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Most days seem to be shortchanged on extra hours to keep up your physical fitness. After working a long work week and using any spare time to spend with loved ones, it’s challenging to fit in a workout. While many jobs involve sitting in a chair for most of the day, a handful of careers keep its participants in shape without ever having to hit the gym.
Below are ten careers that bring in a steady paycheck and maintain physical fitness.
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Nursery plant maintainer
Average Yearly Salary: $21,466Job openings: 6,007
Most people do gardening as a hobby during their free time, but nursery plant maintainers get to do it for their job. Nursery plant maintainers grow various types of plants, from dainty flowers to giant fruiting trees. They have a hand in the entire process of growing from seed to purchase.
While gardening might not be considered the most physically demanding hobby, this isn’t the case with being a nursery plant maintainer as a full-time career. It’s hard work. Plants require a very particular environment to flourish as they should.
This is created by landscaping and hands-on plant care. The tasks required of nursery plant maintainers are almost exclusively manual labor, and it’s a position that’ll keep you in top health.
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Dog walker
Average Yearly Salary: $23,000Job openings: 2,050
Few careers allow you to have canine co-workers instead of humans, but that’s what you can expect from a career as a dog walker. A dog walker acts as the caretaker for a client’s dog.
Dog walkers generally take the pets of their client’s on scheduled walks to meet their needs while their owner is away. They also provide general care for the dogs, such as giving them food and handling their waste.
The majority of the time as a dog walker is spent going on long endeavors to give the animals some activity, which inherently gives the walker a workout.
In addition to the constant walking that the job demands, dog walks also need upper body strength to control up to 10 dogs at a time. If you decide to take on dog walking as a job, you’ll probably feel comfortable cutting down on time at the gym.
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Certified lifeguard
Average Yearly Salary: $24,205Job openings: 22,443
While most people think of a warm summer day at the beach or pool as the perfect way to spend an afternoon, it can quickly turn into a nightmare without the proper safety precautions.
That’s why certified lifeguards are always on duty to keep watch when people are in the water. Lifeguards are the enforcers of safety rules and responsible for taking action when an emergency occurs.
This could include saving someone who’s drowning and performing first aid on them. Certified lifeguards may also give swimming lessons and be required to write up reports of any incidents.
Certified lifeguards have a massive responsibility as part of their job description, potentially saving a person’s life. To be up for this task, lifeguards need to be in top physical shape if it’s needed.
Before becoming certified, lifeguards must prove their stamina by completing physical fitness training. These fitness abilities are something that a lifeguard will use on the job, even if they don’t have to carry someone from the water.
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Agricultural worker
Average Yearly Salary: $25,000Job openings: 856
An agricultural worker is a farmer who handles the crops and livestock that goes on to be our food. While agricultural workers commonly utilize machinery to do some of their job duties, there is still a ridiculous amount of physical labor associated with the career.
Every crop that leaves a farm needs to be evaluated and harvested by hand, and every animal needs to be fed ritualistically to ensure its proper growth.
Many of these tasks are done in the early hours of the morning, making the position even more physically draining. While working as an agricultural worker is too tough for the average person, it’s a job that eliminates the need to do any extracurricular exercise.
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Dance instructor
Average Yearly Salary: $28,000Job openings: 13,304
For lovers of dance, working as an instructor of the art can be the ideal career. It allows you to be immersed in the local dance culture and pass on your knowledge to the next generation of dancers.
Dance instructors teach styles that are within their specialties, such as ballet and ballroom. There’s a fair amount of lesson plan creation that goes into being a dance instructor. Teachers must be able to effectively coach students from a range of skill levels.
Many dance instructors’ job is evaluating their students’ performance, but the position involves exercise. Especially with beginner students, dance instructors need to demonstrate their teaching moves, which often leads to spending much of the class moving around.
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Local tour guide
Average Yearly Salary: $29,000Job openings: 722
When a traveler goes to a city that they’ve never been to before, they want to learn more about the area they’re visiting from someone who knows all the facts. That person is a local tour guide.
Local tour guides set up exciting activities to bring tourist groups that educate them about the city or country that they’re in a while still maintaining the energy of a fun vacation.
Local tour guides need to be extensively familiar with the area they’re teaching about, but their physical fitness must also be up to snuff. Tour guides often combine walking, talking, and leading a group of tourists through busy city streets, usually in the hottest season. That’s an intense daily workout while being on the clock making money.
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Production assistant
Average Yearly Salary: $30,000Job openings: 28,511
There are hundreds of people whose diligence and hard work go into making movies and television shows. One of the crucial supporting roles is that of a production assistant. A production assistant supports the variety of other roles that go into video creation. Their tasks could involve things like:
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Distributing call sheets
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Setting up equipment like lights and props
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Running items between set stages
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Assisting with catering and meals for cast and crew
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Responding to requests from set directors
Many of these skills require production assistants to lift over 50 pounds throughout much of their day. Additionally, working on film sets comes with highly long shifts. It isn’t precisely a low-stress job.
Production assistants often work a minimum of 12 hours a day when working actively on a film. All of this culminates in needing excellent physical fitness capabilities to fulfill the demands of the role.
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Brick mason
Average Yearly Salary: $40,000Job openings: 3,036
Being a brick mason is a physically strenuous job that specializes in working with rocks and stone. They work with different tools to shape the pieces into the desired shape, building sturdy structures like buildings and sculptures.
Brick masons are also responsible for fixing old stonework that’s beginning to disintegrate, which involves evaluating the structure and constructing a restoration plan.
While many of their jobs are cutting stones into shape, the position also involves carrying big rocks from place to place for hours. This is far from an easy job. It makes every day on the job a full-fledged workout, but at least you’ll stay in shape all year round.
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Commercial fisherman
Average Yearly Salary: $60,279Job openings: 10,504
There are many different kinds of fisherman, but whatever their specialty is, the job involves a lot of physical strength and endurance. Commercial fishermen work on boats to catch various types of aquatic life using equipment, like nets and traps.
It’s an occupation that might only take them to shallow waters but often involves working in the vast seas for months at a time. In addition to being intense mentally, it’s exceptionally physically taxing to work as a commercial fisherman.
Being a commercial fisherman can put you right in the middle of deadly storms, in which you’re relying on your strength and endurance to make it through. Taking on this physical and mental challenge is a lot to bear, but one significant upside of the job is that it’ll keep you in great physical shape.
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Registered nurse
Average Yearly Salary: $63,000Job openings: 297,538
Registered nurses are the people who stay by a patient’s side to ensure their comfortable and quick recovery from the injury or illness that brought them into the hospital.
They work directly with these patients and their families to communicate the details of their condition and explain the best choices for moving forward with a healthy lifestyle.
Nurses coordinate with doctors and other healthcare facility staff to formulate treatment plans, perform minor medical procedures, and administer medication. Registered nurses are also expected to assist in emergency medical situations, depending on the type of healthcare facility they work in.
While being a successful nurse requires excellent communication skills and empathy, it also helps to have some physical fitness abilities. Nurses are on their feet running between various units for most of their shift, which is 12 hours long on average.
The benefit to those extensive hours is that nurses get a regular exercise routine with their work.
Author
Sky Ariella is a professional freelance writer, originally from New York. She has been featured on websites and online magazines covering topics in career, travel, and lifestyle. She received her BA in psychology from Hunter College.
