Are you keeping in shape by working at UPS? I always used to think that the job provided me with enough exercise that I didn’t have to worry about staying fit. Afterall, no one out there physically works as hard as a UPS driver. And if the exercise doesn’t get you, the suana effect will.
But not everyone agrees that a UPS driving job provides an adequate amount of exercise. In this article, The Top 5 Fittest Professions , some experts don’t call what a UPS driver does “exercise”. They call it “movement”.
“According to Dan McMackin at United Parcel Service, the average UPS driver walks about 4.5 miles and moves thousands of pounds worth of packages each day.
Our experts disagree on whether or not this counts as exercise. Michael says yes: “If you’re lifting correctly, which these guys are instructed to do, then you’re using your glutes, you’re targeting the biggest muscles in your lower half, and also forcing the rest of the body to work in order to help balance you out.”
But fitness instructor Matt Probst of Akron’s RP Fitness counters, “I wouldn’t consider it exercise. I would consider it movement. In order to fully stimulate a muscle to grow, it must be pushed to the point of failure. You’d have to carry the packages until you physically can’t take another step.”
Obviously the fitness instructor from Akron never worked for UPS. If his definition of exercise is being “pushed to the point of failure” and “physically can’t take another step”, then working for UPS certainly qualifies as exercise.
It’s the holy grail of exercise.