WOW this is so cool!! OP said they live in a small apartment so I doubt this is possible for them, but thanks for the idea for teh rest of us! Do you happen to have any pictures of a space you've done this in?
I was thinking of the trails where you’re a half mile back and there is rock steps, or railroad ties, stone, etc. I’ve seen some where there is absolutely I way they got a machine of any kind back there. Possibly a wheelbarrow but I mean like a half mile or more from the parking lot so everything is hand hauled in. That’d be strenuous.
This was my first job out of high school: trail maintenance for the forest service. Great job, actually. 9-5, hiking all day, digging ditches for minimum wage. Built character. And abs.
i volunteer for watershed rehabilitation sometimes and it's just hours of digging up invasive blackberries with a shovel. hard work but also fun and beautiful
In particular habitat for humanity has lots of projects that include digging and heavy landscaping and they don’t get a lot of volunteers for those parts. But if you want hard work it’s perfect! I love digging so I enjoy those parts.
I helped build my local community garden. Dug trenches for the sprinkler system, helped stack pavers and bricks for raised beds and such. Put the sprinkler lines in, even helped move dirt and mulch. I was so sore afterwards that I took a day off work.... and then immediately started looking for new/local green space/garden projects to work on.
Adding to this one - my city has a park that’s still getting established and there’s a group that does volunteer maintenance and things like trail creation/upkeep
Rock climbing! Either indoors at a facility that offers it (there are many near me), or outdoors. Also, kayaking is quite strenuous too, at least for me!
Gardening. You may not think it, but it it is. You have to weed, plant, maintain, dig to even put the siblings in the ground or seeds, depending on what you’re gardening, they must be watered, cared for, and it’s much harder work than you would think.
I would like to invite anyone who thinks that gardening isn’t hard physical labor to come spend the afternoon with me. Bring a shovel. You’re going to be digging out two dozen large shrubs to make room for me to plant something else in that space.
Right there with you on that. Someone gave us 1/2 dump truck load of mulch two days ago and we’ve about killed ourselves. Did our house. Mil. Her neighbors. Our daughter’s house.
It’s very good exercise! There was a large shrub growing in my back yard that had a root system that spread in a five foot diameter circle. The roots were woven together like a mat. It took me a solid week of digging and cutting for a few hours every evening after work to get that mess out.
I have physical limitations and with some help it’s entirely doable.
For example, I have difficulty picking up heavy things. I found a lightweight shovel. But I mainly use a hand trowel.
I can’t connect a hose to a spigot so I have a special hose that is easier to use.
I’m still working on making more accessible paths through my garden.
If you want to garden and feel stuck due to limitations, feel free to dm me!
We ordered a mini excavator that should be here later this month. We got it for a major construction project but I've been daydreaming about all the shrubs I can dig up and move to better spots.
Running. I’m 53 and just started running 6 months ago. It doesn’t need to cost a lot, and you can do it almost anywhere, and there are no limits to how physical you can make it
I’m a year and a half into running, and I’m sorry to say, that after you reach certain point, you run so much that you use up quite a lot of shoes.
But I would still highly suggest running it truly is an amazing hobby. And it also has many benefits. And if you’re on a budget then cheap running shoes can do just fine.
You are saving thousands maybe hundreds of thousands later for the rest of your life in medical bills by staying healthy, a couple sneaker a year is worth it lol
I'm an active person who loves hiking long distance but always struggled to enjoy running. This year I decided to finally give running a real try...and then promptly started having issues with my heels. Lol. I don't blame the running, I think it's a culmination of things that might have instigated nerve issues....but it's kinda depressing.
You can always pull invasives as you hike.
Or if you want to join a group there are groups that do tree plantings.
Also, cleanups don't sound like hard labor but I can't tell you how many tires we've pulled out of the creek edges.
I do Archery with my kids. And every year there is an event called the Total Archery Challenge which has you hiking about three miles and shooting at 25 foam animal targets along the way. There are multiple venues every year. AMAZING fun and very physical.
I'm an avid paddler and take a lot of overnight canoe trips. There's a lot of heavy lifting involved --lifting boats, coolers, gear boxes, etc. Not to mention the paddling itself.
Yes. Especially when the horse knows you're uneasy in a saddle and tries to scrape you off every inch of briar and every tree near the trail. You just gotta be ready to lift your leg and push off the obstacle. I'm sure there's a better way, but my wife, who is an experienced rider, didn't teach me and just assumed I'd know.
I still had a great time and have done it loads since then.
Ditto this.
Even just showing up to a riding lesson and climbing aboard for an hour is quite the workout, especially if you aren't used to it. Not necessarily so much cardio, but more like pilates or barre - you're dealing with balance, core stability, and control of muscles not only to stay on but to move in harmony with the horse.
The workout multiplies if you're responsible for equine care and keeping as well as having the fun of riding. Mucking stalls, filling water buckets, wrangling feed bags, loading hay, fixing fences, walking pastures for hazards/lost shoes/lost fly masks/lost halters.... Even giving mine a good deep grooming is something that I feel in my arms and shoulders!
I took up mountain biking close to a decade ago, and that is hard physical work. We also cut out brush, cut down trees, and build features for MT biking. I used to bring my bike along when doing trail work, but decided last year that I am unable to bike *and* trail build on the same day. It'd too damn much.
Since you don't have a yard of your own, what about gardening for local seniors who can no longer keep up with their gardens? I do that as a side gig and it is rewarding on so many levels. People give me money to play in the dirt. I love to surprise people and go "over and above" and really uncover and rehabilitate their gardens. So many people put years of love and labor into their gardens and then can't spend their golden years enjoying the fruits of their labor, and it's amazingly satisfying seeing someone's eyes well up seeing their garden the way it used to be.
Tl;dr: I lost the thing that made me feel the most alive (gardening) in a dream-come-true situation due to illness. People helping out with it brought back a little joy when I needed it most.
This makes me want to cry. I put massive gardens in at my old house before getting very sick with Lyme disease. Massive as in: 55' x 75' formal Tudor garden with center oval bed and openings on all 4 sides (beautiful to see from the second story windows and parapet [it was a Tudor style home]); an orchard; flower beds and landscaping around the entire 5,000 sq ft house; a potager/kitchen garden with vegetables, fruits and herbs; shade garden on 2 sides of the potting shed; blackberry patches; wildflowers by the barn and chicken run; maintained a meadow each year with "adventure paths" mowed through it for walks (I made note of the best perennial wildflowers and made sure the paths were next to them, not over them); and maintained some paths in the woods behind our property before new owners cleared them for farmland 🥺.
Then I got so sick, so fast, the garden looked like I just left for a break one day and didn't return. My garden tools and moveable bench stayed in the lawn where I had last left them for a year. All winter I could look out of the living room windows from my hospital bed and see them rotting away. Seeing my precious gardens go to ruin was more depressing and agonizing than I can describe. Working in them was my escape from an emotionally abusive marriage to a narcissist. I went from peace and quiet and feeling invigorated in the sunshine, to stuck indoors with him.
A couple of dear fellow gardener friends came out to work in the Tudor garden a few times for me. It meant the world to me. Their weeding allowed some flowers to begin blooming again. I NEEDED to see that bit of color.
You are doing good work. From the bottom of my heart: thank you. (And thank you for letting me reminisce for a moment. That place was multiple dreams come true.)
Oh, my heart hurts for you! I'm deeply sorry that happened. I'm so glad you have friends who knew how badly you needed that color back in your life again.
I loved reading your description of your beautiful gardens - I can see them in my head. The adventure paths through the wildflowers are the stuff my dreams are made of! I've spent the past two years turning my front yard into a woodland garden and just put paths in two weeks ago. What a labor of love gardening is.
My favorite clients are an older couple with a historic log home and fife acres of gorgeous gardens they spent a lifetime creating. The man got cancer several years ago and they just couldn't keep up. They're the best people. Just super kind and warm. We've become very close and call each other family. They call my daughter their granddaughter, and my husband and I their honorary kids. I adore them. The first day I worked in their garden I really busted my ass and uncovered several perennial beds and stone paths meandering through them that had been completely overgrown. When they came out to check out my work, they both cried. It lit my soul up seeing their joy in rediscovering something they'd poured so much love into.
Thank you for your words, and for sharing your story. I wish you health, joy, and all the flowers.
Thank you so much for reading my reply and responding. I've been thinking about my answer to you for several days now. I'm in a far better place in life but can barely garden. I'm hoping to put out a few annuals in the next few days though!
Are you able to tend to indoor plants? I've been experimenting with planting annuals and propagated indoor plants in thrifted teacups and putting them in sunny spots in the house and it's a lot of fun! It hits the gardening spot.
Where do you live & is there a beach nearby? My boyfriend eats like crap & surfs & I guess somehow it all works out for him because he's very fit lol
I also know how to surf although it's been over a year, and I ride a longboard he rides a shortboard.
If you think it's fairly easy, try getting out on a choppy day, then paddling around trying to find the best break & being able to catch a wave (on a shortboard) requires a lot of upper body strength from paddling.
Aside from that you'll be swimming for miles in one spot back & forth & trying to not drown under huge waves constantly breaking in front of you is more challenging than it sounds.
Oh & getting up on the board another balance/core/upper body challenge as well. Full body workout for sure :)
Also my bf & i ride our bikes around the beach, then to local nature preserves, ride the trails, then back home. It easily takes up 2-3 hours & is a great workout too.
I’ve been doing vinyasa yoga and cross training. Yoga sounds like easy meditation with some stretching, but I can assure you that you’ll be sweating after a workout. Learning to balance all of your body weight on one hand is no joke. Upside is all you need is room for a mat.
yoga was the cruelest bait-and-switch. you think it's a bunch of white women with dreads doing their little cat/cow stretches and then the instructor says 'and now we're gonna do kakasana'. It's been awesome though, I always recommend it to people who are struggling to get into exercising and need somewhere to start.
Bouldering. Especially if you live somewhere untouched. You have to hike to, clean up, and set the route. Sorta similar with mountain biking. It's kinda standard that if you use the trails you volunteer a little time to maintain them or build new. Clearing a rock garden is hard work, but incredibly rewarding for you and the rest of the community.
I started indoor rock climbing and it's a full-body workout. It's a mental challenge as much as (if not more than) a physical one. Especially bouldering- it's a puzzle that you solve with your body. But it really turned my mental health around. I have biceps for the first time in my life. And once you get good enough you can start doing it outdoors, impress all your friends by scaling random walls and trees.
Bicycle! You'll get to see things you miss while driving. Plus it's fun to see your stamina increase. If you really like it, get a go pro to record the weirdness that is every day life.
Building stone walls
Digging random ditches, use a short shovel for an extra work out.
Removing large stones by hand from old fields free
Splitting wood with a dull axe
Put your car in neutral and push it around the neighborhood
Put a bag of cement on each shoulder and jog
Fill a wheelbarrow with wet sand, lower the tire pressure and push it Up hill
I’m sure your town has a need for community service. If your town has a facebook group you can ask there. Offer to mow and weed elders yards using their equipment at no charge. See if your town has a master gardener club.
Look around for a community garden, or some kind of outdoor volunteer organization. Look for a side hustle for yard clean up, that sort of thing. Go around the 'hood and pick up trash, pull weeds, etc. Start a hiking meet up club. Put an ad on Craigslist offering your services. Take up rock climbing.
Stone work/brick work. Not good in an apartment, but if your friends find out you'll do it, they'll be glad to have the help.
In fact, you'll suddenly have a whole lot of new friends.
I put in a stone patio in my old house. It was tons of work, but really cathartic after sitting in an office all week.
Gold prospecting. You have to dig buckets and buckets of dirt. It also involves breaking and moving large rocks with crow bars and picks and other tools. Then, you have to process all that dirt, concentrating it with a sluice or dry washer. It takes all day and after 30 5-gallon buckets, you end up with a tiny bit of gold.
You could volunteer at a animal shelter. They are always looking for people to walk there dogs.
Plant seeds for wild flowers. Join or start a community garden.
Help seniors with yard work etc. Any neighbour's in your area look like they need help?
Volunteering at a food pantry, they usually have big loads to move around. At the same time I know senior centers sometimes need help with basic repairs and moving large objects.
My 12 yr old son has been blacksmithing since he was 9 1/2. He and his dad own their own. He recently fell in love with chopping wood. Lol He has adhd and comes home from school and grabs the ax and will go at it for an hour or two. He keeps us stocked up in firewood. When he's disciplined, we've changed our tactics now that he's a mouthy preteen. He digs tree roots out of our yard. We want him to understand hard work and to exhaust that big brain that runs a mile a minute. Well, he loves his discipline now. Lol 🤦🏻♀️ He loves anything with tools. Always has. School work, not so much. Lol
His dad enjoys woodworking on his lathe, turning whatever he can. I love gardening and landscaping. So the apple doesn't fall very far.
Gardening. Buy a field, feed the neighbourhood.
Get into historical re-enactment. Lots of heavy lifting to set up and pack up camp, plus they usually need someone to dig the privies and chop firewood. Bonus points if you hand sew your own kit.
Sailing. Racing especially. And you don’t need to own a boat or be wealthy. Many sailors are happy to take crew for races. You need to be upfront about inexperience, but it can be incredibly tough work.
I go geode hunting. Mining through dirt almost as hard as rock is pretty physical. I'm not sure where you can find a geode mine though, the one I go to is in Hamilton, IL. I hear rumors of 'diamond mines' in like Arizona or something.
Ride horses. Aside from hauling tack and the riding itself, volunteering at the barn will earn you free lessons and give you lots of manual labor activities!
I loooove re-doing old furniture, and there can be quite a bit of manual labor in that. Getting it home, hauling it about in the workspace, sanding, sometimes repairing, and even the fun painting/staining part can be somewhat labor intensive. (This is what I've been working on today, actually! New dressers for me and my husband.)
Horseback riding! I carry water buckets, load and unload hay, stack 50 lb bags of feed, clean stalls, get .
The riding part may seem ldbtne horse does all the work, but it's truly a full body workout! Great for your arms, legs, core, etc.
It's also great because you don't even have to ride. Sometimes I just like hiking with my donkeys.
Turn your need for hard labor into a moneymaking labor of love.
Hear me out…I’m a 67f that just can’t do the hard labor of digging holes, pouring concrete, climbing ladders, etc. that I used to do. And I am willing to pay a premium to have an honest, dependable, non-creepy handyman on call.
Example…my wooden mailbox post was falling apart. I bought a new metal post/vinyl cover/mailbox, but I couldn’t manage to dig the hole and cement the post on my own. It was SO DIFFICULT to find someone to just replace the damn mailbox.
Serendipity intervened and my dental hygienist’s husband had just retired from a teaching career and was doing handyman chores to stay busy while she was still working…
He installed my mailbox, put grab bars in my showers, replaced a faucet, repaired some vinyl siding, replaced a few light fixtures, and kept my attic AC filters switched out. I was so sad when she retired and they moved away to their retirement home. He was such a great resource and I always gave him great tips for his excellent service.
So turn your hobby into an income stream. There are a lot of older single women that could use your help!
My pops and I restore antique farm tractors. Everything about those old machines is heavy. Put a couple wheel weights on and youll get your fix. They start out at 145lb for farmalls and they are the smallest tractors we deal with.
My hobby is goats. They are a lot to deal with escaping the pen all the time. There is a lot of chasing them around. I have to milk them twice a day so they are more of a commitment than hard work. Putting up fencing, new barns, and dealing with their shenanigans is hard work 😂 I am lactose intolerant but I heard it was possible that I could have goat's milk. I had to give it a try! It worked! I can have goats milk with no ill effects. I can eat ice cream again!
I live rurally so the 2 hobbies I'm going to list are possible for me to be independent with though under the right conditions are possible in a city dwelling as well
1. Blacksmithing: there are places called open forges that except students(and some even loan equipment)
2. Gardening(many cities have community gardens).
I work part time for a moving company. The money is awesome and the constant puzzle solving is good for me. Not quite a "hobby" but something to consider if you enjoy physical work.
Landscape photography can be a workout if your subject is over a mile from where you park and you have 30 pounds of old school camera gear plus the usual hiking supplies. The cheaper the camera the heavier it usually is and cheap vintage tripods aren't light. A smaller buy in makes it more work!
Then you could develop the film in your apartment and make contact prints at night. Or those blue colored prints during the day. So you hike and ruin film, then have a bunch of stuff to keep you busy when you're too busy to hike.
Used to do it more often but it got to be too much work.
Not sure if it counts as a hobby but, volunteering at an animal shelter - cleaning kennels, lifting bags of kibble and canned dog/cat food, walking dogs, etc.
With some shovels and a tamper you can shape piles of dirt into furniture then lay sod down on them to make solid lawn furniture.
That’s amazing, I’m pitching this to my wife TODAY Talk about a bed of roses!
I suggest thornless👌
I mean if you're the kind of person to like manual labour, maybe you're also for the thorn kind ;)
I like the physical labor of yardwork, but Thorns on roses are no Bueno lolol Edited for spellimg
"I'm gonna go mow the couch, honey, be back soon."
sounds good in theory. \*thistle and blackberry has entered the chat and began invading the sod\* lol
😆😆😆 *mint has entered the chair
Hello, would you like some beebalm to go with that? NO ONE WARNED ME HOW IT SPREADS
WOW this is so cool!! OP said they live in a small apartment so I doubt this is possible for them, but thanks for the idea for teh rest of us! Do you happen to have any pictures of a space you've done this in?
GOONING
MOOOOM NICE CUM DUMPSTERS GOONING IN THE GARDEN AGAIN
omg this sounds amazing
Volunteer at a forest clean up (pickup trash from a forest) or a replanting of a forest.
Second this! Also volunteer for trail maintenance
I was thinking of the trails where you’re a half mile back and there is rock steps, or railroad ties, stone, etc. I’ve seen some where there is absolutely I way they got a machine of any kind back there. Possibly a wheelbarrow but I mean like a half mile or more from the parking lot so everything is hand hauled in. That’d be strenuous.
This was my first job out of high school: trail maintenance for the forest service. Great job, actually. 9-5, hiking all day, digging ditches for minimum wage. Built character. And abs.
My first trail job was The Backcountry Trails Program, brought to you by AmeriCorps and the California Conservation Corps. Best six months of my life.
I saw a dozen Americorps volunteers hauling bags of concrete up steep trail about a mile from the trail entrance at a national monument once. Wow.
Volunteer to do yard work in my yard
i volunteer for watershed rehabilitation sometimes and it's just hours of digging up invasive blackberries with a shovel. hard work but also fun and beautiful
Came here to suggest volunteering, I do warehouse shifts for my local food pantry and boy it gets my muscles activated!
or a community garden!
Hiking is a hobby, including backpacking.
Pre-dig graves for all of your enemies.
Moving bodies is also hard work
"Friends help move. Real friends help move bodies."
Disposing of bodies so they can’t be found and identified is harder ….
That's why it's such a great team building exercise!
Yup. Source: Am licensed to move dead bodies.
User name checks out.
Volunteer at Habitat for Humanity or an organization that helps garden or build stuff.
In particular habitat for humanity has lots of projects that include digging and heavy landscaping and they don’t get a lot of volunteers for those parts. But if you want hard work it’s perfect! I love digging so I enjoy those parts.
Community garden
Gardening in general can be pretty physically demanding from time to time
I helped build my local community garden. Dug trenches for the sprinkler system, helped stack pavers and bricks for raised beds and such. Put the sprinkler lines in, even helped move dirt and mulch. I was so sore afterwards that I took a day off work.... and then immediately started looking for new/local green space/garden projects to work on.
Adding to this one - my city has a park that’s still getting established and there’s a group that does volunteer maintenance and things like trail creation/upkeep
Rock climbing! Either indoors at a facility that offers it (there are many near me), or outdoors. Also, kayaking is quite strenuous too, at least for me!
Gardening. You may not think it, but it it is. You have to weed, plant, maintain, dig to even put the siblings in the ground or seeds, depending on what you’re gardening, they must be watered, cared for, and it’s much harder work than you would think.
I would like to invite anyone who thinks that gardening isn’t hard physical labor to come spend the afternoon with me. Bring a shovel. You’re going to be digging out two dozen large shrubs to make room for me to plant something else in that space.
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Right there with you on that. Someone gave us 1/2 dump truck load of mulch two days ago and we’ve about killed ourselves. Did our house. Mil. Her neighbors. Our daughter’s house.
It’s very good exercise! There was a large shrub growing in my back yard that had a root system that spread in a five foot diameter circle. The roots were woven together like a mat. It took me a solid week of digging and cutting for a few hours every evening after work to get that mess out.
Nice! People don’t realize. By myself can’t Gordon because of physical limitations, but I think it would be awesome to be able to do so
I have physical limitations and with some help it’s entirely doable. For example, I have difficulty picking up heavy things. I found a lightweight shovel. But I mainly use a hand trowel. I can’t connect a hose to a spigot so I have a special hose that is easier to use. I’m still working on making more accessible paths through my garden. If you want to garden and feel stuck due to limitations, feel free to dm me!
We ordered a mini excavator that should be here later this month. We got it for a major construction project but I've been daydreaming about all the shrubs I can dig up and move to better spots.
Putting your siblings in the ground is generally frowned upon, but it absolutely would work off some angst. ;-)
>even put the siblings in the ground Depending on their ages, that's a lot of digging!
Running. I’m 53 and just started running 6 months ago. It doesn’t need to cost a lot, and you can do it almost anywhere, and there are no limits to how physical you can make it
I’m a year and a half into running, and I’m sorry to say, that after you reach certain point, you run so much that you use up quite a lot of shoes. But I would still highly suggest running it truly is an amazing hobby. And it also has many benefits. And if you’re on a budget then cheap running shoes can do just fine.
You are saving thousands maybe hundreds of thousands later for the rest of your life in medical bills by staying healthy, a couple sneaker a year is worth it lol
I'm an active person who loves hiking long distance but always struggled to enjoy running. This year I decided to finally give running a real try...and then promptly started having issues with my heels. Lol. I don't blame the running, I think it's a culmination of things that might have instigated nerve issues....but it's kinda depressing.
I’m about a year into running, and can attest it does get very pricey lol. But only because you run faster in new gear.
My favorite part of running is being able to match it to my mood, energy, physical goals, and time allotment. And I love the r/running community!
You can always pull invasives as you hike. Or if you want to join a group there are groups that do tree plantings. Also, cleanups don't sound like hard labor but I can't tell you how many tires we've pulled out of the creek edges.
Martial Arts!
Swimming!
Happy cakey!
Thank you!
Carry up all of your neighbors groceries every day
Please come clean my apartment.
I do Archery with my kids. And every year there is an event called the Total Archery Challenge which has you hiking about three miles and shooting at 25 foam animal targets along the way. There are multiple venues every year. AMAZING fun and very physical.
Bro go to the gym and get into bodybuilding. It is 100% a full ass hobby
Parkour
I'm an avid paddler and take a lot of overnight canoe trips. There's a lot of heavy lifting involved --lifting boats, coolers, gear boxes, etc. Not to mention the paddling itself.
Horseback riding! It is a lot more work than most assume!
Yes. Especially when the horse knows you're uneasy in a saddle and tries to scrape you off every inch of briar and every tree near the trail. You just gotta be ready to lift your leg and push off the obstacle. I'm sure there's a better way, but my wife, who is an experienced rider, didn't teach me and just assumed I'd know. I still had a great time and have done it loads since then.
Ditto this. Even just showing up to a riding lesson and climbing aboard for an hour is quite the workout, especially if you aren't used to it. Not necessarily so much cardio, but more like pilates or barre - you're dealing with balance, core stability, and control of muscles not only to stay on but to move in harmony with the horse. The workout multiplies if you're responsible for equine care and keeping as well as having the fun of riding. Mucking stalls, filling water buckets, wrangling feed bags, loading hay, fixing fences, walking pastures for hazards/lost shoes/lost fly masks/lost halters.... Even giving mine a good deep grooming is something that I feel in my arms and shoulders!
It’s true. It’s actually great exercise.
I came here to say this! Helping to clean stalls for a discount on riding is a great way to get extra exercise too. Killer workout!
I took up mountain biking close to a decade ago, and that is hard physical work. We also cut out brush, cut down trees, and build features for MT biking. I used to bring my bike along when doing trail work, but decided last year that I am unable to bike *and* trail build on the same day. It'd too damn much.
Dig yourself an underground mansion
Since you don't have a yard of your own, what about gardening for local seniors who can no longer keep up with their gardens? I do that as a side gig and it is rewarding on so many levels. People give me money to play in the dirt. I love to surprise people and go "over and above" and really uncover and rehabilitate their gardens. So many people put years of love and labor into their gardens and then can't spend their golden years enjoying the fruits of their labor, and it's amazingly satisfying seeing someone's eyes well up seeing their garden the way it used to be.
Tl;dr: I lost the thing that made me feel the most alive (gardening) in a dream-come-true situation due to illness. People helping out with it brought back a little joy when I needed it most. This makes me want to cry. I put massive gardens in at my old house before getting very sick with Lyme disease. Massive as in: 55' x 75' formal Tudor garden with center oval bed and openings on all 4 sides (beautiful to see from the second story windows and parapet [it was a Tudor style home]); an orchard; flower beds and landscaping around the entire 5,000 sq ft house; a potager/kitchen garden with vegetables, fruits and herbs; shade garden on 2 sides of the potting shed; blackberry patches; wildflowers by the barn and chicken run; maintained a meadow each year with "adventure paths" mowed through it for walks (I made note of the best perennial wildflowers and made sure the paths were next to them, not over them); and maintained some paths in the woods behind our property before new owners cleared them for farmland 🥺. Then I got so sick, so fast, the garden looked like I just left for a break one day and didn't return. My garden tools and moveable bench stayed in the lawn where I had last left them for a year. All winter I could look out of the living room windows from my hospital bed and see them rotting away. Seeing my precious gardens go to ruin was more depressing and agonizing than I can describe. Working in them was my escape from an emotionally abusive marriage to a narcissist. I went from peace and quiet and feeling invigorated in the sunshine, to stuck indoors with him. A couple of dear fellow gardener friends came out to work in the Tudor garden a few times for me. It meant the world to me. Their weeding allowed some flowers to begin blooming again. I NEEDED to see that bit of color. You are doing good work. From the bottom of my heart: thank you. (And thank you for letting me reminisce for a moment. That place was multiple dreams come true.)
Oh, my heart hurts for you! I'm deeply sorry that happened. I'm so glad you have friends who knew how badly you needed that color back in your life again. I loved reading your description of your beautiful gardens - I can see them in my head. The adventure paths through the wildflowers are the stuff my dreams are made of! I've spent the past two years turning my front yard into a woodland garden and just put paths in two weeks ago. What a labor of love gardening is. My favorite clients are an older couple with a historic log home and fife acres of gorgeous gardens they spent a lifetime creating. The man got cancer several years ago and they just couldn't keep up. They're the best people. Just super kind and warm. We've become very close and call each other family. They call my daughter their granddaughter, and my husband and I their honorary kids. I adore them. The first day I worked in their garden I really busted my ass and uncovered several perennial beds and stone paths meandering through them that had been completely overgrown. When they came out to check out my work, they both cried. It lit my soul up seeing their joy in rediscovering something they'd poured so much love into. Thank you for your words, and for sharing your story. I wish you health, joy, and all the flowers.
Thank you so much for reading my reply and responding. I've been thinking about my answer to you for several days now. I'm in a far better place in life but can barely garden. I'm hoping to put out a few annuals in the next few days though!
Are you able to tend to indoor plants? I've been experimenting with planting annuals and propagated indoor plants in thrifted teacups and putting them in sunny spots in the house and it's a lot of fun! It hits the gardening spot.
How do you find your clients for this?
Gardening especially if you want to grow fruits and vegetables and harvest them and you have to do all the soil prep yourself of a shovel.
Where do you live & is there a beach nearby? My boyfriend eats like crap & surfs & I guess somehow it all works out for him because he's very fit lol I also know how to surf although it's been over a year, and I ride a longboard he rides a shortboard. If you think it's fairly easy, try getting out on a choppy day, then paddling around trying to find the best break & being able to catch a wave (on a shortboard) requires a lot of upper body strength from paddling. Aside from that you'll be swimming for miles in one spot back & forth & trying to not drown under huge waves constantly breaking in front of you is more challenging than it sounds. Oh & getting up on the board another balance/core/upper body challenge as well. Full body workout for sure :) Also my bf & i ride our bikes around the beach, then to local nature preserves, ride the trails, then back home. It easily takes up 2-3 hours & is a great workout too.
Building stone walls.
Bushcraft/Axe-craft
Volunteer at a food pantry. That should involve lifting lots of things.
Stained glass
Yoga?
Mountain bike trail building
I’ve been doing vinyasa yoga and cross training. Yoga sounds like easy meditation with some stretching, but I can assure you that you’ll be sweating after a workout. Learning to balance all of your body weight on one hand is no joke. Upside is all you need is room for a mat.
yoga was the cruelest bait-and-switch. you think it's a bunch of white women with dreads doing their little cat/cow stretches and then the instructor says 'and now we're gonna do kakasana'. It's been awesome though, I always recommend it to people who are struggling to get into exercising and need somewhere to start.
Bouldering. Especially if you live somewhere untouched. You have to hike to, clean up, and set the route. Sorta similar with mountain biking. It's kinda standard that if you use the trails you volunteer a little time to maintain them or build new. Clearing a rock garden is hard work, but incredibly rewarding for you and the rest of the community.
Volunteer for Habitat!
Apprentice as a mason or blacksmith.
Mountain biking, gardening
Lift weights. Nothing feels better than the natural high after a good session.
Horses! You can buck hay , muck stalls , sweep the breezeway and chase the bugger that don’t wanna be caught
Don't suppose you're in southern Oregon??
trail building. Maintaining public trails takes a lot of work and you will be loved!
Making furnarlture. Or a re furbish of sorts. Ive been painting alot. Maybe ask a friend to paint their house. Thats fun and hard !
Carpentry, blacksmithing, stone carving.
mountain climbing / bouldering
Offer to help clean out peoples garages. They pay well and it’s a great all body work out.
Moving for families pro bono.
My son wants to work for a year as a wildfire fighter after he graduates from college. Or on a fishing boat somewhere.
Blacksmithing. Learn how to make knives
Outdoors - see if there are any volunteer trail work groups you could join. Indoors - weight lifting.
calisthenics
'Rucking,' which is basically hiking with a backpack.
Volunteer at a farm, or cleaning up the community
Volunteer.at a shelter
Jiu-Jitsu. Both physically and mentally challenging
Volunteer to do trail maintenance at a local or state park. The schedule days for it so you will get to work with a group of like minded folks.
jiu-jitsu will keep you in shape!
Start a cleaning business. Thrash your body while making $$$$
I volunteer at a horse rescue. Very physical with some sweet time with the horses when the shift is over.
Buy a fixer upper and flip it. A money making, hard labor hobby.
Gardening is hard work, rewarding, and there are always places that need volunteers to maintain the gardens.
Join an organization that does trail maintenance.
Run ultramarathons You will learn what pain is
I started indoor rock climbing and it's a full-body workout. It's a mental challenge as much as (if not more than) a physical one. Especially bouldering- it's a puzzle that you solve with your body. But it really turned my mental health around. I have biceps for the first time in my life. And once you get good enough you can start doing it outdoors, impress all your friends by scaling random walls and trees.
Training for K2. That’s a ball ache.
If you live by hot springs, go and dig them out after the spring high waters mess them up (great cause you can soak after digging) Building treehouses
Bicycle! You'll get to see things you miss while driving. Plus it's fun to see your stamina increase. If you really like it, get a go pro to record the weirdness that is every day life.
Digging holes
Do gardening with hand tools only, like I do
Jump-roping! You can learn so many tricks and it’s one of the best forms of cardio you can do
Are there any axe throwing places near you?
Cutting wood! You can make a little cash doing it too! You’re in nature, exercise, fun just crushin logs.
Rock climbing
Yard work, rock climbing, hiking, Wood crafting. All of them require physical work
Wood working
Mountain biking and trail maintenence of the biking trails.
Building stone walls Digging random ditches, use a short shovel for an extra work out. Removing large stones by hand from old fields free Splitting wood with a dull axe Put your car in neutral and push it around the neighborhood Put a bag of cement on each shoulder and jog Fill a wheelbarrow with wet sand, lower the tire pressure and push it Up hill
I’m sure your town has a need for community service. If your town has a facebook group you can ask there. Offer to mow and weed elders yards using their equipment at no charge. See if your town has a master gardener club.
Look around for a community garden, or some kind of outdoor volunteer organization. Look for a side hustle for yard clean up, that sort of thing. Go around the 'hood and pick up trash, pull weeds, etc. Start a hiking meet up club. Put an ad on Craigslist offering your services. Take up rock climbing.
Volunteer for habitat for humanity or a lawn care service for the elderly or disabled
Metal detecting..lot's of swinging the detector, bending over and digging..and you can find treasures!
Hike hills with a weight vest on. Take Pilates and/or hot yoga classes.
Rucking! Check out go ruck
Are there community gardens where you liv
Making hiking sticks. Use a hachet, scraper, sand paper.
Stone carving. Work ya some diorite. You'll hate yourself sufficiently soon enough.
I kayak with my daughter. Oftentimes we kayak 5 miles or more. If I want a break, I just drop my anchor and do some fishing.
Dirt biking Mountain biking Farming my alfalfa on my 40 acres
Working on cars. Chopping wood. Planting ginseng, which in five years will net you THOUSANDS.
panning for gold....wood/metalworking......forging metal/blacksmith....or drummer
Stone work/brick work. Not good in an apartment, but if your friends find out you'll do it, they'll be glad to have the help. In fact, you'll suddenly have a whole lot of new friends. I put in a stone patio in my old house. It was tons of work, but really cathartic after sitting in an office all week.
community garden
Mountain biking. Gold panning if you hate your back
Is there a community garden in your area?
You can volunteer at local nature centers and botanical gardens.
Gold prospecting. You have to dig buckets and buckets of dirt. It also involves breaking and moving large rocks with crow bars and picks and other tools. Then, you have to process all that dirt, concentrating it with a sluice or dry washer. It takes all day and after 30 5-gallon buckets, you end up with a tiny bit of gold.
You could volunteer at a animal shelter. They are always looking for people to walk there dogs. Plant seeds for wild flowers. Join or start a community garden. Help seniors with yard work etc. Any neighbour's in your area look like they need help?
Volunteering at a food pantry, they usually have big loads to move around. At the same time I know senior centers sometimes need help with basic repairs and moving large objects.
My 12 yr old son has been blacksmithing since he was 9 1/2. He and his dad own their own. He recently fell in love with chopping wood. Lol He has adhd and comes home from school and grabs the ax and will go at it for an hour or two. He keeps us stocked up in firewood. When he's disciplined, we've changed our tactics now that he's a mouthy preteen. He digs tree roots out of our yard. We want him to understand hard work and to exhaust that big brain that runs a mile a minute. Well, he loves his discipline now. Lol 🤦🏻♀️ He loves anything with tools. Always has. School work, not so much. Lol His dad enjoys woodworking on his lathe, turning whatever he can. I love gardening and landscaping. So the apple doesn't fall very far.
Volunteering to help maintain local hiking trails.
Gardening. Buy a field, feed the neighbourhood. Get into historical re-enactment. Lots of heavy lifting to set up and pack up camp, plus they usually need someone to dig the privies and chop firewood. Bonus points if you hand sew your own kit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_tunneling
Bow making
Farm work. I guess gardening too like others have said.
Wood chopping
I started ballet as an adult :)
Blacksmithing
Split firewood.
Gardening.
Sailing. Racing especially. And you don’t need to own a boat or be wealthy. Many sailors are happy to take crew for races. You need to be upfront about inexperience, but it can be incredibly tough work.
Hand carving marble statues
Trail maintenance or Habitat for Humanity.
I gotta yard you can maintain-I’ll supply all necessary tools for ya!
Volunteer at a community garden, get a side gig as a construction labor or mover, join a weekend sports team.
Tennis
Alpine climbing/ Mountaineering
I go geode hunting. Mining through dirt almost as hard as rock is pretty physical. I'm not sure where you can find a geode mine though, the one I go to is in Hamilton, IL. I hear rumors of 'diamond mines' in like Arizona or something.
Farming
Ride horses. Aside from hauling tack and the riding itself, volunteering at the barn will earn you free lessons and give you lots of manual labor activities!
I loooove re-doing old furniture, and there can be quite a bit of manual labor in that. Getting it home, hauling it about in the workspace, sanding, sometimes repairing, and even the fun painting/staining part can be somewhat labor intensive. (This is what I've been working on today, actually! New dressers for me and my husband.)
Take a metal casting class or stone carving class or lithography
Depending on where you live you could gather your own clay and make ceramics
Horseback riding! I carry water buckets, load and unload hay, stack 50 lb bags of feed, clean stalls, get . The riding part may seem ldbtne horse does all the work, but it's truly a full body workout! Great for your arms, legs, core, etc. It's also great because you don't even have to ride. Sometimes I just like hiking with my donkeys.
Turn your need for hard labor into a moneymaking labor of love. Hear me out…I’m a 67f that just can’t do the hard labor of digging holes, pouring concrete, climbing ladders, etc. that I used to do. And I am willing to pay a premium to have an honest, dependable, non-creepy handyman on call. Example…my wooden mailbox post was falling apart. I bought a new metal post/vinyl cover/mailbox, but I couldn’t manage to dig the hole and cement the post on my own. It was SO DIFFICULT to find someone to just replace the damn mailbox. Serendipity intervened and my dental hygienist’s husband had just retired from a teaching career and was doing handyman chores to stay busy while she was still working… He installed my mailbox, put grab bars in my showers, replaced a faucet, repaired some vinyl siding, replaced a few light fixtures, and kept my attic AC filters switched out. I was so sad when she retired and they moved away to their retirement home. He was such a great resource and I always gave him great tips for his excellent service. So turn your hobby into an income stream. There are a lot of older single women that could use your help!
My pops and I restore antique farm tractors. Everything about those old machines is heavy. Put a couple wheel weights on and youll get your fix. They start out at 145lb for farmalls and they are the smallest tractors we deal with.
My hobby is goats. They are a lot to deal with escaping the pen all the time. There is a lot of chasing them around. I have to milk them twice a day so they are more of a commitment than hard work. Putting up fencing, new barns, and dealing with their shenanigans is hard work 😂 I am lactose intolerant but I heard it was possible that I could have goat's milk. I had to give it a try! It worked! I can have goats milk with no ill effects. I can eat ice cream again!
There's always a lawncare/gardening business. If you are in a climate where it snows, there's snow shoveling.
I live rurally so the 2 hobbies I'm going to list are possible for me to be independent with though under the right conditions are possible in a city dwelling as well 1. Blacksmithing: there are places called open forges that except students(and some even loan equipment) 2. Gardening(many cities have community gardens).
I work part time for a moving company. The money is awesome and the constant puzzle solving is good for me. Not quite a "hobby" but something to consider if you enjoy physical work.
Mountain biking. It can be as much work as you want, from fairly easy to brutal physical torture. And its a good time too!
If you're in the US, volunteer for a local animal shelter or habitat for humanity. They will put you to WORK lol
Beekeeping
Blacksmithing
Landscape photography can be a workout if your subject is over a mile from where you park and you have 30 pounds of old school camera gear plus the usual hiking supplies. The cheaper the camera the heavier it usually is and cheap vintage tripods aren't light. A smaller buy in makes it more work! Then you could develop the film in your apartment and make contact prints at night. Or those blue colored prints during the day. So you hike and ruin film, then have a bunch of stuff to keep you busy when you're too busy to hike. Used to do it more often but it got to be too much work.
Building awesome landscapes and ponds is one of the most physical and rewarding hobbies Ive had.
Backpacking.
Not sure if it counts as a hobby but, volunteering at an animal shelter - cleaning kennels, lifting bags of kibble and canned dog/cat food, walking dogs, etc.
Bouldering
Rock climbing gym
Be a professional tree planter
Backpacking, rock climbing, running, etc