Functional Strength – Strength Building For the Blue Collar Worker!

If you have a job that requires a bunch of hard physical labor most of the time then you need to pay attention. Whether you know this or not when you are picking up truck tires, bells of hay, piping, moving posts and digging holes you are thinking about doing your job, but you are also engaging in a functional strength training program! So you are probably wondering why should I do any of this outside of work, right?

First of all, I want to say that I totally understand where you are coming from. My dad owns a service station and throughout my teenage and early adulthood years I worked like crazy 9-10 hours a day lifting truck tires, washing vehicles, and in a lot of cases pushing vehicles into to the shop to get fixed. It was relentless work and I would arrive home and crash from exhaustion. I had always been physically active and involved in athletics so that certainly helped me to cope with the long intense workdays.

Fortunately I continued to train my body by lifting weights and working-out either before or after work as much as I could. When I first began I felt exhausted, but quickly adapted when I polished my training. You see just being active enough to lift something that is relatively heavy, but not something that you lift to failure will help you to develop mind-blowing strength. Its all about using your entire body to lift the sandbag 3-4 times by squatting to pick it up or by moving heavy equipment in and out of the shop to clean the greasy floors! Don’t be afraid to get creative by using stuff you already have on the farm, at the shop, or in your work truck. Just squat down use your legs and arms and lift! The more you practice and improve then make lifting whatever object you choose more difficult. Maybe try it with one arm, or lifting 2 objects, or by lifting and throwing the object, so long as that is feasible.

Strength training is just like anything else. The more you practice the better you get at it!