Everyday Systems

I've been doing shovelglove off and on (mostly on) for over a year now, and I love it. I'm doing it in conjunction with No S for weight loss (I need to lose a *lot*), as well as just for general fitness and healthiness.

I'd like to do more than just shovelglove, though, as I don't get much other exercise, and my weight loss has been stalled for a while. I'm looking for ideas for exercises that are similar to shovelglove in their approach: kinda' lighthearted, effective, doesn't take hours every day.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention. I know about urban ranger, and walking in general. I'm looking for ideas that I could put to use in my home, like shovelglove.

Hi Josh,

Besides urban ranger, for the last few years, I run (theoretically) once a week with a coworker (it's more like .75 times a week because of travel, kid crises, boston weather, etc.). Not too fast, and not too far (about 3 miles in a little under half an hour, usually). It's actually kind of fun, and if you run with a partner, it's a nice social experience, too.

I also do sporadic chin ups and pull ups. Though recently I haven't been so great about them. They're less fun than shovelglove, but "I can do 10 pullups" is a more generally intelligible metric than "I can do 42 drive fence posts" and you get a fierce workout in a very small amount of time.

As part of my "shovelglove" 14 minutes, I sometimes throw in some pushups, squats, and (very) light dumbbell "shadow boxing."

Reinhard

Ross Enamait has some interesting ideas.

Josh,

You might consider running - I started running/jogging to a podcast about a month ago, around the same time I took up shovelglove, and so far it is working pretty well for me.

I've been using a series of podcosts called "Podcasts for Running" (website: www.ullreys.com/robert/Podcasts/). With them you run three times a week for less than 30 minutes up to about 40 minutes, depending on which weekly podcast you are on.

The podcasts start off fairly light and rachet up each week with the goal of being able to run a 5 k after a few months. Week One is eight sets of run for 60 seconds/walk for 60 seconds; Week Two is six sets of run for 90 seconds/walk for 90 seconds.

Today I had my best ever workout with the shovelglove. I always do hindu squats but since I got herniated disk problems I have not done so much shovelglove. Today I did a new routine of combining both exercise. I did 200 hindu squats with hammer. Every time I came up from squat position I did like butterchurn exercise with 1 hand. I did 10 with right hand then 10 with left hand and kept switching back and forth like that until 200 squats finished which took 10 minutes and 2 seconds. When I finished I was sweating like pig and also I checked my heartbeat which was over 120 bpm which is much more than I ever got before doing either just shovelglove or hindu squats. Also my legs did not hurt which is where the pain is from disk problem, not really in back. I will definitely continue doing these exercises.