What happens when worker pain, exhaustion, and recovery are no longer treated as weakness, but as urgent signals that the system must change?
Pain ≠ paycheck.
Labour ≠ exercise.
Exhaustion ≠ strength.
We refuse the script that says suffering is “just part of the job.” Recovery is not a perk. Respect is not optional. Survival is not negotiable.
What this lab is
This lab asks a different question: what would public health and “wellness” look like if they started with precariat bodies that work until there is nothing left to recover, instead of with people sitting at desks.
It is not trying to disrupt or replace the fitness, wellness, or health systems that already exist; it is trying to build what is still missing for manual labourers whose pain, risks, and recovery windows are nothing like those systems were designed for.
Exhausted Bodies treats manual labour as an extraction system that consumes joints, tendons, and attention faster than they can regenerate, and then looks for non‑disruptive ways to add protection and recovery alongside what workers already use.
Right now, Exhausted Bodies is a field notebook: shift logs, body notes, and small experiments in pain, recovery, and capacity during and after commercial cleaning work.
There are no courses, no apps, no wearables, and no ready‑to‑use toolkits. Only early protocols being tested under real precariat conditions.
What exists right now
Experiments in development
Two early experiments live only in notes and self‑tests. None of these are open for workers to use yet. They will only appear here as small, concrete tools after they survive real shifts without making things worse:
Strain Library (in notes only)
A language and simple counts for the movements and loads that quietly eat up a body over a shift, so “activity” stops hiding actual damage.
Pain‑Proof Kit (being tested on my own shifts)
A tiny, no‑equipment resets done mid‑shift (not after work) to see what, if anything, changes stabbing, burning, or aching pain enough to finish the night.
Who this is for (later)
This lab is being built for manual labourers and precariat workers whose bodies are treated as necessary but not protected: cleaners, warehouse workers, carers, food service staff, and others in high‑repetition, low‑control roles.
If that is you, this page is not asking you to sign up or “do more.” It is a public record that your exhaustion is structural, not a personal failure, and that any future tools here must start from that truth.