How to Work Out Like Bruce Lee When RVing Full Time

  • Sumo
weight lifting

I sure as heck dont look like this guy....I wonder if he's ever full time Rved?

OK, I have a confession to make…I am totally addicted to exercise, I admit it.

I go INSANE when I don’t exercise every day. When I don’t exercise, I turn into a cross between a rabid grizzly bear and one of those nasty ogres from the Harry Potter movies.

And when you live in less than 300 square feet of space, this has a tendency to put a damper on your quality of life…

To put it mildly, its been a bit of a challenge while we’ve been RVing full time to exercise regularly. And when you live in a small space and your exercise of choice is lifting weights, how the hell do you bring a weight bench and weights in a full time RV?

I don’t think Lee Haney or Arnold ever had these issues.

It’s not like I don’t have other vices as well (do I have to mention them all here?)….but if push came to shove, I think I could give em all up except one: exercise.

Exercising in an RV Full Time

My wife thinks I’m totally obsessive compulsive on this exercise thing but I don’t think so. I gotta give her credit though, she knows when I need to exercise…its like she has a sixth sense and encourages me to do it. She even makes sure I have TIME to do it.

God bless her.

I kind of equate exercise to brushing your teeth. Exercise, like brushing your teeth, is something that I have to do every day (at least for me)…and in the case of brushing your teeth you gotta do it twice a day. But with exercising you only have to do it once a day (although it takes a little longer, especially if you brush like my kids).

The Full Time RV Workout

Anyway, my workouts now have consisted of shutting the door to our seven by nine foot bedroom and in the roughly19 square feet of space that isn’t taken up by the bed. I do push ups and curls (with the dumbbells I brought) until I either puke, pass out or collapse from exhaustion – whichever comes first.

Here is a picture of “the full time RV Gold’s Gym”…its really kinda pathetic:

the full time rv exercise room
The full time rv gym

Ahhhh how I miss the days of having my own private gym in my basement….

Surprisingly though, my workouts while RVing have actually been pretty good. Its kinda like P90X meets the Brady Bunch.

I do 50 push ups, the kids come in and harass me, then I go do another 50 push ups.

Did Mike Brady ever have this issue in HIS den?

Setting aside the annoying (although I do love my kids – but they are annoying at times, all kids are, don’t even think about refuting this point especially if you have kids) distractions aside, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much I can do even with a severely limited space.

It may have to do with the fact that I have given in to the distractions in a sort of tai chi/feng-shui/ju-jitsu kind (no idea what any of these really are) of way and started using the distractions to make my workouts more efficient.

I heard somewhere that Sun Tzu would use the strength of his attackers against them to defeat his opponents.

Or maybe that was Bruce Lee?

bruce-lee

Did Bruce Lee ever RV full time? I don't think he lived long enough....

I have no idea…

Anyway, here’s how I exercise while living in an RV full time.

How to Exercise While RVing Full Time

All Eastern philosophy that I clearly don’t understand aside, here’s what I do: Alex or Eli come into “the gym” and instead of me yelling at them to get out, I grab them and immediately instruct them to jump on my back while I’m doing push ups. I do these pushups until I can’t do any more.

And they jump off my back just before I am going to either stroke out…or dislocate my shoulder.

They seem to sense when to hop off. It is truly amazing.

In fact, I think its one of the miracles of RVing full time…like the Jesus in the slice of bread thing you hear about all the time in midwest.

It works out pretty well. In fact, these Bruce Lee workouts are some of the best workouts I have ever had

In the nearly two months since I’ve been RVing full time, I haven’t gained any weight and I actually seem to be getting stronger. Its kinda crazy but it seems when I work out now in the RV, there is so little time, so many distractions that I know are on their way into the full time RV gym, that I work out DOUBLY hard and do it in half the time I used to do it in.

After all, I did Insanity and P90X, but I actually think my RV workout is harder

Maybe I should record my workout, put it on video, do infomercials like Tony Horton, advertise on GoRVing.com and call it the “Full Time RV Bruce Lee/Feng Shui/Sun Tzu Workout”???

What do you think?

Post a comment below and let me know what you think. Trust me, I’ll respond…even if I’m mid-workout….

 

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2 Responses to “How to Work Out Like Bruce Lee When RVing Full Time”

  1. Wiggly44 says:

    Ralphage,

    I was wondering how you were exercising. Sounds like you have made the best use of space INSIDE the RV. Now what can you do OUTSIDE the RV? Are you running/hiking the campgrounds and parks? Off-road trail running is a good interesting workout that allows you to escape your confines too. May be find a good set of stairs and have at it for a while. I’m surprised you haven’t moved the workouts with weights outside too like we used to do at the cape behind the barn if you recall. Use all that fresh air that is around you. Pull-ups on a tree branch? Tree climbing with the boys?

    Apropos of nothing:

    Pats also signed DT Ellis (from Jets). I like that signing better that anything else. They looked good in 1st preseason game.

    Sox clinging to first place but should be in playoffs one way or another.

    Went camping in Maine a few weeks ago. Survived and Christine said she would go again.

    Watch that gray water and stop those kids from stuffing the toilets!!

    Wiggly

    • Ralph says:

      Pullups on a tree branch are next. Boxing raw buffalo hides or perhaps live black bears (saw one 2 days ago btw). Maybe even scale an 8000 foot mountain. Kinda like a Rambo knd of workout, right? Actually running at 5000 feet is a real bitch but good for the old lungs (next blog post btw).

      Keeping up with all the sports happenings, Sirius has all the Sox games and listen when we drive. Pats look solid although tough to say after a pre-season backupfest.

      Alex is n full time gray water blavk water duty now. Hes graduated to unsupervised drainngs thank God.

      Good to hear the summer is going well and no grizzly or moose attacks in the Maine woods – nice work there!

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