Friday-Sunday non-negotiable. I tried to squeeze in two additional workouts sometime between Monday to Thursday. Hard but very doable.

Delete social media on weekdays and make sure you get sleep.

If you're the kind of person who found time to lift during finals week, you'll be able to find time during IB analyst years.

When I started in IB I switched over from PPL 6x/week to Full-body 3x/week with some quick 20-minute cardio sessions on off days. Being completely honest, I've lost a decent amount of size, but I've also managed to get a lot stronger/leaner as well. I'd much rather be a chiseled 175lbs (a la Patrick Bateman) than a bulky 200lbs. But again, that's just me.

Think you should be able to fit 4x 75 minute workouts in most groups - 2 on weekends and find time to do 2 more during the week, either early morning, dinner hour, maybe late night after work if that's your thing. That 75 minutes might be closer to 60 minutes unless you're seriously sacrificing sleep, which you won't want to after 6 months.

Realistically, you can focus on your body but you will likely lose some size. You simply don't have the time, freedom, and total control over food in IB as you do in college. Even if you're an ardent meal prepper, unless you can do the entire week on Sunday (while also working) it's just something you might need to be okay with sacrificing 20% on. Not saying you should stop caring about your body, but your goals may need to back down for a year or two while your career is in focus. 

Also no need to learn coding. Just jump to corp dev in a year or two and you'll have plenty of time to workout. 

I'm in a somewhat similar situation. Have always been very fit and worked out a lot (5-6 times per week for c. 1.5 hours per workout). Derived a lot of my self esteem from my physique and it also helped me get laid a lot (both due to the confidence boost and due to the actual physique). When I did my first internship in IB I didn't hit the gym at all because I had no time during the week and had 0 energy during weekends. Now I am in PE with somewhat better hours. I am guaranteed to have the time on Friday nights and during the weekends, so that's 3 workout sessions. I can also leave the office around 9pm at least once a week, so that gives me 4 workouts. What I find more difficult is eating right as you are pretty limited to take-out foods and snacks that are office-friendly. 

Tell me you're a diversity/nepotism recruit without telling me you're a diversity recruit.

I worked this past summer at a BB and managed to lift six days a week and run 15-20 miles a week while averaging 70-85hrs in the office. While I anticipate the hours increasing as a full-time, depending on your group's culture, you should be able to make far better use of WFH privileges and focus less on facetime, which should help you squeeze it in.

A couple of things that may help:

I took care of all the week's friction on Sunday night: Ironing five dress shirts, setting up the week's gym clothes, and preparing five healthy lunches. The preparation allowed me to be out the door within five minutes of waking up. I also benefited from living close to the office (15 min walk) and a clean gym with nice showers and lockers (10 min walk).

6:45 - Wake up (quick cold breakfast protein shake / bagel)

6:55 - Out the door

7:15 - Start workout

8:10 - End workout

8:30 - Shower & shave, get dressed, and get out the door.

8:45 - In the office

12:00 - Meal prepped lunch (would often walk for lunch with the full-time/interns to benefit from the social component)

6:30 - Order dinner salad + chicken

12:00 / 1 AM - Log off

I did all my cardio as time was available on the weekends to avoid running at night. I also went to the same gym in the morning as one of the associates on the team, and this is something you can build a strong relationship through, given the shared interest. A typical day for a full-time might extend a little later, but they also tend to roll in later in my office and benefit from working from home after around 4 pm and one or two days completely. I sacrificed sleep and social life significantly, but if something is important to you, you can make time for it.

On the other hand, I've heard things such as "If you're in X good of shape, you're not working hard enough," mainly in the VP+ crowd, so you have to know your audience a bit. The thought would never have crossed my mind to leave the office to work out, and I never mentioned to the full times how frequently or when I worked out. 

Dude I’m an A1 and have hit the gym every single morning since starting.

I wake up at 5:30/ 6 AM and pop an adderall if I’m really struggling. Not saying this is even remotely healthy but it does keep you fit in 100 hour weeks

Yeah sometimes it’s fucking miserable when you go to bed at 3 and wake up for the gym at 6 but you’ll eventually get a break and be able to catch up on sleep but you can’t really “catch up” on the gym

The average junior banker just doesn’t want to go to the gym THAT badly that they’re willing to suffer to make it happen. Not saying this is a bad thing, just personal preferences

But yeah if you have a high enough pain tolerance you can make it happen. Personally for me it’s a stress reliever and totally worth it.

Idk bro I’m getting jacked

Do what you want and get fired

Haven't been working in IB that long, but I strongly feel putting your physique will not get you far in this industry especially in your early years. But no need to worry about it so early. Try things out during SA and if you don't like it, pursue something else. 

Before I hit the desk, I did 2-hour workouts 6x/week, was on an extremely strict meal plan, hung out around 5% body-fat, and even did some small-time fitness modeling for $ during school.  Basically, I planned my life around my lifts and meals before I hit the desk.  When you do hit the desk, you can no longer do that...not even close. 

You can really only lift early in the morning or late at night.  If you're doing it in the morning, you'll be doing it at the expense of sleep while you're on limited sleep.  If you're doing it at night, you may get blown up and not be able to lift at all, your energy is going to suck because you're working out after 12+ hours of work, and you'll be doing it at the expense of sleep.  Basically, your energy levels are going to suck compared to what they are now and it's more important to your health to prioritize sleep than it is to prioritize staying up to hit 12 sets of tris during a 2 hour workout. 

On the meal planning side, you're not going to have time to cook every meal.  There are going to be plenty of days where you realize you haven't eaten at 1am and just order Mcdonalds (or whatever other shithole is still open) from Uber Eats.  As you are getting slammed and under a lot of pressure on execution deals, your level of giving a fuck about counting every macro goes away almost immediately. 

Basically, you just have to try to eat clean, decent portions (won't be counting everything) and get your lifts in when you can.  Which is typically running a couple of miles, doing push-ups / sit-ups in between turns while you're WFH, and hitting the gym hard on weekends when you aren't slammed.  Just go in w/ realistic expectations that you will not be able to maintain the level of physique you currently have.  Also, if you're currently eating like a horse because you're working out like one, I'd seriously consider dialing back the calories before you hit the desk FT so that your body gets used to it.  If you're eating 3k+ calories/day because you're working out hard, it's really hard to drastically cut the calories when you're no longer working out like a horse and are stressed af. I failed to do this and put on a shitload of weight as an AN1. 

Looks like we have a little Situation here.

When I was an associate/VP, there was no bigger enemy in my life than the couple of analysts who would put me behind because they felt their gym schedule was sacrosanct.  Often times, it was my own workout goals that suffered as a result.  

I'd encourage OP to imagine that for a second.  If you're worried that your workouts will suffer as an analyst, imagine how pissed you'll be when you're at a higher rank and your analyst's gym schedule is messing yours up.    

Figure out how to be flexible. Most analysts are able to keep up a solid gym schedule.  Just don't get too strict about exactly when and exactly how long the workout needs to be.

You’re forgetting a crucial factor—you’ll likely recruit for PE within 3 months of starting. You’ll secure an offer and can give 80% effort for the remaining ~1.5 years. If you are legitimately fine not being top bucket, you’ll be cool at least maintaining physique.

You could also start shifting your values away from your inherently decaying body :)

Life gives you the opportunity to make your own priorities. If you make having a body builder body during your adult working life your top priority - you can rest assured your career will suffer. Doesn't matter if in IB or any other career.Life is all about trade offs. I'm in my 40s and my body is nowhere near what it was in my 20s. But I truly can't imagine how anyone can put that level of fitness as their top priority in life.

All comes down to how sweaty your group is and the facetime culture. I got lucky and everyone heads out before dinner so can sneak away to the gym for 1-1.5 hours 2-3 times per week outside of Friday-Sunday. Have had time every weekend to meal prep – but it comes down to dedication when you’re tired. I’ve been able to meal prep lunches for the week ~80% of the time, def not the norm for most. This clearly seems like a priority for you so you should be fine

Yeah bro I spend majority of my time in the gym. When my MD gives me grief about going to the gym instead of working I look him dead in the eye and say “how much do you bench?” and then laugh and walk out of the office. Bonus points if you kick the elevator button instead of pushing it with your hand

cool story bro so whats your max bench

Look into Mike Mentzer and HIT

This is a tried and true method. Have put my boys on this plan since i discovered it. You must follow the steps in order and to perfection so take notes:

1) Hail from a middle class / upper middle class background but have a chip on your shoulder anyway

2) Go find yourself a girl that you really care about and visualize a future with her

3) Treat her with respect, take care of all her needs and be emotionally supportive.

4) Now, when she does eventually leave, ease the pain with some alcohol, shit food, porn, etc for two weeks

5) Two weeks go by and you’re officially at rock bottom. You tell yourself f*** this and use these emotions to put you in a grind mindset that you can’t get out of for 2 years.

6) two years go by and you’re jacked and doing well in your job, although your sleep schedule will never be the same and you can’t remember the last time you felt the touch of a human woman

7) download hinge

8) rinse, repeat

Get a membership for a gym close to your office and shorten your workouts.

The easy answer here is avoid client-facing jobs. I might be downvoted for saying this but the reality is that everything in life comes with a tradeoff. You cannot have the level of fitness you want and work in IB (or even consulting). 
 

One of the main reasons you are getting paid a lot in client facing work such as IB is the long hours and the flexibility of hours. One week you may have a chill 40 hours, the next week you’ll be staffed on multiple projects working 100 hours a week. You simply can’t plan much in life at all, let alone trying to fit in 4-5X gym sessions. There will be many days where you will need to work from morning until night, and there simply won’t be time to do a workout.

And regarding time, I see you are making purely time arguments. What I described above takes a physical toll on your body that is hard to describe if you haven’t done it before. It’s not the tasks themselves, but the stress of trying to be accurate, while being staffed on tasks with extremely tight deadlines in a sink or swim environment that gets to you. Thinking you will have the energy when you are already sleep deprived and extremely stressed to commit to serious bodybuilding sessions is misguided and wrong.

I struggle with a lot of the same things you are going through (although I wouldn’t classify myself to be as fit as you), and ended up leaving a job in consulting because in part because it was simply impossible to reconcile my fitness goals and job trajectory. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly I’m going to do long-term because even in corp fin/ corp strat directors seem to have miserable lives (ignore my industry title) , much worse than the juniors do. It’s not just an industry handicap, but a position handicap if fitness/bodybuilding is your main priority in life 

Personally, I would recommend you look into corp finance or even better corp strat type roles. For at least the analyst/associate years your life will be fairly comfortable (assuming not some crazy sweatshop group) and during that time you can think about what your next steps would be. Contrary to what some people say, you do not need to do IB to break in to these fields. They need grunt workers/analysts  just like anyone else and IB -> MBA people come in at the associate or senior associate level. One thing that will be useful (and is becoming more desired) is knowing Python/SQL/VBA  and in particular knowing how to do some financial applications with these. These aren’t trivial to learn, but certainly they are significantly easier than the standard expected at FAANG/SWE. 

"Bodybuilder analyst". Lmao. Opened the thread hoping for a single funny comment and all I find is mountains of essays and dissertations on how to manage to continue to lift heavy objects for 45 minutes a day. A testament to the sad state of affairs these days.

Essentially, if you're known as the "gym-bro" you're asking if you should potentially give up your identity to do banking. 

I'm not saying what you should do, that your decision. Just think about a couple things I'm going to throw out:

1. You're young now, but whats your long term goal. Do you want to get married, have a family, make a bunch of money, or if you're middle class at age 60 but you got to lift and smash a bunch of chicks through your 30s you'd be okay with that? Truth is, girls probably care out you look in high school, care about how fun you are at parties in college, than just care about how much money you make after college. 

2. Depends on your group, some may be more okay if you lifting than others. 

3. Think about it in terms of ranges. What would be your number someone would have to pay you to never lift again in your life, $60M? $100M?$500M? What about if someone offered to pay you $60k a year to do nothing so you could lift all you want? Want if you got a job that paid ~$250K but you could only life 2-3 times a week?

Tbh don't know about fitting it into the job, but off top I think you could restructure your split/sessions. I don't do bodybuilding since I train more for strength, but I feel like you could do a UL, PHUL, PPL, or even full body type of split with an emphasis on hypertrophy, at least to maintain size. 4 sessions with no legs probably means you're doing a body part split, which I feel like probably won't be feasible at all. When I did train purely for hypertrophy, PPL was pretty time efficient, especially if you train with high intensity v.s. volume

I just came here to say that I'm 5'10, weigh 165 pounds and haven't lifted weights since Freshman year of college but I could prolly still whoop dat azz

As someone who workouts a lot, I can understand where OP is coming from. It can be very mentally challenging to see your gains just disappear. If I were you, I would go for a job like Equity Research or SWE since it will provide you more WLB with good pay.

You are wrong. Studies show you can maintain with as little as 1-2 workouts. 150 minutes a week isn't bad, plus you can cut down on time and just go more intense. Hit full body

You are wrong. Studies show you can maintain with as little as 1-2 workouts. 150 minutes a week isn't bad, plus you can cut down on time and just go more intense. Hit full body

I workout every day. I sacrifice sleep and sometimes work but as you mentioned, I care more about being in the best shape possible. Used to be a chubby fat kid, lifting saved my life and I'm not ready to give that up just to be top bucket. I am a bit concerned about my health with regards to sleep, and actually have been thinking about this a lot lately - so if anyone thinks I am being unhealthy correct me.

If I'm logged off by 12-1am, I'm up around 5:30-6am and in the gym by 6:30am. I do about 20-30 min of cardio and an hour of lifting. 

However I work at a sweatshop and often am up at 3-4am. Days like those I try and get up around 7:30 to workout but often I oversleep. Days like those I do abbreviated workouts, go for a run, or basically have some form of activeness for like 30-45 minutes.  Generally it's okay to not come into the office at my firm until 10-11am so sometimes I just go offline and go for a 30 minute run. This is the method that sacrifices work as sometimes things pile up, I'm getting blown up, etc. but I genuinely don't think anything can't wait 30 minutes. 

Generally though I workout and am logged in latest by 9:30 and don't think that sacrifices any work besides from lack of sleep leading to brain fatigue.