Before coming to Cyprus, I spoke to a couple of professors and classmates who do archaeology, and they all gave the same advice: get ready for your body to hate you. One stated that the first few days are brutal, but once you get accustomed to all the squatting and heavy lifting, it’s not so bad. She says she is “ripped” at the end of every digging season. Naturally, my thoughts were, “what if the first few days weren’t so bad? What if I was already ripped?” 

I tried to find a set of workouts online that would be good for preparation, but all I could find were various archaeologists talking about going from desk work eleven months out of the year to manual labor in the sun for a month, and how tough the transition is. This was informative, but not particularly helpful for my quest. So I decided to make my own exercise routine to get ready, and I think it worked pretty well for me. Now, before you get too excited, reader, I did not get ripped. I did, however, do enough that I think I saved myself from most of the brutality of acclimation.

Here is what I did: bought some hand weights, set aside fifteen minutes every morning, and did squats, curls, and crunches six out of seven mornings every week for a few months leading up to the trip. It’s still exhausting work on site, but it could have been harder! If you are thinking of going on this trip, save yourself the growing pains and lift some weights before you go! 

-Rachel