Am I Fit Enough For Flatbed Work?

Hello excellent people!

I was looking into flatbed work. Lots of openings for it. My main concern is....could I do it?

I'm not in particularly great shape, but I am a hard worker when it comes down to it. I had a gig recently that had me running hard up and down a football field for 8 hours! By hour eight I was sore but I did it! And I don't mind taking on heavy tasks.

I just wanted y'all's insights (especially those familiar with flatbedding) on this... I'm not afraid to break a sweat and get physical, but I'm not sure if I'm cut out for it and maybe I should focus on other stuff like dry van and such.

Thank you all and stay safe!

Why dont you just apply and get out here. Then you can decide where you want to land?

Some people takes years to investigate then never get their wings off the ground. Fly pelican, fly!

Planning on it, under contract with current employer until February but I told them I'll stay on until May.

Next May I'll either be in CDL school or doing something else but likely the former. Y'all be patient, that's what I'm doing, even though I'm ready to get into it as well.

Why dont you just apply and get out here. Then you can decide where you want to land?

Some people takes years to investigate then never get their wings off the ground. Fly pelican, fly!

I had a gig recently that had me running hard up and down a football field for 8 hours! By hour eight I was sore but I did it!

What occupation was that???

Thanks for the info I will try to figure it out for more.

How fit do you think you need to be to do flatbed work? I have met several drivers who were in their eighties who were still doing flatbed work.

I started driving flatbed when I was 53. I am almost ten years in now and still going strong. You are in your late twenties and in reasonably good health. I don't see why you would have any issues. Take a look at this thread where I tell about meeting Eugene. He is a flatbed driver in his eighties.

Trucking For The Long Haul

I did flatbed for 8 months at my last job and loved it. I have type one diabetes and was concerned about the physicality of the work as well as it could make it difficult to manage my blood sugar. Long story short, even though I was regional I did a lot of local work with multiple tarped loads a day and I did just fine. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I imagined it to be. Yes, it’s way more physical than pulling a box with no touch freight but the actual work itself wasn’t too strenuous.

You really just use your body weight to pull tarps off the load and folding the tarp is easy just tedious. The hardest part is picking up the tarp to put it on the trailer or on the load since the tarps are typically 80-120 lbs roughly depending on type and size, but even that isn’t bad and you spend most of your time driving anyways unless you’re local. I know there are a few tricks you can use to help get the tarps up on the trailer if you’re vertically challenged or not very strong but it mostly just gets easier as you do it. I trained my ex gf in flatbed and she’s short and wasn’t in particularly good shape when she started, and she did fine. It was a bit of a struggle for her at first but now she can hang in there with the best of them.

I will say flatbed was incredibly enjoyable and very rewarding and I highly recommend it if you enjoy some physicality in your job

In addition to my day job, I part time as a football official at various levels.

There was a little league tournament happening, 9 games, 9 AM to 5:30 PM. I was sore afterwards! Lol

I had a gig recently that had me running hard up and down a football field for 8 hours! By hour eight I was sore but I did it!

What occupation was that???