Strongest dude I ever saw was this stonemason who built a stone wall at my house. Dude had to be 65 years old, weathered, wrinkled, sun-beaten, constantly smoking a cigarette, and he would pick up a giant stone with one hand and a hammer in the other and chisel it like it was a piece of Styrofoam. All day… He was Albanian.
I'm mates with a 56 year old British mason, who aside from the age and nationality fits this description perfectly. Absolutely crushing grip strength as well.
Nearly pulverised the bones in my hand.. it was like being gripped by a chain smoking cyborg
Honestly the naturally strongest person I've ever met, and he was about 5 foot 6, and wiry lean
A guy I used to work with told me a funny story about that. He was young and a had a few drinks at the bar and was being perhaps a little rowdy. An older gentleman came over and politely asked him to tone it down. He got all cocky and challenged this older guy to a fight. He figured that since he was younger and a carpenter in good shape, he’d win no problem. The older guy was fairly slight and a little shorter than him. This old guy one punched him and knocked him on his ass so fast that he didn’t even know what happened.
There's no such thing, after around the age of 40 your strength peak is reduced as time passes. What you really think about is what Pavel Tsatsoulin (the kettlebells guy) is calling "greasing the groove". It's a way of strength being developed just by frequent repeated physical work without necessarily high effort. Very amazing how it works very contrast to how most think improving strength works. For more information you can just google "greasing the groove".
You've obviously never worked with old people. I've worked assisted living facilities, acute psychiatric care, prisons. Like OP, I've experienced it personally.
Okay maybe not an entire train car I'm finding numbers of 28-35 ton, but the body can put out a few tons of force when adrenaline's going lifting cars, moving boulders other insane feats, your just going to tear like everything and possibly break some of your own bones.
It is power of the mind, but not the kind of he believe he can, so he can. It is the muscle memory of how to efficiently do it. How to balance it, which part of you muscle need to do what, instinctively without him actively knowing or thinking about it
also sick of this bullshit strength. i remember when i first started my trade there was a lot of shit i struggled with because i never could put full force into something. then one day while i struggled to get a bolt off of something a skinny old guy came by and casually twisted it off with his bare hands. i was like how? then someone told me that old mans got old mans strength which is just regular strength control by a dude whos seen enough bullshit to not hold back anymore.
a year ago when I started barbacking I was big but not strong, now I can lift these kegs in a tight space where I can't fully set my feet. Lifting heavy shit for work hits so different than the gym
I'm not a manual laborer, but I exclusively exercise for functionality. I was helping a friend move and I told him to just let me carry most things by myself. Afterwards he said "I'm not used to being around gays with functional strength." We lol'd.
There’s a dude I stumbled across on the gram who, while not as huge as these guys, is fucking big and VERY ripped and he just spends his time shitting on other bodybuilders for acting like they’re actually strong.
He does a ton of reps with ridiculously light weights and quite happily admits that he’s pretty weak despite looking like a superhero.
It really do be like that. A name for it on every continent but you can’t compare vanity gains with farm-strength. Would love to hear the names for it from other places.
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u/4TonnesofFury Feb 25 '25
Manual workers have that "if i don't get this finished i am not going to have food on the table" type of strength.