January 12, 2022

Best Exercise Equipment For Truck Drivers

Best Workout for Truckers on the Road

Long-haul professional truck drivers are twice as likely1 to be obese as other US workers, and only 25% say they get the CDC’s recommended amount of minimum daily exercise. In a profession that keeps you seated most of the day, staying fit is no simple task. On the road, there’s limited time for exercise, access to healthy meals isn’t always easy, and it’s not practical to sign up for a gym membership or travel with a set of heavy weights.

The X3 Bar System provides the perfect full body workout for truckers. It’s the most efficient way for anyone to build muscle and burn fat. It’s also small, portable, and easy to take on the road, which makes it the best exercise equipment for truck drivers.

How to Lose Weight as a Trucker

How To Lose Weight As A Trucker

Losing weight isn’t as simple as eating fewer calories than you spend. This is especially true for truck drivers. Driving for up to 11 hours each day means there isn’t much time left for 1-2 hours at the gym, assuming you could find one near your pit stop. Staying fit and healthy requires three main things: muscle mass, hormone optimization, and a high-protein, low-carb diet. Let’s take a closer look at how to hit these parameters for weight loss while on the road.

1. Build Muscle for Fat Loss

It’s long been assumed that to burn calories and lose weight, and you need to spend long hours on endless amounts of cardio. Thankfully, this just isn’t true. In fact, too much cardio can stimulate the release of stress hormones, causing the body to hold on to fat.2

Building muscle is the most efficient way to burn fat. No, fat doesn’t become muscle; those are two separate things. But when you have more musculature, metabolic resting rate increases and the body utilizes more calories, even when you’re at rest.

So if you’re seeking to burn fat, focusing on strength training is the preferred method. X3 offers an easy way to do this while you’re on the road, requiring a time commitment of no more than 15 minutes daily. We’ll explain in more detail in the next section.

2. Maintain the Optimal Hormonal Environment

In part, strength training works to melt away fat thanks to its positive influence on the hormones. Here’s what you need to know about three main fat-influencing hormones:

Cortisol: Cortisol is a stress hormone that cues the body to hold on to fat for fuel. It puts muscle fiber at risk by decreasing growth hormone and promoting the reduction of muscle mass.3 Cortisol is triggered by too much cardio and physiological or psychological stress.

Testosterone: Testosterone is critical for muscle growth. And as we’ve already mentioned, building muscle is one of the best ways to lose weight and promote greater health. In fact, the more musculature you have, the more efficient the delivery of nutrients to every organ in your body.

Growth Hormone: HGH protects muscle and promotes lipolysis (a fancy word for fat burning). It’s also involved in skin, tendon, and ligament repair. The prevention of muscle breakdown is critical to the overall health of truck drivers who are sitting all day.

Variable resistance training with a device such as X3 releases less cortisol than long weight-lifting sessions or marathon runs and stimulates the testosterone and HGH needed to build and maintain muscle.

3. Eat to Promote Muscle Growth &Amp; Weight Loss

The final and perhaps most important component of any strong weight loss plan is diet. But how can you build muscle while you’re in a caloric deficit, trying to lose weight? If you eat right, there’s actually no need to choose one versus the other. With intermittent fasting and a high protein diet , you can do both.4

Intermittent Fasting

Fat loss is not only about eating fewer calories, but how and when. Intermittent fasting allows you to cut calories, while avoiding the negative hormonal effects5 of daily caloric restriction. Unlike fasting, ordinary caloric restriction can lead to reduced testosterone6, which robs the body of muscle. Not only that, the stress caused by constant hunger can cause the body to hold on to fat.

With intermittent fasting, intervals of caloric restriction are interspersed with normal eating. Overall, you’ll eat less than you usually would, but the endocrine system responds positively.

Long periods of going without carbs also triggers ketosis, a metabolic shift in which the body uses fat, not carbs, for fuel. So, fat-burning increases when access to a steady stream of calories (no matter how small) is intermittently denied.

Many people fear intermittent fasting is too difficult, but long-distance driving might make it easier. In the cab of a truck, it’s not easy to open the fridge if you’re bored, and a full daily schedule makes One Meal a Day (OMAD) quite appealing.

High Protein

With intermittent fasting on your side, you’ll trigger rapid fat loss while preserving muscle mass. Combining IF with a high-protein diet that’s low in carbohydrates will further enhance this effect.

Protein is needed to build muscle. We recommend 2.2-2.5 grams per kilogram body weight for maximum gains. For a 200 pound person, that’s about 217 grams of protein, or 7.6 ounces.

Unlike carbs, there’s no risk of overeating with protein. Protein overfeeding doesn’t result in fat storage but thermogenesis7 a process in which body temperature increases to metabolize protein. Fat storage comes from consuming too many calories of dietary fats and carbohydrates.

Finding protein on the road isn’t too difficult. Many truckers carry small gas grills and have a means of storing burger patties and steaks. Grilling is also the easiest way to cook while on the road.

The Best Workout for Truckers

The best workout for truckers is also a highly portable one

So if you’re stuck driving all day, how do you have time to strength train and build muscle? And where will you access weights? The good news is, the best full body workout for truckers is also a highly portable one—variable resistance training with bands.

Variable Resistance Training

With variable resistance training, there’s no need to compromise on efficacy as a trade for saving space or time. In fact, variable resistance training is a far more effective means of strength training than traditional weight lifting at a gym.

With traditional weight-lifting, the weight remains static as you move through the range of motion. So the heavy load you can barely lift from the floor in a deadlift is the same load you can easily push through when you’re halfway to standing in a stronger, impact-ready position.

Variable resistance training gives you access to greater strength in your strongest position because the load varies as the body’s natural ability does. Loads are lighter at the bottom of each lift, and resistance increases in your strongest range of motion.

With X3, you train with greater force to trigger Greater Gains

X3: The Best Exercise Equipment for Truckers

X3: The Best in Truck Driver Exercise Equipment

Once you’re sold on the principles of variable resistance training, it’s time to decide which resistance band training system is best. X3 is the only portable exercise system

that lets you lift heavy enough to trigger the necessary hormonal environment for muscle growth and fat loss. There’s a specific way to do this:

  • Lift heavy enough to reach total fatigue within 15–40 reps
  • Lift slowly enough to spend approximately 60 seconds doing this
  • Keep lifting even when you can no longer complete the full range of motion

To do the above requires extremely strong resistance bands. Training with bands such as these is awkward and even unsafe without a stabilizing ground plate and bar attachment to hold on to. X3 offers the trifecta you need to reap the promised rewards of variable resistance.

  1. Strong Bands: Most resistance band devices on the market today make use of small, tube-shaped rubber bands. These bands have limited elasticity and strength, typically maxing out at just 40 pounds of resistance.

    X3’s flat, layered, continuous loop latex bands have greater elasticity and can generate more force. The strongest band available offers over 600 pounds of resistance, which is more than enough for even the strongest truckers to deadlift or squat.

  2. A Barbell Attachment: These strong, flat bands aren’t so easy to grip on their own. The familiar, Olympic-style barbell attachment allows you to produce more force than holding two separate bands with handles, and keeps your workout safe.

    Hooks that rotate on ball bearings mean the bar will remain at the perfect angle for a comfortable grip throughout the entire range of motion.

  3. A Stable Ground Plate: Standing on bands while the upper body works is impractical and unsafe. The X3 ground plate lets you remain stable and rooted for the heaviest lifts while the resistance bands stretch underneath your feet.

More power is accessed, and you can safely and effectively do the compound movements that let you recruit the most muscle fiber for the greatest gains.

Only 10 Minutes per Day

Because X3 activates stabilization muscles, recruits more muscle fiber than traditional weightlifting, and lets you produce higher forces, one set performed to exhaustion is all it takes. Just 10-15 minutes per day creates the optimal hormonal environment for muscle gain and fat loss. There’s no need to spend hours in the gym, slugging through multiple sets.

Less Soreness

And lest you worry about working to total exhaustion, even if for just 10 minutes, the X3 approach won’t leave you sore for the remainder of the day. Resistance training with bands isn’t damaging to muscles the way traditional weightlifting is. Research now shows less muscle damage8 means greater hypertrophy, or muscular growth.

This is especially beneficial for truckers who are prone to stiffness after exercise due to long periods of time without much movement.

No Spotter Needed

Finally, it’s just a fact that while on the road you’re often alone. Variable resistance training with bands lets you lift heavy enough for maximum gains while forgoing the need for a spotter. Sure, if you found a gym you could use the weight machines, but you’d still be limiting yourself when it comes to accessing your body’s fullest strength potential. The X3 bar system is simple, portable, and all you need for fitness on the road.

Resistance Band Exercises for Truck Drivers

Resistance Band Exercises For Truck Drivers

Long-haul truckers frequently experience back pain, the result of sitting for long periods, which leads to weakened, shorter hamstrings. Knee problems arise from sitting with knees bent, while ‘jumper’s knee’ is the result of inflammation. Stress on the body is exacerbated if you’re overweight.

Maintaining a regular strength training program can keep truckers healthy and pain-free. The X3 Bar is the perfect portable solution. Following the X3 program just as it requires a minimal time commitment and will give you the greatest benefit.

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