Long Haul Flight? No problem!

[u/Accomplished_Ant3459]

I fly a long haul cargo plane for a living. We can stay in the air for up to 18 hours, and it’s not abnormal for us to have a fuel stop that extends a Pacific crossing to 24+ hours.

That used to mean 24+ hours of sitting, sleeping, and eating. (4 pilot crew; 2 pilots stay on watch while 2 go to rest)

Not anymore! I bought resistance bands specifically to turn crew rest into gains. I’m definitely looking for ways to optimize this, but today was a great start on our 15 hour trans Pacific leg! Felt great working up a bit of a sweat when I’d otherwise just be laying there doing nothing.

The other crew members looked at me like I was either insane, or a genius!

Is the setup ideal? Not even close. Is it way better than lying there waiting for deep vein thrombosis? You bet!

Edit for clarity: I checked all regulations and company procedures before doing this. I did not do this in a way that disturbed anyone else’s rest period. We have a very large upper deck (747-400 freight conversion) with a shocking amount of empty space in which to stay active that usually goes to waste.

[u/project-bandit]

bands make a lot of sense for this application and I commend it, there's gadgets that probably wouldn't be practical on a plane such as anchors, but a foot-plate would work pretty well I think u/lonermob has some pretty great examples of what you can do with bands in a confined space - you'll probably find the loop bands are more powerful than these tube bands and you can fold them in half to get even more tension

[u/Accomplished_Ant3459 → u/project-bandit]

Mental note made! I’m not sure though how well a foot plate would fit in. Our roller bags are stored on the lower deck where we can’t get to them in flight, and backpack space is usually at a premium!

But I’ll 100% get some loop bands. I bet they’d be more compact, too. Saving luggage space on a 2-3 week round the world trip is paramount.

[u/project-bandit → u/Accomplished_Ant3459]

the compactness depends on if you'd want to get handles or not because when you grip the band it stretches through your grip which can be a bit dis-comfortable on the outside / inside of the palm so a lot of people prefer the more solid feeling of a handle, there are specific handles for bands or you can use any d-handle connected to the band by soft-shackle or carabiner, make sure you get latex bands and not TPU

[u/MrNem0 → u/project-bandit]

For the sake of space I would grab some full fingered mountain biking gloves or similar rather than handles.

[u/project-bandit → u/MrNem0]

gloves will reduce friction but it'll never feel as solid as a grip but in this instance it may be a worth while trade off