Trucker Fitness: Expectations vs. Reality

Trucker Fitness: Expectations vs. Reality IS something that needs to be discussed because it IS tricky to stay fit and healthy while on the road. But with a little planning ANYONE, can improve their over the road lifestyle.

Now lets be clear: I am not a trucker. But I have had the privilege of working with drivers over the last fifteen plus years locally in my Wisconsin yoga studio. And now hundreds of drivers through Mother Trucker Yoga.

And as someone who does travel quite a bit, fitness on the go has to be a priority or, it can fall to the bottom of the list quickly.

Fitness first.

Let me say that again: fitness first.

I don’t care how old you are, how stiff, overweight, arthritic , what your gender, skin color or what brand of truck you drive. Fitness first.

And to be even more clear: Fitness does not mean you have to be the most fit. And it surely does not mean you have to chisel out 60 consecutive minutes each day to qualify for such a badge.

When many hear “fitness” they instantly think long workouts, classes, and getting to the gym. But for most drivers that is not reality.

Reality is, you if you are a driver, then… wait for it… you are driving for most, if not all of the day or all night.

But wedged in between tough traffic and arranging your load are small bouts of time where you CAN insert fitness.

Yes! You, the one who rolled your eyes at the sight of my website titled: Mother Trucker Yoga, but were intrigued enough to read on CAN be fit while being a truck driver.

I’ve done a lot of research, I mean a LOT of research when it comes to fitness, and what I call everyday functional fitness. Meaning: movements that make sense for your life and lifestyle and enhance your abilities to keep doing what you love and assist in you living life.

So that means for you- AKA the truck driver, that trucker fitness IS a reality and can be achieved. If you are open minded enough to start to make some small yet powerful changes to your every day life.

Exercises for Truck Drivers (small changes you can make to improve your health):

  • Stretching your fingers and wrists against the steering wheel to help combat tightness and arthritis in those very necessary joints.
  • Twisting your entire spine on purpose when reaching for your seat belt and buckling up- because it’s the law.
  • Stepping up into your rig, and instead of doing those two steps just once and in. Creating your own stair climber and for a minute straight stepping up and down as quick and safely as you can.
  • Filling up with fuel and down dogging it like no one is watching (like the Half Dog pictured below). And if they are… Asking them to join. Trucker Fitness - Downward Dog Blog

These are just a few ways you can create a reality around fitness for YOUR lifestyle.

When I dove deep into research on yoga and fitness for truckers I found a few videos with someone standing next to a truck doing push ups or jumping rope. And for the one app I downloaded, it was again someone doing jumping jacks next to a big rig, toe touches and then a few demonstrations of sit ups. That with all my research on core health, I wanted to come through the phone and offer some tips on how to safely and more effectively work your core.

Today, I want you to not over think fitness. Consider what you can insert into your already busy day. What moments (and that is all it takes) do you have that you can make a conscious effort to insert a quick move here or there.

Mother Trucker Yoga’s whole premise is 3 – 5 minute EASY moves explained for the drivers body for a move that make sense and you can feel the difference with. Why? So you can keep doing what you love with less pain.

So don’t be distracted by someone telling you you NEED 60 minutes of exercise daily. And what they mean is hitting the gym for 60 straight minutes.

What I’m telling you today is if you add a move here, and a move there and a few moves at the end of the day right inside your rig. You WILL feel the difference! And as a result start to make more positive changes to your life.

Because every little movement adds up! And we are meant to move. Not just once a day for 60 minutes. But all day long. And Mother Trucker Yoga is here to show you that it CAN be done! And currently truckers all over the US are incorporating this very idea into their day with BIG results.

So what is one move, one thing you can add to your day today?

What one move?

For just a few minutes?

Master that move.

And before you know it, fitness will become a reality.

 

Meals on Wheels: Truckers Best Breakfast

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I think you and I both know that stopping at a truck stop on any given day, you won’t always find the best breakfast. You might not ever find the best breakfast.

This is a struggle many truckers feel on a daily basis. Yet most are almost forced to choose what their overnight accommodations have to offer. And we aren’t talking the Super 8.

High sugar, high fat, high carb options fill the aisles and hot cases, alongside the attached quick grab-and-go restaurant. Although these options are a quick grab, the quick surprise is the pounds, blood sugar levels and crashes that go with these unhealthy food options.

Now don’t get me wrong, a sweet treat once in a while won’t kill anyone. But when this is your wake-up-and-go breakfast every single morning, you may find yourself in a situation that far surpasses an I-80 traffic jam.

So what’s a mother truckin’ roadmaster to do for breakfast?

Well on my latest show: A Daily Dose of Hope on Chrome and Steel Radio, I had Naturopathic Doctor Jeff Essen of Whole Life Clinic on. We discussed diabetes, the struggle of eating healthy while on the road, and what drivers could do to make a shift in the right direction. It all starts with breakfast.

His suggestion was simple, yet powerful – change what you eat for breakfast.

And what should you, the driver eat for breakfast?

The Italian Flag

I had never heard this methodology in all my years learning about the body, wellness, and my own food journey. Eating the Italian Flag for breakfast was a new approach to breakfast on the go.

He laid it out simply: Breakfast can be simple and easy, and yes, even done up while on the road in an eighteen-wheeler.

Italian Flag Truckers’ Breakfast Shake:

  1.  WHITE – Pea Protein (1 scoop)
  2.  GREEN – Powdered Greens (1 scoop)
  3.  RED – Powdered Reds (1 scoop)
  4.  Mix with Water
  5.  Optional – Ice

Truckers Breakfast: Italian Flag Smoothie

 

The key is to not overthink what you should eat. And if you can simplify things, what’s not to love?

But WHY eat the Italian flag?

Well, as Dr. Essen put it, giving your body a great kick start to the day is essential. Get a good source of protein (he suggests pea protein, but if you decided otherwise, know its source). Many people simply do not get enough greens in their diet, which aid in digestion and boost energy levels. The reds serve as a boost for your antioxidant levels. Unless you have superpowers to fight disease and boost your immune system, reds are essential.

I know changing your breakfast might feel overwhelming. Before you make any change it can be helpful to know where you are starting from. Keeping a food journal can be helpful to figure all of that out. Check out 5 Reasons Truckers Need to Keep a Food and Fitness Journal to help.

And when you are ready to make a change, the only thing you have to lose is the weight, stress, and disease your body is currently feeling. Plus, with a simple shaker bottle, you can travel with everything you need for a great meal on the go.

Here’s to a great breakfast on the go.

 

 

60 Benefits of Yoga for Truckers

Yoga has been around for more than 5,000 years, but it has transformed into many things over the last decade.

So what is yoga?

To some it is exercise and stretching.

To others is quiet time, and relaxation.

And to others it looks like a contortion practice that they will never be able to achieve.  

To me, it is a lifestyle. An opportunity to get quiet, move your body, and listen to something I believe many of us are lacking and craving in this overstimulated world. Yoga is something that any truck driver, making long hauls day after day, could benefit from.

 

For the average trucker, who couldn’t use a little time to stretch, relax and decompress?

 

Yoga for Truckers - Warrior II

Here are 60 Benefits of Yoga for Truckers (Reasons to Make Mother Trucker Yoga Part of Your Daily Life):

  1.   Yoga improves flexibility
  2.   Strengthens muscles, conditioning us from arthritis and back pain
  3.   Aids in realigning the spine & help to distribute weight evenly
  4.   Yoga moves all 300 joints
  5.   Helps to keep your spinal disks supple giving them the nutrients they need.
  6.   Yoga offers natural weight-bearing exercise, increasing bone density
  7.  Gets your blood flowing, getting more oxygen to your cells and helps boost hemoglobin & red blood cells.
  8.   Assist in increasing the drainage of lymph, helping to destroy & fight cancerous cells
  9.   Yoga gets your heart rate up lowering the risk of heart disease
  10.   Yoga gets you breathing
  11.   Lowers blood pressure
  12.   Yoga lowers cortisol levels, helping with long term memory, also fighting depression
  13.   Turns up the heat to help to burn calories
  14.  Gets you to become more conscious of your being: eating, social, presence
  15.   Can lower blood sugar & LDL & boosts HDL (“good” cholesterol)  
  16.   Improves coordination, reaction time, memory and even IQ
  17.   Helps you to relax, shifting from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system
  18.   The practice can aid in increasing body awareness
  19.   Yoga reduces chronic tension, muscle fatigue, soreness in the wrists, arms, shoulders, neck & face.
  20.   Becomes a way to cope with the business of life
  21.   Can improve immune function
  22.   Helps to expand lung function and breathing capacity above the normal 18%
  23.   Yoga and meditation help to build awareness
  24.   Helps to reduce anger and replaces it with compassion
  25.   Yoga helps to change self-image
  26.  Helps you stand and sit a bit taller
  27.   Can assist you in breaking free from dependencies in life and addictions
  28.   Can help release emotional tensions
  29.   Assists one break away from the ego
  30.   Can naturally lubricates joint
  31.   Yoga increases the recovery rate of the body
  32.   Reduces the effects of aging
  33.   Helps with increasing coordination
  34.   Is an effective ways to cope with stress
  35.   Improves endurance
  36.   Teaches you nothing is impossible and everything is attainable at some level
  37.   Can help to warm the extremities
  38.   Increases heat that can then kill bacteria in the body
  39.   Can normalizes and stimulates endocrine glands (thyroid) activity by compression & decompression of the neck)
  40.   Increases the serotonin to the brain lifting your mood
  41.   Teaches you how to build and attain goals
  42.  The practice invites what is unconscious to the surface so it can be integrated into conscious awareness
  43.   Helps cultivate self-love
  44.   Works on all 700 muscles: strengthening, stretching, toning
  45.   Can aid in regulating hormonal activity
  46.   Assists your meditation practice
  47.   Yoga can teach us how to act without judgment & help us to truly flourish in life
  48.   Yoga helps reduces the risks of heart disease
  49.   Can assist in stimulating the organs of elimination, promoting regular bowel movements
  50.   The nervous system is toned an the lumbar nerve plexus is stimulated, promoting overall vitality of the kidneys and reproductive organs
  51.   Can be a natural way to reduce and eliminate bloating, abdominal discomfort and fatigue
  52.   Helps release shoulder tension
  53.   Helps cultivate body awareness
  54.   Promotes self-discipline, only you know if you are challenging yourself or not
  55.   Refreshes blood flow to the brain refreshing our thinking process and mental attitudes
  56.   Helps to regulate menstruation, reducing pain, discomfort & mood fluctuation  
  57.   Can help assist women through the transition into menopause naturally and easily
  58.   The practice helps cultivate contentment
  59.   Can be practiced anywhere
  60.  Finally, yoga is about you a practice ultimately created by you, for you and to benefit you-a lifestyle approach

 

Let’s not forget the opportunity that yoga has to offer you.

While out on the road, movement can be limited and stress can be high. So it could be a natural solution to both. Time to decompress and breathe, all the while stretching and meeting some of the daily movement requirements of the body.

More than 80 percent of truckers who started on a yoga exercise plan reported reduced stress as a result of practicing yoga. Read more about the benefits of yoga and statistics related to the trucking industry here.

Mother Trucker Yoga isn’t fancy. And it’s no where near complicated. Mother Trucker Yoga is created with simple, easy moves that directly target a truckers biggest concerns while sneaking in some much needed stress relief, breathing and enhanced sleeping opportunities.

Because honestly, who out there doesn’t want to feel at least a little better than they currently do?

What if 3-5 minutes could make all the difference?

And when you do it regularly, imagine how you could feel then?

Don’t be shy about considering adding a little yoga into your life. Because Mother Trucker Yoga wants you to keep on trucking. And one of the best ways you can keep on trucking, is with a little (Mother Trucker) yoga in your life!

Yoga for Truck Drivers | Mother Trucker Yoga

 

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