r/BeAmazed Feb 25 '25

Miscellaneous / Others Strength of a manual worker vs bodybuilders

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u/tommieOW Feb 25 '25

First comment that actually gets it lol. The worker has bascall perfected the motion of picking and holding the bags . You can even see him resting them on one of his thighs with a slightly bent leg.

This actually comes up in a lot of sports, especially climbing and bouldering. Top climbers like Adam Ondra aren't even cleto being the strongest, but the way he has perfected moving his body allows him to use minimal strength and excel on insane routes.

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u/Cute-Honeydew1164 Feb 25 '25

There's a video on YouTube where Magnus Midtbø (world class climber who only doesn't do competitions because of his mental) climbs with Brian Shaw, and it's obvious that Shaw has the strength to do basically any climb in that gym but he's nowhere near Magnus in terms of technique and using muscles in the right way.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '25

[deleted]

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u/obsessivelygrateful Feb 25 '25

Damn, gonna go find and watch that video today. Been slacking watching his videos for years. Thanks, friend.

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u/Borachi0 Feb 25 '25

Magnus is a stellar climber, but I don’t like how his channels been evolving into a more general fitness channel over the years 😬

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u/obsessivelygrateful Feb 25 '25

I think that’s why I had stopped watching honestly. I tried to go back sometime last year when he did a series from … idk tbh where he pretended to be a beginner climber at gyms and then progressively get better to eventually show that he was Magnus and that was interesting for a while but I missed his older content. I can’t make him go back to his older content, he has to evolve, it’s the nature of life, and maybe it’s me and you not finding relevance in that evolution. ☹️

I also just miss what climbing gyms were like pre-pandemic so that could be influencing my bias, too. Either way! I only wish to be a fraction as great as the Magnus’ and Adam’s of the world so I have NO reason to complain lol

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u/nocomment3030 Feb 26 '25

His free climb with Honnold was amazing though.

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u/llamaninja_ Feb 26 '25

His second channel has a lot more climbing, and also some other stuff he's done for fun

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u/icantsurf Feb 25 '25

Are you talking about the one with Eddie Hall? Eddie truly impresses me with how athletic he could be while looking like a bowling ball. When it comes to climbing, like 80% of that muscle Eddie built is a detriment, especially in his legs.

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u/Eastern_Armadillo383 Feb 25 '25

I'm haven't seen any with Shaw but Magnus did take Eddie Hall climbing.

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u/Agitated_Year8521 Feb 25 '25

Eddie also took Magnus training and was blown away by how much Magnus can lift on a backwards row, dude is crazy strong in those climbing muscles

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u/Cute-Honeydew1164 Feb 25 '25

I knew I was misremembering. Should've double checked lol. Thanks for the correction!

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u/Keruli Feb 25 '25

sorry but that's just not correct. The strength involved in climbing includes, for example, the ratio of finger strength to body weight. In that, Brian is far weaker than a climber - it's not just technique.

And don't get me wrong, Brian Shaw is an incredible athlete and a titan.

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u/WoodenHarddrive Feb 25 '25

We can't just ignore the bodyweight to strength discrepancy here. A calisthenics guy will be able to do way more pullups than a strongman who is much stronger, and Brian was weighting probably 340 in that video.

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u/OkLetterhead812 Feb 25 '25

Agreed.

The average Redditor's knowledge of strength and hypertrophy training is not what disappoints me. It's how confidently wrong they are.

At the end of the day, it's technique and also neural adaptation. It does not make a bodybuilder inferior to a laborer in strength as claimed by some.

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u/UnusuallyBadIdeaGuy Feb 25 '25

You must be disappointed all the time because this same damn argument gets repeated every other day.

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u/redsonja000 Feb 25 '25

What are you ? Average 4channer?

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u/OkLetterhead812 Feb 26 '25

Never touched 4Chan in my life.

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u/Keruli Feb 25 '25

I agree but also disagree, namely: Adam Ondra is still stronger physically, in relevant ways, than anyone from other sports... e.g. his crimp strength or contact strength in spanned out positions, etc.

So yes, he's not the strongest of climbers physically, but if you compare him to non-climbers, e.g. gymnasts, calisthenics etc, it's not just technique that makes him a good climber, it's also very sport-specific physical strengths.

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u/bingbongfckyalyfe95 Feb 25 '25

I remember my first job as a teenager I had to stack these heavy kegs in my local pub on top of one another in the kegroom. My arms were like twigs. Took at least a couple of weeks to get my technique right. I ended uo treating it as a workout session. Ended up being my favourite part of the job lol.

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u/RedactedRonin Feb 26 '25

No that isn't what is happening here. It's a matter of practicality. The worker literally works with that everyday. All the muscles needed to maneuver that bag and weight has been mastered. The body builder could lift a dumbbell with just as much ease in comparison. It would take the body builder much less time to master picking that bag up. There are just a few practical muscles for lifting that bag that need to be worked. The base for strength is already there.