Fitness lessons from the 2005 NYC Transit Strike

Back in 2005 many New Yorkers were forced to walk, ride or even skate to get to work due to the New York City Transit Workers Strike. New York news channels showed thousands of people walking, biking, or skating to work and it really makes me think of one thing.

Why don’t more people do this on a regular basis?

Should it really take a transit strike to get people to walk, bike or skate to work?

One problem people always complain about is not having enough time to exercise. What better way than to get your exercise in than before or after work.

You’re already spending that time traveling so why not make it really useful.

The site of thousands walking over the New York City Bridges brought to mind my experience with a client I was training.

He made great use of his time getting to and from work as he walked the Brooklyn Bridge each day.

These stories serve as a great testament to making use of your travel time to get in exercise.

I’ll start of with one client that for whatever reason he could not lose the weight. And this was gentlemen that was always in great shape as we played football together for many years.

He was also an excellent softball and basketball player.

After his playing days though he shot up to 270 pounds.

When he came to me for personal training one of the big problems was finding time to actually train him. You see he was very busy with both a computer and DJ career.

But we came up with a simple solution that helped him to drop over 45 pounds in 6 months.

Walking to and back from work over the Brooklyn Bridge was all it took. He made a commitment to simply walk to his office in lower Manhattan before and after work and from that simple adjustment he was able drop down to 225. After that he made
a commitment to do some strength and conditioning work with me and dropped another 15 pounds which brought him down to his playing weight of 210.

But the key overall was those daily walks to and from work over the Brooklyn Bridge.

The next comes from my experience when I served as a New York City Lifeguard. I got into the habit of riding my bike to and from work. Besides doing this I was required each day to do a certain amount of laps and drills as a lifeguard to stay in shape.

Because I was already swimming and riding every day I decided to add running a few nights a week as well and set my goal to do a triathalon in late August. Besides all that I also weight trained twice a week.

Looking back I can honestly say that I was in the best shape of my life after completing that triathalon. And it all started because I made great use of my time exercising before, during and after work.

Obviously most people can’t exercise during work like I was able to but many can certainly do so on the way to and from. And as you’ll notice with both experiences here: Once you something positive it builds momemtum. I was able to use that momemtum to train for a triathalon. My client was able to use it to also add strength training to help him reach his ideal bodyweight.

Well I hope this can motivate you to consider other exercise alternatives besides the traditional going to the gym. Obviously if you go to the gym you want to stick with it. But if you find yourself like many people (not having time) consider the
option of exercising to and from work.