Should someone who works labour train differently than someone who works at a desk? There is undoubtly more physical exertion in the former rather than the latter, should this be taken into consideration? How?
Opinions or comments?
I don’t think so. If you’ve worked the job for a while then you’re body is used to it and has adapted to do the job with as little energy as possible and has made any body composition changes it needed to make.
The whole idea behind weight training is to throw your body a curve to make it adapt. Lift hard and if you’re sore the next day then you did it right. If not then add reps/weight. The approach is the same no matter your job.
I know over the past four summers doing manual labor has destroyed my training routine. I worked laying/installing, sanding, and finishing wood floors. The bending over factor destroys your hamstrings and lower back for about two weeks, and then your body adapts.
Last summwer was the first time I had been able to actually train and work. I attribute it to the fact that I fianlly could do over double body weight on deadlifts and had been working my P.C. for a few months very hard. Still, I stayed away from DL’s GM’s anything that really worked my P.C.
I reccomend not training the muscles you use every day overly hard, because I found that the boss got real pissed the day I had to stand up and stretch every five minutes due to severe lower back soreness.
I think doing manual labor definitely calls for a different schedule of gym training. Assuming you work a Mon-Fri. schedule try this:
On Tues. or Wed. go to the gym and do arms,calves, and abs. Something like this:
Three sets of barbell curls supersetted with three sets of dips. Then do three sets of standing calf raises supersetted with three sets of hanging leg raises. Train hard but not to failure.
On Saturday go to the gym and do six exercises: Horizontal push (such as bench presses), horizontal pull (chest-supported rows), vertical push (overhead presses), vertical pull (chins), quad dominant lower body (squats), hip dominant lower body (good mornings). Go hard but not to failure and keep the total number of sets, excluding warmups, to 24 or less.
If this proves to be too much try cutting the workouts in half and alternating Saturdays. So workout # 1 could be presses, chins, and squats while workout two is benching, rowing, and good mornings.
On Sunday rest, limitimg activity to a brisk walk or doing nothing at all.
To answer your question- Absolutely.
one of the major factors is caloric intake/output. I wasn’t building until I went up to and over about 6000cal. a day.This was when I was doing tree cutting and concrete work for about 8-12 hours a day.That was at a body weight of 143-45, bf@6%
Lack of flexability and repetitive motion is also a factor to consider.This can make certain body parts more prone to injury and overtraining.
Recovery time after work and recovery time between workouts.Imediately after work I was dead.Needed a 2 hour nap and a good shower to come back to life. Also had to have more time between lifting sessions due to a heavy workload that inhibited recovery.
Keep us posted on how you find the ballance.By the way what do you do?
When working manual labor the two imprtant things I learned were.
1: EAT A TON! I had to eat alot to keep from losing muscle and made sure I ate frequently too. The good thing was I could also eat most what ever I want, obviously though healthy choices are the best.
2: Train heavy but don’t over due it. Most manual labor isnt super high intensity so I found this the best addidtion to work that was getting done at the job site.
I was lucky and only worked hard in the summer then went back to school, but I guess this can work for lay offs as well: When I stopped working the day in day out long physical working hours gave me a great work capacity. So the month or two following I was able to make great gains in size/strength.
[quote]mindeffer01 wrote:
To answer your question- Absolutely.
one of the major factors is caloric intake/output. I wasn’t building until I went up to and over about 6000cal. a day.This was when I was doing tree cutting and concrete work for about 8-12 hours a day.That was at a body weight of 143-45, bf@6%
Lack of flexability and repetitive motion is also a factor to consider.This can make certain body parts more prone to injury and overtraining.
Recovery time after work and recovery time between workouts.Imediately after work I was dead.Needed a 2 hour nap and a good shower to come back to life. Also had to have more time between lifting sessions due to a heavy workload that inhibited recovery.
Keep us posted on how you find the ballance.By the way what do you do?[/quote]
I work two jobs actually, at a veneer mill and on the waterfront. The mill can be quite strenuous depending on what they having me doing (usually clean-up, sometimes green chain) and the waterfront is usually a piece of cake. I was just mostly asking out of curiousity, it seems that most articles (here but mostly in other places) I’ve read seem to be geared towards people who work desk jobs.
Old thread but any new comments on how to manage maual labour with a training routine would be appreciated, since Im thinking about it myself.
Good point made by one guy that it seems as if all the routines on this site are catered towards the desk-job types. Interesting.
Amir
I’m a Union Laborer and when working different jobs, I alter my training depending on what type of physical work predominates my day.
ie…Don’t train heavy bi’s when you have to shovel all day, Don’t do Heavy Deads when you are on a jackhammer all day.
I would usually relegate certain lifts to Saturdays because I usually don’t work on Sat and am able to recover all most 100% by Monday.
I work at a garden center, and that is pretty labor intensive. Most of the guys there dont understand how I can go home and lift after moving rocks all day…I just have a body made for endurance.
However, like a previous guy said, you need to base things around work somehow. When December comes, I rarely work my bi’s, and sometimes my back, simply because ill move a hundred trees in eight hours. Its like doing a couple hundred bent over rows in eight hours. If I was going heavy, I would rip my muscle (I’ve had muscle pulls occur in December frequently). Forearms are always a bitch, because if they are sore, life is hard.
Pretty much, its trial and error. Work out when you have the energy, and keep the exercises to the basic compounds. Works for me.