How physically strong are you?

[ColinJ]

I have two 7.5 kg kettlebells which I could wave about if the inclination took me, which so far it has not!

I have now moved them down to the kitchen. I couldn't be bothered to keep going upstairs to use them but now I can do a few reps every time I go into the kitchen to make a mug of tea, pot of coffee, whatever - kettlebells when boiling kettle! So far this afternoon I have done 4 x 5 reps. I could easily see myself doing 5 to 10 sets of reps most days without having to make any special effort. If/when it gets too easy I will buy some heavier kettlebells.

Builders, car mechanics, Gardeners et al often surprise me with how much loads they can move around.

The trade off is that years of physical work, often breaks their bodies in other ways - arthritis, back issues, etc.

My dad was a very fit boxer in his teens, a very fit soldier in the 1940s, and a very fit building worker (carpenter) for about 30 years after that, but eventually it all caught up with him. He was using one walking stick in his 50s, two in his early 60s, and he was barely able to walk at all by the time he was my age (67).

In my first job...

One of the tasks I had to do was to help unload sacks of plastic granules. The factory was so tight up against a railway viaduct that the fork lift truck didn't have access to the delivery lorries. A typical load was about 10 tonnes, made up of 400 25 kg sacks. I'd usually have one other worker helping me.

The lorry driver would stand on the back of his trailer and place (a) sack(s) on our shoulders. We'd then have to walk in through the rear factory gate, up the fire escape and about 25 metres inside the factory to the area where the sacks were stored. Unfortunately, that meant a heck of a lot of walking.

Since I'd be doing half the work, that amounted to carrying a fairly heavy load 5 km with about 750 m of vertical ascent, and another 5km without a load. It was tiring and took a long time. There was always pressure on us to get a move on.

When I first started, I'd take 1 sack at a time, draped across the back of my neck. Soon I got strong enough to carry a 25 kg bag on each shoulder. It was harder than carrying 1 bag at a time, but it was quicker and meant half the walking. After about a month, I tried carrying 75 kg at a time. I was strong enough to do it, but I tripped going up the fire escape and nearly put my back out so I decided to go back to carrying a 50 kg load.

I was really amazed one time when the foreman came to help. I'm 6' 1" but that guy was quite a bit bit bigger than me. He'd carry a 100 kg load - two 25 kg sacks on each shoulder. He barely broke into a sweat...

There didn't seem to be any concept of Health & Safety there in those days (1974).

It soon got me fit!

I couldn't do a fraction of that now.

 

[ColinJ]

I couldn't do a fraction of that now.

Actually, I could...

Roughly 1/50!

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Well - I'm exceedingly strong

A shower will fix that tho'

 

[Accy cyclist]

There was a bricklayer who drank in a local pub I worked in about 40 years ago. He was always very well dressed, suit, shirt & tie etc and had a nice gleaming BMW. Anyway, beside that he had these muscles that popped out from the side of his hands when he clenched his fists. I'd never seen anything like them before and still haven't. These muscles were between his thumbs and index fingers and looked like half a boiled egg (sliced length ways, not width ways, for those who can't quite understand ). He said they were due to many years of brick laying. I fail to see how simply picking up bricks and cementing them on top of each other can develop such 'freaky' muscles.🤔

 

[Hover Fly]

The red-leaders ( think really heavy thick paint) in the shipyard developed really powerful muscles on the inside of their forearms, some of them could make a coin jump into the air just by balancing it on their wrist then clenching their fist.

 

[gbb]

There was a bricklayer who drank in a local pub I worked in about 40 years ago. He was always very well dressed, suit, shirt & tie etc and had a nice gleaming BMW. Anyway, beside that he had these muscles that popped out from the side of his hands when he clenched his fists. I'd never seen anything like them before and still haven't. These muscles were between his thumbs and index fingers and looked like half a boiled egg (sliced length ways, not width ways, for those who can't quite understand ). He said they were due to many years of brick laying. I fail to see how simply picking up bricks and cementing them on top of each other can develop such 'freaky' muscles.🤔

Reminds me of my labouring days at 17
As up post, i always was lightly built but strong ish. We would unload a lorryload of bricks by hand, no palletised loads then, no cranes, one fella on the lorry, grab 6 bricks between two hands, throw them and you'd catch them, swing around and stack them...all in a smooth flowing motion. Thousands and thousands of them
Paving slabs and bags of cement, 50 kilo bags, not these lightweight ones at 20 kilos, all manually carried to a stacking point and unloaded.
And I wonder why my joints have given out .

 

[tyred]

In my mid to late teens I remember walking around with hundredweight bags of potatoes on my back and loading lorries by hand. I think I'd collapse if I put a hundredweight bag on my shoulder now. I'm just out of practice as I have had no reason to lift heavy things nowadays.

 

[Drago]

I used to work with an enormous brummie bobby known to all as The Swede. He was a serious powerflifter and Indeed built like the Peter Koch character from Heartbreak Ridge, hence the moniker.

I was with him once when he had a villain cornered in someone's back garden. Johnny Scumbag had bolted the gate, so the Swede grabbed the gate intending to simply rip it open and break the lock, or maybe pull it off its hinges.

Except he was too strong, and instead of simply tearing the gate open the post on either side of the gate snapped, as did the posts on the panels on each side of the gate. This left the Swede holding a gate with two fence panels attached like a 15 foot long wooden shield.

Still grasping the gate the Swede ran into the garden, barged into Johnny Scumbag, and smashed him through the fence and into the next garden. The trail of destruction was something to behold, but the Swede was legendary for such feats of outrageous strength.

He was provably to most naturally, unbelievably strong person I've ever met.

 

[Once a Wheeler]

Actually, ripping a phone book in two is all knack and very little strength. I was moving house once and had to throw out an old phone book — about 6cm thick. Having seen on TV a 'strong man' rip a phone book in two I decided to give it a try. Remembering his technique, I took hold of the binding at each end, brought it down on my knee as if breaking a thick stick and then immediately pulled one end toward me and pushed the other end away. Thwack-rip and there was a phone book in two halves at my feet. As always with these things, I was, of course, on my own with no-one to marvel at the feat. Nor am I unrealistic enough to think I could do it a second time: no upper-body muscle-man, me; I must have just hit the sweet spot by luck. Give it a try!

 

[cyberknight]

Reminds me of my labouring days at 17
As up post, i always was lightly built but strong ish. We would unload a lorryload of bricks by hand, no palletised loads then, no cranes, one fella on the lorry, grab 6 bricks between two hands, throw them and you'd catch them, swing around and stack them...all in a smooth flowing motion. Thousands and thousands of them
Paving slabs and bags of cement, 50 kilo bags, not these lightweight ones at 20 kilos, all manually carried to a stacking point and unloaded.
And I wonder why my joints have given out .

and the goverment expects us to do this sort of thing till late 60s / pushing 70 dependent on your pension age target. already told boss i cant keep doing the job i have forever as my knee op proves ,

 

[slowmotion]

Judging by my efforts to carry a 4hp Yamaha outboard from the shore to the shed, people must be lining up to kick sand in my face.

 

[Saluki]

Apparently, I am quite strong. I went to the pet shop at lunch time. The woman at the till didn’t have a long enough cable on her zapper thing to read the bar code, so I took my 15kg sack of dog kibble, lifted it and held it out forwards for her to zap, then put it back in the trolley. It wasn’t heavy.
The man behind said ‘I was going to ask if you needed help but you clearly don’t’
I do have my BodyCoach app and currently in the first week of the 21 days of strength cycle again. There I days that I prefer slinging about bits of metal to prancing about with HIIT.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Many many years ago I was on a working holoday on a small farm in Canada - the farm belonged to my friend'd brother-in-law

We went for a day trip to Lake Erie with a relative of his that was part of teh Canadian rowing team - missed the Olympics due to an illness at the wrong time but would have been in the team otherwise - so damn fit and strong
He took us on his sailing boat - normal leisure sailing boat not some freaky racing thing and my friend an I were swimming around at one point while while he got lunch ready
When it was time to come in he calle us over and - ratehr than wait for us to swim to the stern and climb up - he just leaned over the rail and grabbed our wirst by one hand and pulled us up -one at a time - by main strength
AT the time we were reasonably fit 17 year olds - in fact my friend was playing second row for Cheshire and being looked at for possible International Rugby so he was no lightweight
But this bloke just pulled him up from above as it he was a 6 year old!

Strongest bloke I have ever seen - not tall and didn;t look powerful wearing clothes - but bloody powerful!

 

[fossyant]

Typical cyclist build TBH. Weedy wrists and ankles. I avoid anything really heavy these days, mainly as it really hurts my spine, with the 'half missing L1' !

 

[T4tomo]

There was a bricklayer who drank in a local pub I worked in about 40 years ago. He was always very well dressed, suit, shirt & tie etc and had a nice gleaming BMW. Anyway, beside that he had these muscles that popped out from the side of his hands when he clenched his fists. I'd never seen anything like them before and still haven't. These muscles were between his thumbs and index fingers and looked like half a boiled egg (sliced length ways, not width ways, for those who can't quite understand ). He said they were due to many years of brick laying. I fail to see how simply picking up bricks and cementing them on top of each other can develop such 'freaky' muscles.🤔

You can spend as long as you want in the gym, but the best way to build strength (not just showy muscles) is through repeated daily work.
I was brought up on a farm, so did a lot of lifting any carrying of bales, feed / fertiliser bags etc. when I went to uni despite fighting at U71kg (ah those were the days!) I was the strongest in our Judo club, despite not being particularly strong by local "home" standards.

Brickies and labourers are lifting all day long, removal men, coalmen (do they still have coalmen) etc have phenomenal natural strength.
I remember doing a loft conversion and having a very large shower tray delivered for a walk-in shower. I could just about manhandle the box around. My builder put it on his shoulder and carried it up the external ladder up to roof level to fit it!