It apparently works
I've never been a fan of gyms, and even though I can most definitely see the fun in lifting a weight up and putting it back down again for hours at a time, breathing recycled air with a bunch of other sweaty people looking at themselves in mirrors, the weight room has never been a draw for me.
I don't really have any desire to look like any of the 300 warriors, but I wouldn't mind a little extra muscle when it comes to hiking this summer. I'd like to be able to hike all day straight up a mountain, with a 40 lb pack, get into camp for the evening, chop wood and still have enough stamina to stay up and look at the stars.
Actually I can do this now, but not without lying in the sleeping bag until 4:00 the next afternoon, wondering how much a helicopter airlift would cost.
My first try at car pushing was a few months ago. I recruited my sweet sweet wife and she reluctantly agreed to steer, while I pushed the car around the neighborhood. This was surprisingly fun(and hard!)and was going great until one of our neighbors(Craig) saw me pushing and ran out to help. I tried to convince him that I was doing this as an exercise experiment, but it was kind of hard to do when I couldn't really breathe. The Turdcel, although very dependable, has a definite broken down look, so he laughed it off like I was joking and pushed it with me the rest of the way to the house. When we got there, I had Sara start the car prove it really did run and Craig slowly backed away with an interesting mix of fear/disgust/pity/unbelief on his face. I shrugged it off but my sweet sweet wife was considerably embarrassed for some reason and refused to steer again. This was actually ok, because I couldn't walk for about 4 days after that. Summer started and I had plenty of biking/hiking to keep me active.
It kind of got put on the back burner, until recently I went to the gym and found that lifting weights hadn't gotten any more attractive. My game plan was to recruit other guys from the neighborhood, because from Sara's reaction when I brought it up again, this wasn't a female thing. I figured if I worded it right, we have enough cool neighbors that would be willing to give anything a try for a laugh. I pegged them right and we've got a club.
It's really hard to beat as a workout. You've got fresh air, camaraderie, a full body and aerobic workout that only takes about 3 minutes to achieve. If you don't have a heart attack, you've got the rest of the day to do whatever.
Since we are timing the pushes, it's kind of like auto racing, except manlier.
