Natty Power

Building buildings can build body power too.

When we speak about modern human activities, first thing that comes to mind is sitting by the computer. However, to build power, you have to focus on hard physical work. Nowadays, one of the most common professions employing physical power is profession of a construction worker:

• Carry: Find an ordinary wheelbarrow and fill it with gravel, stones or dirt. Pick it up and take a long hike. Go fast to build power. To make this exercise maximally effective, push the wheelbarrow up the hill. If you can’t find a wheelbarrow, carry 2 canisters, a sack of cement or heavy sandbag.
• Squat: Hold a few bricks in overhead position and squat for repetitions. If the balance becomes an issue, hold bricks on your chest, like in goblet squat.
• Olympic Lift: Explosively lift a couple of bricks or sack of cement, depending on your current strength level. Lift from the ground up to the overhead position. Do it in two stages, like clean & jerk or at once, like in snatch lift.
• Pull: You have to bring bucket of cement to the roof of the building. Make an improvised pulley system by throwing rope directly over a sturdy horizontal metal bar or tree branch. It is not necessary, but if you wish to reduce friction, pass the rope through a real pulley (wheel with a grooved rim). Now attach a bucket or any other heavy object to one end of the rope. Take the other end in your hands and pull rope down, hand over hand, to lift object up to the bar. Then repeat. Pull quickly to build power.
• Impacts: Take a hammer and break some old wall with it. Hit energetically and hard, to get hart pumping. If you can’t find an appropriate old wall anywhere around, put a few bricks on the ground and crush them with hammer.

Training like this will build physical power, but also working skills and habits. Maybe all that becomes handy one day, when you decide to build a new home or renovate the existing one.