Bodybuilding Forums

I am a college freshman and am about to go back home for the summer. I work on a stable where I take care of some of the horses and miscellaneous animals, but for the most part I help the owners husband split wood and chainsaw. I already am in pretty good shape so I would prefer to split by hand with a maul and would like to make some muscle gains in the process, but because of it being physically demanding for at least 7 hours a day five days a week; there will be little time for recovery. My boss has made a mechanical splitter available to me but I would rather do it by hand because I am faster with a maul, its more fun, and I like the work out. Problem is, I don't want to be shredding my muscles down to nothing because of little recuperation. I have thought about going on and off with the splitter, or splitting by hand for a week then sticking mainly to the less physically demanding jobs but I don't know if that would work with the boss.

What I would really like is suggestion on speeding up recovery maybe with supplements(obviously I'm steroid free) or just general ideas on how to cope with constant physical demand. Also, I am naturally pretty skinny with some muscle but most of it I had to work for if my genetics needs to be taken into consideration.

Any and All Help is Appreciated--Winston Crowell

Hello Stone

The short and tall of it, is that you are going to be overtraining. Thats it.

Im an ex-forester and ex-arborist, and I can tell you, no one ever got fat hauling timber. The problem is though, the majority never get massive either.

Im not saying you wont put on muscle gains by using the maul and slogging away all day, but if you want to control your workouts/growth and more importantly recovery - then you must use the processor and do less by hand.

Im pretty sure you know this already and were just looking for confirmation, so here it is...

Regards