Farming Fitness

Not for me...

I was discussing this very topic with a friend last night and a commenter on the last post asked about how farm work contributes or relates to the kind of fitness I am seeking… so, here we are.

A couple of premises first

The kind of fitness I am after is the kind that lets your jog or walk quickly up and down hills and through forests with a backpack, or a rifle, on a hike or a hunt, and you can do it the whole day, stopping briefly for a gulp of water or a bite of dried meat. I used to do this a lot in Africa and while I have never been a runner, I can walk most people into the ground. I get out of breath too quickly for my liking these days, although I notice people 30 years younger than me get out of breath about the same time as me even if they probably have more fuel in the tank, certainly for speed. Though I still outlast many out of sheer will.

In short, the kind of fitness I aspire to is the one that my decades of martial arts instilled in me. The ability to do a lot of high intensity movement bursts, followed by continuous, methodical work, followed by such bursts again and so on. It’s the best kind of fitness for fighting, hiking, and life in general in my opinion. And if done properly you tend to be stronger than most guys who push weights in the gym without looking like a doped up steroid freak. It’s a mix of aerobic fitness mixed with fast twitch muscles that makes you able to go for a long time at an intensity that most people simply can’t keep up with. It is also fairly easy to transmute this into a slower pace that lasts inordinately long too.

I am not after being able to lift a weight in artificial conditions in a gym of a set weight. In my experience those guys fall way short in an actual fight, and in the gym I can usually match them weight for weight or sometimes outmatch them even if not for the number of repetitions that may go for if we are comparable on what weight we can move. Lifting a heavy weight has never been something that was a plus in any confrontations, sparring sessions, or fights I had. In fact I routinely came out on top with guys that had 30 kg on me, and most of those guys were trained too. A bodybuilder or some guy who thinks he is “strong” because he moves a lot of weight in the gym has almost zero effect on the outcome of any confrontation I have been in.

A man must know his limitations. As that great philosopher Dirty Harry said. And generally I do. I am not a farmer by nature or talent. It is not scenting that comes naturally or early to me. The mentality of a farmer is something I can understand, appreciate, and respect, and there are some similarities with my own mentality, but it is not “my” way. I am a hunter by nature, which are the natural fighters in life, before soldiering got too specialised. And the differences may seem small, but they are telling. A farmer is by very essence a patient man. His mind and body are attuned to the rhythms of the earth and the sky. Even there, I am different, I am not a man of land, I am a man of the sea. That quality of patience, faith, subordination to the elements and attuning with them, I am too impatient for it mostly, on land. I can do it if I am hunting, and really doing well if I am doing what could be described of the hunting of people, when I did the euphemistically named “security” work in South Africa and elsewhere. But at sea, it comes naturally. I like being at sea. I can be patient at sea. Or hunting. But doing farm work… not so much. Mostly because I see it as a chore. A necessary thing that needs doing. Not something I am attuned to. While if I have to investigate a human, find fraud, track and arrest criminals, face off against a bipedal enemy… that stuff just comes naturally to me. Always has. This quality of mindset is what makes al the difference on your chosen activity and the level and kind of fitness you tend to go for.

Farm Fitness

In order for farm work to make you “fit” you need to have the farmer mindset and then get your body into it. You cut wood, so you swing the axe with a rhythm. Or cut with the chainsaw just so. You carry the wood just so. You split the wood just so. You drive the tractor just so, at that rhythm the machine and the earth requires. You digging up Earth you swing the pick just so and use the shovel just so.

If you do all that in just that farming-right way, then you get farm fit.

Farm fit means you can probably lift more weight than a guy three times your size does in the gym. There are videos of farmers and construction workers competing with gym rats for lifting cement bags and such and invariably the gym rats fall short. It also means you can do farm work to durations and volumes that will just about kill normal city people or even “fit” guys who do triathlons.

I can keep up with a farmer when they work but only out of sheer bloody-mindedness instilled in me from decades of Japanese style budo, and then refined by Russian style perseverance. When I do farm work myself I tend to be too impatient and work at my own instead of the earth’s rhythm, and while I tend to finish faster, it is also rougher, and I am more prone to over-straining something. I have got better over the 4 years I have been here, but as I say, it’s not my thing.

The similarity of mindset between a farmer and a martial artist is that neither stops or gives up. They may re-route, change tack, whatever, but they will persevere.

But health wise, a martial artist is definitely healthier and less prone to injury in my opinion. Also, because the work tends to be repetitive and not varied farmers may be strong at doing X, but may have bad backs, terrible knees, and be half-frozen in various joints. So I don’t think farming is “healthy” in that sense at all.

My Plan

Basically consists of some aerobic anti-gravity exercises, like pushups, squats, crunches, pull-ups and so on, followed by eating as little junk as possible, sticking to meat and water for the most part.

I have a knee that gives me trouble that I can only fix by working on those stationary bikes you get in gyms, so I may look into getting a second hand one down the line.

That’s basically it.