North Coast Miller
Level 9 Valued Member
Had about a foot of heavy wet snow come down last night - SNOW DAY!
But not for the wife. Better shovel the driveway. In fact I needed to use a small kid's shovel to clear the cars off.
Decided to track this as an exercise session, as I've shoveled a lot of snow in my life but really have zero idea how much work is actually being done.
Had a scale in the garage, average weight of each shovel full was about 15lbs. Took about 15 shovel fulls per pass across the driveway, and each pass took about a minute. Around 225 lbs per pass, at least twice that near the road where the plow truck was kind enough to cram it in.
Shoveled for an hour, putting the raw load at about 12,000 pounds or 6 tons. Around here this type of snow is known as "heart attack snow". The numbers actually divide out to a bit less than the length of my driveway, but with the added bulk for the bottom 8 ft or so where it got pushed in from the street it works out almost perfect.
That's not the whole story though, as it was all moved with a third class lever, at maybe 2/3 - 3/4 mechanical advantage. Pretty good workout, though I'll probably still do my usual, I feel fine. Am not sure if I can attribute any of this to the cantilever load variations I've been including in my workouts, but why not? Hobo strong!
Maybe I can get "AwakenWithJP" from youtube fame to do a promo video.
But not for the wife. Better shovel the driveway. In fact I needed to use a small kid's shovel to clear the cars off.
Decided to track this as an exercise session, as I've shoveled a lot of snow in my life but really have zero idea how much work is actually being done.
Had a scale in the garage, average weight of each shovel full was about 15lbs. Took about 15 shovel fulls per pass across the driveway, and each pass took about a minute. Around 225 lbs per pass, at least twice that near the road where the plow truck was kind enough to cram it in.
Shoveled for an hour, putting the raw load at about 12,000 pounds or 6 tons. Around here this type of snow is known as "heart attack snow". The numbers actually divide out to a bit less than the length of my driveway, but with the added bulk for the bottom 8 ft or so where it got pushed in from the street it works out almost perfect.
That's not the whole story though, as it was all moved with a third class lever, at maybe 2/3 - 3/4 mechanical advantage. Pretty good workout, though I'll probably still do my usual, I feel fine. Am not sure if I can attribute any of this to the cantilever load variations I've been including in my workouts, but why not? Hobo strong!
Maybe I can get "AwakenWithJP" from youtube fame to do a promo video.