Shoveling Sand for Strength and Power

[GrapeJuiceMMA]

Ngannou in the UFC. But the guy is JACKED, but not only jacked.. Just SUPER STRONG.... And Im wondering if that has to do with the fact his whole life he was shoveling sand for Hours... Not just shoveling a couple reps, He would legit do it FOR HOURS getting his strength endurance sky high.. And I bet shoveling and throwing heavy sand up onto a truck works your whole body.

Im wondering if I should get a part time job or even for free shovel sand as a workout few times a week for hours as my cardio also?? Any thoughts? I feel like it would give me real world strength and translate into MMA also??? Actually thoughts and scientific evidence on the matter??

 

[Entram]

Why not try it? Probably not a lot of people to speak from experience. Be a pioneer baby.

 

[AC1D1K]

I would say that would be actually bad for you. the best exercise ever is walking i think.

 

[kennysux]

Kenny here,

You sound like you are messing around, but natural training is pretty crazy.

My friends dad is a roofer and he can smash a whole apple just by squeezing it in his hands. He never worked out in his life and he eats junk food every day. I don't think I've ever seen him drink water. Just soda and minute maid fruit punch.

 

[mikehunt]

 

[Dream Evil]

Shoveling manure is far more effective. Greater water saturation means it's heavier, not to mention all the vitamins and minerals it contains.

 

[trident]

 

[Chagaev]

Shoveling manure is far more effective. Greater water saturation means it's heavier, not to mention all the vitamins and minerals it contains.

But those vitamins might be tainted, cattle steroids and all.

 

[jabelar]

As a young man, I worked on tar and gravel roofing crews for a couple years and my job was shoveling gravel. All day. It definitely will give you a good mix of strength and endurance, although it will take you months to build up the callouses needed to avoid blisters. My body was definitely looking good back then, only time in my life when women would regularly whistle at me.

As a purposeful training, I don't know. Probably good for a bit of functional variety. One thing though is you need to shovel on both sides otherwise it can become a very one-sided thing. I would say that it requires a sort of explosive movement, I got really good at sending whole scoops accurately through the air.

Downside of physical labor jobs like that is they are dangerous. I almost died three times on that job. Once, the ladder hoist containing a ton of gravel came hurtling down at me when the cable snapped. Another time at the end of the day when I was undoing the cable to the hoist, I was 5 stories up and the cable still had tension on it and the hook went through the flesh in my hand and the cable was pulling me off the roof and I had to use all my strength to stay on the roof until my co-workers loosened it. Another time a guy dropped a bucket of hot tar off the roof, nearly hitting me.

 

[GrapeJuiceMMA]

As a young man, I worked on tar and gravel roofing crews for a couple years and my job was shoveling gravel. All day. It definitely will give you a good mix of strength and endurance, although it will take you months to build up the callouses needed to avoid blisters. My body was definitely looking good back then, only time in my life when women would regularly whistle at me.

As a purposeful training, I don't know. Probably good for a bit of functional variety. One thing though is you need to shovel on both sides otherwise it can become a very one-sided thing. I would say that it requires a sort of explosive movement, I got really good at sending whole scoops accurately through the air.

Downside of physical labor jobs like that is they are dangerous. I almost died three times on that job. Once, the ladder hoist containing a ton of gravel came hurtling down at me when the cable snapped. Another time at the end of the day when I was undoing the cable to the hoist, I was 5 stories up and the cable still had tension on it and the hook went through the flesh in my hand and the cable was pulling me off the roof and I had to use all my strength to stay on the roof until my co-workers loosened it. Another time a guy dropped a bucket of hot tar off the roof, nearly hitting me.

Idk if srs but finally a serious informal post. Thanks.

 

[MatterOverMind]

If you're not just trolling, then yes, jobs that require physical labor can be very beneficial for your strength and cardio. Construction, demolition, farming, and many, many other occupations will make your body adapt to the physical stresses put on it.

That being said, if you're looking to get better at MMA, those sorts of jobs can often be too taxing if you're already putting in serious work on improving your skills/conditioning/strength. You need to find the balance that will work the best for you and your goals.

 

[corpse]

jobs like this make you pain tolerant. that's the trick.
a lot of superfit guys with strength and muscle are still just big pussies because they don't know how to resist uncomfortable shit day in and day out, all day long. let alone being outside in the winter time all day...

i could work like a mule but i never was notably strong in comparison to somemone who is lifting serious weights for some years.
you can't take a powerlifter and put him on a construction site just because he is super strong.
likewise you can't get a guy from construction and expect huge lifts in the big 3.
deadlift maybe....


here is a list of exercises for gladiators by galen, ca. 200 A.D.
he likes digging, haha

 

[RawHawg]

There was a shoveling event in the 1990 worlds strongest man, for your reference:

 

[Johnsonville]

I grew up being a mason laborer so I was mixing 6,000lbs of mortar a day by hand with a hoe and moving stones and all that shit. It gets you in pretty good shape and I had great cardio for grappling at the time but honestly you'd be better off getting a heavy kettlebell and doing snatches, get ups, and all that stuff instead. A shovel full of sand is like maybe 5lbs vs snatching a 70lb kettlebell I think the snatches gave me more power. Honestly in terms of felling strong through a range of motion the heavy kettlebell work done barefoot has made the most noticible difference, but I still do regular barbell strength training too

~DaViD~

 

[aus101]

I would say that would be actually bad for you. the best exercise ever is walking i think.

It’s one of the best but you need to mix in strength training. No use being able to walk for hours if you can’t carry home the kill or at least enough berries to sustain yourself and your man.

 

[NurseKnuckles]

Ngannou in the UFC. But the guy is JACKED, but not only jacked.. Just SUPER STRONG.... And Im wondering if that has to do with the fact his whole life he was shoveling sand for Hours... Not just shoveling a couple reps, He would legit do it FOR HOURS getting his strength endurance sky high.. And I bet shoveling and throwing heavy sand up onto a truck works your whole body.

Im wondering if I should get a part time job or even for free shovel sand as a workout few times a week for hours as my cardio also?? Any thoughts? I feel like it would give me real world strength and translate into MMA also??? Actually thoughts and scientific evidence on the matter??

Give it a try, bro. Let us know in a few decades if it worked.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

I was going to do a post on sand the other day.

There are lots of benefits to picking up odd objects, with sand being one of them. I have a sand bag that I use for weighted carries and you'd be surprised how taxing this is on your body. While not shoveling, by carrying a bag full of sand, the sand shifts around and challenges your body in a way weights don't. Shoveling is good too, but the sand bag is a complete different animal.

There are professional sand bags you can buy or do what I did years ago, buy a bag of sand for 5 bux or so and then go to an army surplus store, buy a canvas army bag ( I think I paid $20), put it inside a more secure bag so your sand bag doesn't rip. The bag of sand I bought is only 66 pounds, which doesn't seem like much, but you'd be very surprised how heavy it feels in short order.

There are all sorts of positions you can carry the bag....Bear hug, overhead, on one shoulder, deadlift the bag carrying it for distance...putting it down picking it up again... etc., etc. When I first started to do sand bag training, I had this workout I'd do where I would pick that bag up, put it on one shoulder and go for a walk around the block. The goal was you could never put the bag down on the ground. If you were tired or your shoulder was getting sore, you stopped brought the bag down to your chest, used your legs to jerk it back up to the other shoulder and continued. It took about 15 minutes to go around the block.

If you shoveled sand for a job, you won't need to go to the gym. And trust me, you don't want to do this for hours. Even if you did do it for hours, you'd have to work up to doing that.

Sanbag get ups:




This is a good channel for variety of sandbag exercises and workouts:



If you want to replicate the sand shoveling motion without sand, this is much cleaner:



Odd objects and "farmers strength" training ideas:

https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/6-week-challenge-loaded-carries-for-farmers-strength

 

[GrapeJuiceMMA]

I grew up being a mason laborer so I was mixing 6,000lbs of mortar a day by hand with a hoe and moving stones and all that shit. It gets you in pretty good shape and I had great cardio for grappling at the time but honestly you'd be better off getting a heavy kettlebell and doing snatches, get ups, and all that stuff instead. A shovel full of sand is like maybe 5lbs vs snatching a 70lb kettlebell I think the snatches gave me more power. Honestly in terms of felling strong through a range of motion the heavy kettlebell work done barefoot has made the most noticible difference, but I still do regular barbell strength training too

~DaViD~

Wait you grew with jelqing or stretching? Im 7 inches to 7 1/2 If Im sitting.. Im tryna gain wit PE too.

 

[Johnsonville]

Wait you grew with jelqing or stretching? Im 7 inches to 7 1/2 If Im sitting.. Im tryna gain wit PE too.

Neither they are both way too dangerous imo. Mine is strictly off of edging, kegels, reverse kegels, and the best has been towel raises. Start with a drop cloth and then wet it to gain wait on it slowly over time. Gains aren't as rapid and the ceiling is lower but it is much safer.

~DaViD~

 

[j123]

Dunno about power, bit the landscaping and construction guys at the gym all have monster grip strength