Keeping fit

[KuanYin]

Any recommendations on keeping fit on a 37' yacht? I know the deck work, snorkelling and anchor hauling to say nothing for keeping upright in a swell will probably be quite enough..... but I'm worried I'm going to go too cold turkey from being a gymrat on land when we give up the house, job and gym subscription ... Any ideas or recommended equipment??

 

[Talbot]

Upper body will normally get more than an adequate work out. It is the lower limbs that tend to go flabby. If you have a multihull, you could probably use a step trainer, I guess the equivalent on a mono is using the companionway steps.

 

[Abigail]

Good questionn - do share answers. Motissier swore by yoga and certainly returned to landafter 10 months alone at sea well able to function (at least physically)

 

[scarlett]

Bicyles with decent size carriers and lots of sight seeing.

 

[CodStewart]

I lost 3kgs on the trip this past summer. I haven't looked this good in years. Found that going up and down the steps to the cabin below a great workout for the legs.

 

[demonboy]

When we crossed the Atlantic the skipper created an exercise regime that became a hotly contested competition, with me doing 500 sit ups a day but the skipper and first mate reaching 1,000 sit ups a day each! We started off with 50 and every day we added more, increasing the amount. We were using the reef lines on deck to strap our ankles in and doing the sit-ups AGAINST the tack, just to make it harder.

We removed the table in the cockpit, exposing the bar that holds it up, and used this for bench presses.

Hung from the companionway to do pull ups.

Then we did that ski exercise where you prop yourself up agains a wall and position your legs so that the top half of them are parallel to the floor and the bottom half are parallel to the wall. There's a picture of the first mate doing this on my website for a better explanation but I've just noticed some annoying page errors when viewed in IE so give me a while to sort this out and post it up because this was the best lower body exercise we did. The aim was to try and maintain the ski position for as long as possible. This is hard enough as it is, even harder when the boat is pitching and rolling!

Whenever Liz and I hit land now we insist on strapping up our walking boots and trekking around the coast line and climbing the highest peak. It's amazing how much the legs miss the exercise whilst at sea.

 

[MedMan]

You don't say what type of cruising you hope to do. If you are doing long ocean voyages there may be an issue, but if you are coastal cruising there is absolutely no issue at all. I have never been fitter than when long-term cruising. Clearly short-tacking up a narrow channel is as good a work-out as any devised by man, but that is not the half of it. When cruising you have no car so you have to walk everywhere. For some strange reason, harbours always seem to be at the bottom of the hill /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif and the cheap supermarket is always at the other end of town! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Apart from all the scenic walking you will choose to do, just keeping the stores up to scratch will give you all the exercise you need!