My arms feel just a bit like jello right now, and this thing is the reason.

I talked with a neighbor who owns heavy equipment if he had any old tires lying around. He said he did, and I asked if he minded if I got one from him. He asked me what I was going to do with it. I told him I would beat on it with a sledgehammer every day to see if I can get rid of some chicken wings.

He laughed and told me about the girl down the road to who he gave a tire and flips it up and down her driveway most days. I told him I pretty sure that my back and hamstrings would give out too soon if I did tire flips, but whacking on it with a sledgehammer sounded a lot more reasonable to me.

He then offered to let me split and stack the 15 cord or so of wood that he had piled up for next Winter. I just laughed, said that sounded way too much like work, and pointed at his son and told him that is what he has him for, and we all laughed.

I offered to come down and get the tire, but he said he would bring it up to the house with the tractor. It is a pretty damn good-sized tire and not something I wanted to roll up the street to my house. Not that the neighbors would think too much of it. Just the old weird guy is doing old weird guy things again. 🙃

He delivered it Sunday, and even rolling it around the garage to get it where I wanted it was a pretty good workout. I got it in place and gave it some time to settle in, or should I say some time for me to get my nerve up to see how out of shape I am.

I had my ego handed to me on a silver platter. The sledgehammer and tire showed how badly out of shape I am.

Since then, I have been whacking on that tire with my 10-pound sledgehammer. One hundred whacks a day is a good number to start with, just enough to get my attention but not sufficient to injure anything too severely. Switching sides every 20 whacks makes it even harder for me since I am better with my right-handed swing than my left. Yeah, I know sixty for right and forty for left, but I will get the left strengthened up a bit more before I even the numbers out.

I still have to stand there for a couple of minutes to let the heart stop thumping quite so loudly when I get to that one-hundredth whack.

That whacking on an old tire stuff is hard freaking work!

It feels good once finished, but the arms are still in the whining stage, and the abs were not sure about what in the hell was going on.

I have never been all that good with a sledgehammer, always had chicken wings for arms, but I also knew that it is a helluva workout if you whack on something more than a couple of times.

Sometimes old-fashioned work is the best workout, and beating on a tire with a sledgehammer is pretty old-fashioned work. I figure if I start at 100 whacks for a week or two and build up to 500 or so whacks a day, I might get my abs and arms in decent shape eventually.

I have been thinking about different ways to get the upper body and abs in a bit better shape because as I get older, the muscles seem to be disappearing a bit each year. However, I am not a big fan of lifting weights, hate crunches or planks, and while resistance band work isn’t bad, it is not something that has the same enjoyment as hitting something hard and multiple times with a sledgehammer.