The Schlepper Fish

You probably know about Omega‑3 fatty acids and their importance for heart health, brain function, and longevity. They’re found in abundance in oily fish like herring, sardines, and tuna. These fish also contain complete proteins and micronutrients such as selenium and iodine. You can buy all three, canned, at your local supermarket for less than a double‑pump soy café macchiato — much less, in fact.

But you may not know about a fourth fish I just discovered. Actually, I didn’t just discover it; I’ve known about it for years. What I discovered was its name and its role in heart and brain health. Incredibly, it’s everywhere and costs absolutely nothing. Zip, zilch, nada — with no limits per individual or family. How much you take depends solely on how much you can carry in your arms, on your back, or balanced on your head. This is where neck exercises come in handy.

I’m talking about the schlepper fish.

I came across the schlepper fish after a gym rat — I’m not sure what they call people who work out regularly and do painstaking research on diet — told me about “leg day.” He explained it, but I didn’t understand and still don’t. “Isn’t every day leg day?” I asked, naively. He looked at me as if he had just wasted ten minutes talking to the wall — the rock‑climbing wall behind us.

So, I did my own research. I compared average workout regimens today with those of the past, going back to World War Two. I also compared Western and Soviet styles, knowing how different they are — and how those differences show up in boxing through Soviet‑style fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Vasiliy Lomachenko, and Dmitry Bivol. Granted, the comparison is neither scientific nor statistically relevant, but it told me something.

It was this: if your aim in working out and diet is a sculpted physique that looks strong but may not be conditioned for sustained work, loaded carries, or tasks outside the gym, then leg day makes sense. You have to deconstruct the body into its component parts to focus on their individual development. This is done in relation to the other parts, but the workout remains compartmentalized.

However, if you want improved health, stamina, and daily‑life usefulness, then schlepping makes more sense. Schlepping means to carry, drag, or haul something — often begrudgingly. It connotes moving slowly and laboriously, especially under a burden. It won’t give you a massive physique, but it will give you a lean, wiry, durable body capable of sustained effort. If you don’t indulge in a plum Danish for breakfast, that is.

I haven’t intentionally taken sides, but I have lived a life of schlepping ever since I can remember. I don’t know what bulking up for Mr. America would be like. I have a friend who is a bodybuilder. He adheres to a strict diet. The schlepper fish is not on the menu. That may be because he is young and has grown up in a soy‑macchiato world, in which case I do not cast any shade his way, as they say.

Currently, for my diet of schlepper fish, I do isometric exercises three days a week. What? you say. That may not sound like a lot, but try holding half a push-up for 75 seconds. I may have reached a pinnacle when I lived for ten years in a fourth‑floor walk‑up in the Bronx and would schlep my groceries around Arthur Avenue. It was also the era of riding the D train to and from campus, schlepping books, bags, supplies, and whatever else I needed at the time. I felt like a pack animal. Or should I say a schlepper fish?

If there is one thing to be learned from taking the stairs, parking in the hinterlands, and walking rather than driving, it is this: there is enough work in a single day of normal activity to achieve a healthy body and muscular frame without going out and looking for more, especially when you have to pay for dues, a locker, a trainer, and whatever else comes with the gym lifestyle.

It’s not that I want to make life harder. I want to make it simpler, and by simpler, it becomes easier. So, I walk home with bags of groceries, grumbling about having to pay for the bags. And I do it all on a diet of schlepper fish — hold the fish.

Image credits: Karen Chew, Getty Images, Vedanth Ravi, Random Institute, Mari Helin. Want more? Click on Amazon above right for other publications or go to Robert Brancatelli. Visit other blog readers under “Who You Are.” Leave a comment by clicking on the Comment tab above. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, living and deceased.