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Buy some land and build things on it with your own two hands. Unlike lifting weights you'll have something more valuable than just your improved health afterwa

Buy some land and build things on it with your own two hands. Unlike lifting weights you'll have something more valuable than just your improved health afterwards. I also find it's far more psychologically rewarding to see your property become more useful, the physical fitness gains become a nice side effect instead of the primary goal.

atom-morgan 5y ago
Lifting provides much more than improved health. If you're sick and tired, lift or build shit. Whatever gets you moving.
- pengaru 5y ago
  I doubt I'm alone in this regard. If I spend an hour lifting weights my mind will inevitably wonder how much useful work I could have gotten done outside with the shovel, pickaxe, and wheelbarrow in the same time. It's a source of depression, for me, once I understood the value of manual labor expended on my own property. Lifting weights has become kind of a pathetic waste of time if I have access to my land where there's an effectively infinite sink for such efforts.
  - nuclearnice1 5y ago
    what kind of stuff do you do on the land?
    - pengaru 5y ago
      There's been a lot of digging with a shovel and pickaxe, earth-moving with a wheelbarrow, and hauling 100-200lb boulders. (driveway cuts, grade adjustments for water drainage, septic, retaining walls...) But I also recently rebuilt an old roof, and turned it into a mild climbing+parkour game by not using any ladders. This past month I've gotten quite adept at jumping off a 1-story roof. There's plans for burying a geothermal ground-loop which will involve digging ~50x10` down to 8', basically digging an in-ground pool by hand, only to fill it back up again. You can make this stuff as difficult as you want... Edit: Wanted to mention one of my neighbors has been building underground earthdomes which is very labor-intensive, but has the nice property of turning almost pure labor into thermally ground-coupled housing. Totally unaffected by today's lumber prices for example.
      - nuclearnice1 5y ago
        I love the roof and the earth domes.
  - vore 5y ago
    Perhaps there are other ways to maximize economic output from lifting weights in a way where it wouldn't be a waste of time? An interesting and perhaps a little "out there" proposition would perhaps be mixing the appeal of lifting weights with the OnlyFans demographic? At the very least it seems like there is a far lower capital cost than having to acquire land.
frompdx 5y ago
While building things is great, it isn't a substitute for weight training. If you are training for strength there is no substitute for progressive overload with barbell weights. The best part is that it isn't a tremendous time investment either. I train 3 days a week for about 3 hours at a time. I could possibly do it faster. That leaves plenty of time left to build things with your hands on your own land assuming you have the resources for that.
- splitstud 5y ago
  In two weeks I'll need help with 80 bags of cement. Loading them, unloading them, humping a barrow to the back of my property. There will be mixing and pouring and beer. I've already cleared the roots, shoveled Nd rolled the path, etc. So don't worry, the hard work is already done.
  - happytiger 5y ago
    As someone who has done both weight lifting and foundation work (for fun, not profit!), the beat down of concrete work is real.
    - swader999 5y ago
      Digging a big hole by hand makes you very ripped if you do it a few hours everyday. I built a cistern and redid my footer drains by hand.
  - frompdx 5y ago
    It is difficult to offer a reply to this comment because it is hard to tell what the intent is. It reads tongue in cheek to me. I apologize if that is not the case. The work you are describing is difficult, but that doesn't mean that it will translate to absolute strength or that it is the same as strength training. Moving 80 bags of cement won't translate to deadlifting 405 pounds a few days later unless the person doing that is already very strong. If the person doing that work does not overexert themselves they'll certainly be adapted to doing more of that type of work though. Strength training is about making deliberate progression through repeated cycles of overloading and adaptation, and not about making equivalencies from one type of work to another. A bag of cement in the United States weighs 94 pounds. If you move 80 of them, you'll adapt to moving 80 bags of cement that weigh 94 pounds. That will not translate to the ability to lift four or five bags of cement at a time without deliberate effort. Will you empty the cement into a container adding a little more each time with appropriate recovery periods between until you can lift four bags worth of cement? Or will you move them one at a time, or maybe two at a time if you are able, to get the job done?
splitstud 5y ago
I supplement weightlifting with big gardening and small building projects as well. Fishing can be great exercise as well if you figure out a pattern that serves.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

atom-morgan 5y ago

Lifting provides much more than improved health. If you're sick and tired, lift or build shit. Whatever gets you moving.

pengaru 5y ago
I doubt I'm alone in this regard. If I spend an hour lifting weights my mind will inevitably wonder how much useful work I could have gotten done outside with the shovel, pickaxe, and wheelbarrow in the same time. It's a source of depression, for me, once I understood the value of manual labor expended on my own property. Lifting weights has become kind of a pathetic waste of time if I have access to my land where there's an effectively infinite sink for such efforts.
- nuclearnice1 5y ago
  what kind of stuff do you do on the land?
  - pengaru 5y ago
    There's been a lot of digging with a shovel and pickaxe, earth-moving with a wheelbarrow, and hauling 100-200lb boulders. (driveway cuts, grade adjustments for water drainage, septic, retaining walls...) But I also recently rebuilt an old roof, and turned it into a mild climbing+parkour game by not using any ladders. This past month I've gotten quite adept at jumping off a 1-story roof. There's plans for burying a geothermal ground-loop which will involve digging ~50x10` down to 8', basically digging an in-ground pool by hand, only to fill it back up again. You can make this stuff as difficult as you want... Edit: Wanted to mention one of my neighbors has been building underground earthdomes which is very labor-intensive, but has the nice property of turning almost pure labor into thermally ground-coupled housing. Totally unaffected by today's lumber prices for example.
    - nuclearnice1 5y ago
      I love the roof and the earth domes.
- vore 5y ago
  Perhaps there are other ways to maximize economic output from lifting weights in a way where it wouldn't be a waste of time? An interesting and perhaps a little "out there" proposition would perhaps be mixing the appeal of lifting weights with the OnlyFans demographic? At the very least it seems like there is a far lower capital cost than having to acquire land.

frompdx 5y ago

While building things is great, it isn't a substitute for weight training. If you are training for strength there is no substitute for progressive overload with barbell weights. The best part is that it isn't a tremendous time investment either. I train 3 days a week for about 3 hours at a time. I could possibly do it faster. That leaves plenty of time left to build things with your hands on your own land assuming you have the resources for that.

splitstud 5y ago
In two weeks I'll need help with 80 bags of cement. Loading them, unloading them, humping a barrow to the back of my property. There will be mixing and pouring and beer. I've already cleared the roots, shoveled Nd rolled the path, etc. So don't worry, the hard work is already done.
- happytiger 5y ago
  As someone who has done both weight lifting and foundation work (for fun, not profit!), the beat down of concrete work is real.
  - swader999 5y ago
    Digging a big hole by hand makes you very ripped if you do it a few hours everyday. I built a cistern and redid my footer drains by hand.
- frompdx 5y ago
  It is difficult to offer a reply to this comment because it is hard to tell what the intent is. It reads tongue in cheek to me. I apologize if that is not the case. The work you are describing is difficult, but that doesn't mean that it will translate to absolute strength or that it is the same as strength training. Moving 80 bags of cement won't translate to deadlifting 405 pounds a few days later unless the person doing that is already very strong. If the person doing that work does not overexert themselves they'll certainly be adapted to doing more of that type of work though. Strength training is about making deliberate progression through repeated cycles of overloading and adaptation, and not about making equivalencies from one type of work to another. A bag of cement in the United States weighs 94 pounds. If you move 80 of them, you'll adapt to moving 80 bags of cement that weigh 94 pounds. That will not translate to the ability to lift four or five bags of cement at a time without deliberate effort. Will you empty the cement into a container adding a little more each time with appropriate recovery periods between until you can lift four bags worth of cement? Or will you move them one at a time, or maybe two at a time if you are able, to get the job done?

splitstud 5y ago

I supplement weightlifting with big gardening and small building projects as well. Fishing can be great exercise as well if you figure out a pattern that serves.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]