Okay people. It’s the beginning of a new year. We’ve all spent the holidays stuffing ourselves with turkey, pumpkin pie, fruitcake, and roast beast. Then on New Year’s Eve, many of you drank enough to drown a hippo.
Shortly after, in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, you promptly puked every last calorie of your holiday gluttony into the floorboard of your best friend’s car. Better make that your EX best friend’s car. So what’s next?
Why, it’s New Year’s resolution time, of course! Personally, I don’t make resolutions. I’ve pretty much mastered the art of disappointing myself enough without the added pressure of a bunch of resolutions that I know I’ll never keep. But I know some of you are gluttons for punishment, so this post may help you out.
Undoubtedly, at least one of you out there have decided that this will be the year you’re going to get in shape. Well, I’ve got something that can help you out. It’s really designed to help truckers, but it can be used by anyone. It all started when I decided to start working out and being the whiner that I am, I started tweeting about it. That’s when I got the question:
“How do you do a workout inside your truck?”
Man, I’ve been asked this question at least a million times (give or take 999,996). In the past I’ve always said, “One of these days, I’ll make a video and show you.” Today is that day.
I’ve made two videos, each of them a little under 15 minutes long. In typical fashion, I’ve tried to spruce them up a bit with a little bad humor. I’ll let you decide whether I succeeded or if I earned a spot on the FAIL Blog.
Doing these videos has taught me one thing for sure. Video is hard. As long as it takes for me to write a blog post, it’s much quicker than doing videos. So don’t be expecting this to turn into a video blog anytime soon.
As a matter of fact, let me give you a bit of a disclaimer here. The audio and video quality isn’t exactly what I’d call stellar. In fact, it kinda sucks. I tried using both of my good video cameras, but neither of them had a wide enough lens to get the shots I needed in such a cramped space.
That left me with the crappy built-in camera and microphone on my ancient MacBook Pro, which just enhanced how bad the lighting was. In short, I did the best I could, so don’t be too mean when you leave a comment. You were planning to leave a comment, weren’t you?
Video #1 is the Introduction and the abs workout. Video #2 is the dumbbell workout. Perhaps another disclaimer is in order here. I am NOT a professional trainer. Never have been. Never will be. So do all these exercises at your own risk.
Start out easy and work your way up. I’d tell you to see a physician before you start any exercise program, but you and I both know that you’re not going to give a doctor any dough for something as trivial as that. I guess there really isn’t a lot more to say, so for once, I won’t.
One last thing. This is a G-rated video. I’m wearing a short-sleeve shirt and shorts. Trust me. You really don’t want to see my Austin Powers chest hair. Enjoy!
Here’s a couple of links that might help:
The Men’s Health Abs Diet Workout
Proper techniques for dumbbell exercises in a handy downloadable PDF
I think those are great videos. I thought they were done well even with the camera angle. That is really neat that you did this. People need direction like that. Shows there is always a way to work out no matter where you are. I work out a lot myself and I think what you did here will be important to a lot of people. Thanks.
Thanks Becca. I also thought it was important to put it out there. Now there’s fewer legitimate excuses for truckers to be lazy and out of shape. To be honest though, I’m not sure how much of an impact these videos will have. All these truckers are still going to have to motivate themselves and that’s something easier said than done. I sure hope so though. Thanks for leaving your thoughts.
Man, I’d love to be able to do this workout but I don’t have a semi! Bummer.
Aren’t we snarky one? Well, what did I expect? 🙂
I thought you did a great job with those videos.and I’m impressed that you took the time to make them. Video takes forever.
Like you, I’m not one for resolutions. For a few years I actually set reverse-resolutions, meaning since I knew I was going to fail, I resolved to do the opposite of my goal. But then I got too lazy to bother.
BTW, I love Pam’s comment above. Has she been taking smart-ass lessons from you?
Yes, video does take forever. And those videos aren’t even high quality. It was fun though. I wouldn’t expect a video blog any time soon though.
Too lazy to make resolutions. Too lazy to make reverse-resolutions. We’re birds of a feather. LOL
As for Mrs. Court, yes, she’s a hoot. I tolerate her snarkiness because she was really one of the first non-truckers to actually read my blog. She also introduced me to the word “snarky.” So I’m guessing that means she was a smart aleck way before she met me! 😉
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
I just stumbled onto your blog. Pretty great work, I truly enjoyed reading your point of view.
I would like permission to cross post this post into my blog. While still quite small I hope by sharing I can help get drivers a bit more active and healthier.
Let me know, drive safe
Truckinggrl (don’t know your real name),
Feel free to use this post on your site. I only require credit for the work and a link to my blog somewhere on the page (a Twitter link would be appreciated too). And thanks for asking. Here are the links. Also email me when it’s posted and I’ll tweet a link to your page. Thanks again.
Todd McCann http://twitter.com/ToddMcCann http://abouttruckingjobs.wordpress.com/
Todd, great job on the vid, I definitely need to do this workout. Glad you did this it shows me it can be done fairly easy. Will do it.ok I’m goin to start, here I go. Ok oh crap I’m a procracinator. I will seriously give this a try… thx t
How’s it coming with the workout there, Tom? Sounds like there might have been some hesitation going on? LOL
Glad you found the video useful. Unlike some other people, you got the idea behind the videos; not to show how un-buff I am, but to show that this workout is actually possible. To be honest, I haven’t done this workout in a while. I’ve been using the Gorilla Workout app on my iPhone to mix things up a bit. I tend to do my dumbbell routine more in the winter because I can turn the truck off and still not get overheated. I often still have to crack the windows a bit to cool off! Good luck and keep me posted on how you’re doing.
I work in the North Dakota oil fields, and in Winter, getting outside the truck for regular exercise is out of the question. I appreciate your videos on doing it in the sleeper. I would rather go to the gym but hey I am here to get my money and get out in five years, so until I can move back to a place with life, my days are spent in the truck 95% and these videos are helpful for me.
Hey JV. That is by far the most practical use of my videos to date. Glad you found them useful. And thanks for dropping me a line to tell me about it. It’s always good to hear that I’m not completely wasting my time on here. LOL
I like the idea of taking dumbells with you in the cab. I feel like that could help you stay in shape after sitting in a truck all day. I’ll have to try out these workouts if I decide to get a truck and make deliveries.