I was going to do a post on sand the other day.
There are lots of benefits to picking up odd objects, with sand being one of them. I have a sand bag that I use for weighted carries and you'd be surprised how taxing this is on your body. While not shoveling, by carrying a bag full of sand, the sand shifts around and challenges your body in a way weights don't. Shoveling is good too, but the sand bag is a complete different animal.
There are professional sand bags you can buy or do what I did years ago, buy a bag of sand for 5 bux or so and then go to an army surplus store, buy a canvas army bag ( I think I paid $20), put it inside a more secure bag so your sand bag doesn't rip. The bag of sand I bought is only 66 pounds, which doesn't seem like much, but you'd be very surprised how heavy it feels in short order.
There are all sorts of positions you can carry the bag....Bear hug, overhead, on one shoulder, deadlift the bag carrying it for distance...putting it down picking it up again... etc., etc. When I first started to do sand bag training, I had this workout I'd do where I would pick that bag up, put it on one shoulder and go for a walk around the block. The goal was you could never put the bag down on the ground. If you were tired or your shoulder was getting sore, you stopped brought the bag down to your chest, used your legs to jerk it back up to the other shoulder and continued. It took about 15 minutes to go around the block.
If you shoveled sand for a job, you won't need to go to the gym. And trust me, you don't want to do this for hours. Even if you did do it for hours, you'd have to work up to doing that.
Sanbag get ups:
This is a good channel for variety of sandbag exercises and workouts:
If you want to replicate the sand shoveling motion without sand, this is much cleaner:
Odd objects and "farmers strength" training ideas:
https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/6-week-challenge-loaded-carries-for-farmers-strength
