How to Build Muscle Without Lifting
The gym isn't the only place you can go to build muscle. Pioneers were strong, and they didn't have a place to go work out. They worked the land, performing tasks that helped them feed their families and stay warm and sheltered. Follow a few updated guidelines to working out the old-fashioned way, and build muscle the way pioneers did.
Things You'll Need
- Garden shovel
- Hard hat
- Leather gloves
- Safety glasses
- Logs, approximately 8 inches in diameter by 12 inches long
- Splitting maul
- Wheelbarrow, truck or trailer
Instructions
-
Shoveling to Build Muscle
-
1
Use a shovel to work the muscles in your upper body, back and legs. Mark an area of your garden where you want to turn the dirt over before tilling.
-
2
Place your foot on the head of the shovel blade while you grasp the handle. Use your foot to push the shovel into the dirt.
-
-
3
Use your arms to raise the shovelful of dirt, tip the shovel over to turn the dirt upside down and dump the dirt onto the ground. Use the point of the shovel to chop the dirt into small pieces. Move to a new spot near the previous shovelful, and repeat.
-
4
Work at a slow pace until you have turned over the soil in your garden. Take breaks, and do stretches as often as necessary while you are shoveling.
Split Wood to Build Muscle
-
5
Split wood to work your abdominal and oblique muscles, and your arms, shoulders, legs and back. Put on the hard hat, gloves and safety glasses.
-
6
Bend at the waist, and reach to position a log on end on a firm area of ground in front of you about an arm's length away.
-
7
Stand up and hold the handle of a splitting maul in both hands with the sharp end of the maul facing away from you. Swing the maul's head up to your shoulder. Swing the maul's head down onto the center of the log to split the log in half.
-
8
Set the maul aside, bend at the waist, reach down and pick up the pieces of wood to move them from the splitting area.
-
9
Stack the pieces of wood in a row, or load them in a wheelbarrow, truck or trailer to be stacked elsewhere.
-
10
Repeat the splitting, stacking and loading process until you have split all the wood you need. Rest and stretch as necessary throughout the wood-splitting process.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Warm up and cool down your muscles before and after shoveling or splitting wood.
Drink water to keep hydrated while you are working.
The more you split wood, the more accurate you will become at hitting the log where you want to.
Always check with your physician when starting or changing an exercise program.
Have a friend with you when chopping wood in case of emergencies, and have a working cell phone with you.
Dig safely. Call a digger's hotline in your state when digging a patch of ground where you haven't dug before.
References
- Photo Credit garden tools image by Joann Cooper from Fotolia.com bêche image by Claudio Calcagno from Fotolia.com cognée image by Philippe LERIDON from Fotolia.com
