Excercises For Metal Detecting?

I have tried swapping swinging arms but feel too uncoordinated swinging with left arm.It's probably best to just stop completely and give the arm and body a rest every now and then.I am always a bit sore in the thighs a day or so after a hunt.After all,digging 50 holes is basically doing 50 squats.

G'day

I get more aches and pains when I go coin hunting in parks, mainly from the constant kneeling down to locate targets, I try to just stoop over and check for the target but in the thick grass it sometimes is hard to locate the target so I have to either kneel or sit down to do it, detecting for gold is far easier on the back as you don't have to kneel as often and more walking is the best exercise for a bad back, also I would recommend that a knee pad be worn, there are many types available, knelt down one time without a knee pad and straight on to a sharp pointed rock that did some damage to my knee that took some time to come good again.

Always get the usual aches and pains on the first few days of a prospecting trip, leg cramps and muscle aches are normal for me but subside after a couple of days and by the end of the trip when its time to head home I am as fit as a fiddle, unless of course the gout kicks in but that's a whole different story.

Gardening, mowing the lawns and walking are all good exercises to keep you a bit in trim, also trying to keep your weight down is helpful as well, I always shed some pounds during a bush trip as I purposely don't take any cake, ice cream, other crap that packs it on you when you are home.

cheers

stayyerAU

Yes I did try switching arms, which felt a bit odd but I think its something worth practicing and getting used to.

I hadnt thought of adjusting the shaft length, I just extended it fully as I thought that was how you did it. Another thing to try out.

Knee pads are on the shopping list for next time. Where we were was full of surface rocks and it was uncomfortable to kneel down.

Thanks again everyone :Y:

Wax on....wax off....

I just came back from 10 days at the APLA annual camp and I'm glad to say that I had no real issues.
Various aches and pains (feet, hips, shoulders, elbows) depending on what I was doing (lots of kneeling, walking, swinging etc.) but nothing as bad as what I initially felt.

It took a while to get my harness sorted out and I ended up moving the water bottle to the opposite side from my pick to even the load on my hips.
I didn't use the homemade spreader bar that I initially used and I think that may have been the source of my problems.
I did use knee pads and swapped the detector between hands from time to time and also played with the bungee cord tension to get it comfortable.

I had a choc milk most nights and can highly recommend Dencorub :Y:

cheers
Pecky

Did you do any fossicking- any yella??

Hi Jaros,

After over a week of detecting and I only got a 0.21g nugget on day 8 :argh: but others had better luck. One lady picked up her second ever nugget which was 7g and another guy got a 37g beauty.

cheers
Pecky

Stand up padle board paddling.

With the GPZ correctly balanced on your bungee, I tend to remove my arm from the rest occasionally and flex arm to loosen muscles.
You can keep swinging with open hand either side of stem.

Speaking of exercises for detecting I read on a previous thread on "safety when prospecting "and someone posted a warning about doing a boot
scrape on the first signal check. He said he had done his knee in by doing it and needed an op. Im pretty fit and run up and down ladders all day and enjoy kicking the shit out of the surface rubbish, Well 2 months ago at Inglewood prospecting I wished I had listened to the bloke on this forum as I done my knee in from the old sideways scrape and Im just getting over the op now. Can walk OK but can't squat or kneel yet. So my surgeon said only use forward backward motion NOT sideways. So that's two folks on the forum who have done their knees boot scraping. Please listen , its a pain in the butt after the op.
cheers Johno

I actually like cats but thought these suggestions from the classic 101 uses of a dead cat book would condition the right muscles.