How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025) (bbc.com)

The idea discussed in the article was one of progressive overload; slowly make your body adapt to an ever increasing workload. Don't go straight for the 200kg deadlift when you are new to the gym, in other words.

I concur. A lapse in training and one careless fess-up is all that's needed for a lifetime injury.

I managed to carry my bodyweight in each hand for a strength event (100kg). I guess the total distance was 20m? I was OK afterwards, and I'm no freak of strength.

Sounds like you never properly understood what "back-breaking work" really means.

Try doing bending down and picking heavy stuff up, for 8 hours a day, every working day.

Strength training demands proper rest. If you do too much training with too little rest you break down instead if building up.

It's not weird. Medicin works the same way: too much will be very bad for you.

> I get that there can be too much of a good thing etc

Similarly, people that run 45 minutes a day are in great shape. But if you run a half marathon every day, you will age quickly

You’re exactly right, too much of a good thing. And for hard strength training, you can hit that tipping point very quickly. Probably within an hour a day if you’re going hard

Unless you get all your information from movies construction work does not train strength that much.

I think it's because while on the job you cut corners and everything. You don't, and often can't, use proper technique. In the gym, barbells are perfectly symmetric and balanced. On the job, you might carry something that forces you into a horrible posture. That can't be good for you

There's often a machismo culture in jobs like that, in which people neglect things like PPE or safety procedures. Or of course, abusive employer-employee conditions in which workers are exposed to hazards without their knowledge or ability to mitigate it. Obviously, not everyone participates, but it's widespread enough I think it could explain this somewhat.

Construction workers don’t get rest days.

Every one I know described the first two weeks as complete hell, until their bodies just stopped complaining.

But it still takes it’s toll long term.

> it's widely understood, and scientifically backed up afaik, that strength training is healthy and good for longevity. Yet, if you look at people whose everyday jobs look a lot like functional strength training, eg construction workers, my general impression is that their bodies (age 50+) are in worse condition than the average population...

When it's a work, you're expected to show up and do it consistently every day. So you can't afford alternate days to get adequate rest and recovery time. Your body is gradually wasted away by the job. When it's more of a leisure activity, you can afford just not to do it and rest, when you don't feel well, so the combination of workouts and recovery time can be net-positive, health-wise.

Many blue collar professions tend wear out one or more essential body parts in some manner regardless of cardio or strength fitness. Maybe some are differently "easier" than others like HVAC or electrical, but they still take a toll on knees, necks, and backs that can render one incapable to perform the tasks. Some guys last longer than others but there's usually a decision point of retirement balancing enjoyment vs. additional income vs. retirement health.

My dad was a light duty mechanic with his own specialty shop until 1986. He blew out a cervical disc and exposed himself to a variety of carcinogenic chemicals, and that was the end of his career.

Although it has been a couple decades since I've worked on construction sites, the underlying factor is that of the culture - this was northern Alberta - you had to be 'tough' and that meant eating steak, drinking hard and ignoring basic safety protocols like dust protection masks, eye guards, etc.

I was in my early 20's and worked with guys only a few years older than me that were already bordering on obese. The physical nature was typically repetitive and while sometimes requiring raw strength, had very little cardio/endurance aspects.

Of course there were exceptions, like the wiry 'old guy' who could take two bundles of shingles up a ladder over his shoulder and slam three beers for lunch.

They were being paid crazy amounts (for their age and the rest of their peers) and it was spent on rye and weed.

I worked construction during the summers in college. There's quite a bit of sedentary work on a job site. In my experience, the guys who worked on their feet and did hours of physical labor were in pretty good shape. They burned a lot of calories and consumed a lot of calories: fast food, sweet tea, gatorade, beer at night. The more senior folks often ran heavy equipment like track hoes and bulldozers. Those guys were seated all day long, but their eating and drinking habits didn't change. Every one of the machine operators I worked with was overweight and had various health problems. Heavy smoking and drinking surely didn't help.

Look at it this way. Construction workers aren't strength training they are wearing themselves out via hard work that requires strength. Not the same thing.

The slovak version of an article contains different photos, and a video [0].

Also, check out the interview with nosič from poland [1] - he mentioned working there 18 years. Surely, surviving this long means that certain techniques are needed ;) When asked about back pain: "My back hurts when I sit at the computer"

[0]: https://regiontatry.sk/moje-tatry/tatranski-nosici-svetovy-u...

[1]: https://magazynnaszczycie.pl/artykul/chleb-uratowal-mi-zycie...

>kaavidi

This is an interesting word. Halfway across the Alpo-Himalayan backbone the word for this tool is "kobilitsa", cognate to "kobila" (female horse) and I always figured it was a metaphor for the arched form of the bar (and probably referring to how women were stuck with the task of fetching water with it).

But now it seems the word "kaavidi" has reached our ancestral lifestyle all the way from the Indian lands! And the transformation it underwent was more due to how people "normalize" foreign words; same linguistic churn that gives us backronyms and false etymologies (see also "eggcorn"). Whoa

I presume linguists have already studied the naming of household implements when deriving Proto-Indo-European. I've never encountered much literature on the subject, nonetheless I find the subject rather fascinating.

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Related, it's wild what the porters on the Inca Trail carry. Both the weight and the pace they move. We'd get up and start hiking after breakfast, the porters pack up camp, start hiking 30-60 min after us, fly-by us mid-morning, and have a cooked lunch ready by the time we get to the lunch spot. Repeat again for dinner/night. The trail itself isn't technically challenging, just lots of elevation gain/loss each day and at a high enough altitude to make unacclimatized people feel pretty bad.

A couple years ago, I did a 90 mile hike in Scotland, which was mostly flat. My pack weighed just at 20-25lb (light but not ultralight - a lot of water weight). The trail was MOSTLY flat, with a couple steep trails to bypass forestry work, and crest over some steep hill.

I'm a large man, at the time I was pushing 250lb on a 5'8" frame, but I found my flat land endurance was basically unlimited at walking pace. My uphill endurance was limited so short bursts, and I had to regularly stop for a breather.

Once on flat ground, again, 20+ miles a day no issues.

After the detours, and some one-off side trails to see something, and walking from the trail to a town for food and/or sleep, my entire trek was 125mi over 5 days. And when I got home, I weighed 255lb. I gained 5lb while hiking somehow.

All that to say, uphill endurance is no joke, and it is hard to train, even maxed on a treadmill if you live on flat ground. Stair climbing (or machine) is the only thing I can think of.

Altitude can be a huge limiting factor. I biked from Texas to Oregon, and the first days in the Rockies were brutal. It seemed I could barely travel 50 feet up hill without taking a break. I even considered turning around because it just felt impossible.

African women often carry a 25l water can on their heads which is 25kg/52pounds. Often they have another 25kgs in one hand. They navigate narrow paths up and down hills, duck under branches without spilling a drop. Usually maintaining a casual conversation the whole time with whoever they are with.

Agree it’s efficient, don’t agree that an untrained person could unbrace double bodyweight.

I weigh 90kg and can squat ~190kg. Having that much on my back feels HEAVY. I think if you haven’t built up to it before you will not be able to do that

Good luck using a wheel in uneven terrain. Why would you even leave a comment like this?

And be stuck only ever going where someone else has invented the road for you.

Big same. Now need big wheel.

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Have you ever tried to pull or push a wheeled cart up a large hill? Wheels are not super useful on steep terrain or unbroken ground and are often a liability without a bullet proof brake to stop it from trying to roll away when you stop. If the land isn't super rough or steep then wheels are great, but when it is you are going to have to work twice as hard.