TRUCKING: Fitness on the Road
Yours If You Want It
A 2014 survey of long-haul truck drivers by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health NIOSH found that 69% were obese — 17% morbidly so. A Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index analysis confirmed that transportation workers, including truckers, are the most overweight with the highest risk for chronic health problems of any occupational group; here is a partial list of the report’s findings, ranked in order of the greatest level of obesity:
· Transportation 36.4%
· Manufacturing or production 29.9%
· Installation or repair work 28.3%
· Clerical or office work 26.6%
· Manager, executive or official 25.6%
· Service worker 25.6%
· Nurse 25.2%
· Fishing, farming or forestry 24.7%
· Construction or mining 24.0%
Considering the well-known and sudden nature of the risks of obesity (heart attack, stroke, fatigue), the 2.5M big rigs barreling along US roads at some 80,000 lbs each just might be our biggest national safety threat.
Of the two charts below, you’ll notice that the one on the top, which monitors the metabolism of a typical long-haul truck driver over a 24-hour period, is largely flat. Except for a few spikes when he may have been pumping diesel or walking into KFC, this driver could be dead!
“Most drivers I work with are sedentary almost 23 hours a day,” says Siphiwe Baleka, Yale grad, Ironman triathlete, Masters swimming champion, former driver and now the driver fitness coach at Prime Inc., a 5,400-truck firm.
Baleka’s job is challenging. Truckers have deadlines, so finding time to exercise or search for healthy fast food can be tough. But since he launched his 13-week driver health and fitness program at Prime in July 2012, Baleka reports that 131 drivers have graduated and lost an average of 19 pounds each. He says another 500 drivers, who are not in the program but have been influenced by his education efforts, lost an average of 10 pounds each.
You Can Do It. Here’s How:
Coach Baleka uses these simple strategies to encourage results:
• No matter what, exercise 15 minutes every day. It doesn’t have to happen in a gym, and you don’t need a formal plan.
• Make each workout vigorous. “Maintain 75 to 85% of max heart rate,” explains Baleka, who did his Ironman training during a year when he drove 150,000 miles in 323 days. “This maximizes fat burning and, more importantly, your time.”
• Work multiple muscle groups simultaneously. He gives drivers a list of 32 exercises they can combine for total-body workouts.
• Always eat after working out. The latest research says 20 grams of fast-acting protein (for instance, whey isolate powder) eaten within 30 minutes of exercising is best for building muscle.
• Eat breakfast and then eat every three hours. This keeps hunger at bay and prevents bingeing late in the day.
• Keep healthy snacks handy. When traveling, the tendency is to eat what’s available, so make only good food available.
• Log your nutrition and fitness. Keeping a daily food and exercise journal makes weaknesses easy to spot.
So how does a driver implement these rules when the schedule changes daily and he’s at the mercy of the road?
He Gets Creative
It helps to be creative. Driver Rodney McCloud, who won Prime’s Fittest of the Fleet competition, does forearm slams against the side of his trailer, knee kicks to the tires and prone pullups and dips on the side of his rig. And you can’t argue with his results. The 46-year-old McCloud weighs 222 pounds and has a 33-inch waist and 18 1/2-inch biceps.
He carries a 300-pound set of weights in his cab. “Since I started driving in 2008,” says McCloud, “I’ve seen only one or two other truckers working out in the lot like I do. People look at you funny, but I don’t care. I work out in all kinds of weather, and when I’m waiting around at a shipper, I shadowbox, skip rope or do pushups. You make it happen when you can.”
The Industry is Coming Around
Mary Aufdemberg, Director of Product Marketing for Freightliner Trucks says Freightliner now views cab interiors as a “work-life space” with unique requirements — like fitness — that must be addressed.
That philosophy led the company to address driver health and fitness with its Freightliner In-Cab Training (FIT) System and FIT Step, an exercise setup designed specifically to allow drivers to work out inside the privacy of their own cabs.
Plenty of initiatives are under way to help truckers get in better shape, including truck stop gyms and in-cab workout systems. But applying the brakes to a situation that’s been going downhill for decades is a slow process.
“It’s actually easier in some respects to eat healthy and exercise on the road,” says Baleka, ever the coach. “You don’t have the temptation of home cooking or the interference of family responsibilities. You can focus on what needs to be done.”
But you have to want it. And that’s the ultimate lesson: Take responsibility for yourself. “Everybody points at their circumstances when they really should be looking at themselves,” says Justin Boschee, a 6'5" former offensive tackle at Eastern Oregon University and a Prime, Inc., driver with more than 400,000 miles of unblemished experience. “When you start doing that, your life will change. I want the six-pack and the 18-inch biceps like everyone else, but it’s up to me to earn them.”
Alkane thanks Joe Kita, writing for Mens Health and Jack Roberts, writing for ccjdigital.com for the content of this article.
Alkane Truck Company is currently raising capital on the crowdfunding platform StartEngine. Find out more here: https://www.startengine.com/startup/alkane
