DEVELOPMENT.

76. DEVELOPMENT. AUTUMN 2016

anthem, if they could reach them. It might sound far-fetched but a bartender should approach their work as an athlete would theirs. You rely on your physical longevity every bit as much, if not more. To perform beyond your 20s and 30s you have to prepare, preserve, strengthen and generally show your body a bit more love.

Bartending legend Jim Meehan, who turns 40 this year, thinks so too: “I’ve come to the realisation – especially as my body has turned left on me – that we need to start looking at bartenders over 40 as freak athletes. In the old days we made 30 cocktails a night, now we make 200. It’s not a given you can stand there for 12 hours and bang out drinks forever. You need to approach bartending like an athlete.”

So what can be done? Well, plenty of things. Less booze and more water, sleeping better (not necessarily more) wearing sensible shoes (the feet are the foundations of posture), eating with rhythm – not to mention nutritional nous – are all key to a holistic approach to health.

I’ll be exploring each of these in the coming editions of Class, but the first – and possibly most important if you want to avoid all those aches and

Boomerang shots, graveyard grease-burgers, shaking cocktails as your only means of exercise and sleeping when you’re dead. Hey, bartender, I’m talking to you.

Perhaps that’s not you, but likely it’s not a foreign description. For the guilty as charged, this feature is for you.

So let’s start by asking this question: Do you want to be a bartender into your 40s, 50s or even 60s? If you’re in your early-to-mid 20s, granted that’s a way

off – go ahead, fill your boots with booze and thrash your body silly. But if you’re eyeballing your 30s, it might be time to make a few tentative adjustments. After all, this is bar life, not thug life. You won’t get rich or die trying, but you might burn out before your career amounts to one.

There can’t be many ‘normal’ jobs out there that have a physical ceiling, but bartending is one. After a few years in the saddle – with aches in every part of your body - it can be a gruelling profession. Head, shoulders, knees and toes could be the bartender’s

IT'S A MARATHON NOT A SPRINTFor bartending to be a career, bartenders have to last the distance. Hamish Smith gets to the core of the issue in this first of a series of articles on longevity “I’VE COME TO THE REALISATION – AS MY

BODY HAS TURNED LEFT ON ME – THAT WE NEED TO START LOOKING AT BARTENDERS OVER 40 AS FREAK ATHLETES”

Visions of America, LLC / Alamy Stock Photo

78. DEVELOPMENT. SEPTEMBER 2016

pains – is core strength. It’s not sexy and neither is cleaning the toilet, but both are necessary in bartending.

Working your core might not be the best way to achieve a bulging torso but it is key to guarding against muscle injury. “I’ve started doing all sorts of core, back and stabilising exercises,” says Meehan and so have others who want to prolong their careers.

Luca Missaglia of London’s Aqua tells a familiar story: “Probably 80% of the bartenders who spend a good amount of time behind the stick are suffering back pain.

"Two years ago I told myself that I had to maintain the right balance between mental and physical health if I want to keep going in my job, so I have a couple of sessions a week with a personal trainer.”

Method actorMy own experience in this area is something of a barren landscape – I too haven’t exactly been playing the long game in my six years in the drinks industry. So, dear readers, like the drinks industry’s equivalent of a method actor, I booked myself into Living Retreats, a company that takes a whole-body approach to lifestyle, health, fitness, rehabilitation and wellbeing.

Arriving in fashion footwear and impeccably tailored shorts, I was expecting more of a theoretical explanation but was quickly face-flat on the mat, giving owner-trainer Luke Gray 20 (actually it was 15) and regretting the bottle of wine from the night before.

I may not be the perfect guinea pig, in that I’m not a bartender and even less a guinea pig, but like 80% of the UK population I have had the occasional back complaint, the odd repetitive strain injury and I’ve never once exercised my core.

My first question to Gray is: what kind of exercises should bartenders be doing? “Core strength is the the number one,” he says, explaining that unnatural body movements require a strong core to prevent pressure being absorbed elsewhere, particularly your lower back.

The transversus muscle – from your belly button at the front through to your spine at the back – is the key to your core, he says. “Abdominal crunches don’t touch the transverse. To work it, you need to pull

DRINKINGSTRESS

CORESLEEP

POSTURE“IF YOUR CORE IS STRONG, YOUR POSTURAL ALIGNMENT IS RIGHT, WHICH CAN HELP WITH OTHER ACTIVITIES NOT NECESSARILY CONNECTED TO THE CORE”

are other areas that play a role, but if you have that muscle support, you’re less at risk. The transversus – the core - is a really influential area.”

Most of the exercises I’m put through are simple enough. My assumption was that my core would have the fortitude of a gelatinous sea creature but, to my surprise there was something to work with and likely there is with you. Some of the exercises require some basic equipment (a Swiss ball, balance training ball, chin bar, foam roller), but a number of them, particularly the start-up exercises, require nothing. This isn’t Men’s Health, so we’ll keep things simple – but if you can master the following, there are plenty of more advanced versions to be found online.

Planks (take the push-up position, rest your weight on your forearms forming a straight line from shoulders to ankles, suck your belly button into your spine) engage your core, strengthen your lower back, and build your shoulders.

Push-ups you all know how to do, but remember to lower your chest, not your head, to the ground, and engage your core. Gray reckons they are the ultimate, quick whole-body exercise.

Lastly, standing still, raise one knee to waist level with your arms extended for balance and hold (or try a horizontal version of this as the picture suggests).

These increase strength, posture, and offer a sort of force field of inner strength that supports movements such as lifting, pivoting and reaching. According to Gray if your core is strong, your postural alignment is right, which can help with other activities not necessarily connected to the core – like shaking.

So if you want to be stronger for longer it starts with the core.

your belly button towards your spine. How many times do you activate your core during the day?”

Never knowingly, I must admit – though accidents can happen. He continues: “When you’re lifting, more important than bending knees and keeping the back straight is that we pull the transversus in to support our back. That pivoting movement of turning around to pick up an ingredient to make a drink is quite a dangerous one. If you don’t have a strong transversus there’s an uneven load on the vertebrae and there’s no support. That can result in a bulging disk. There

DEVELOPMENT.

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