Here's how to actually train for it.
https://uphillathlete.com/aerobic-training/vertical-beast-mo...
How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
21–30 of 112 posts
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#22Reminds me of slovakian mountain carriers https://regiontatry.sk/en/mountain-load-bearers/
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#23Reminds me of slovakian mountain carriers https://regiontatry.sk/en/mountain-load-bearers/
hopefully in both Slovakia and Vietnam these will be replaced by cargo drones, after all Vietnamese farmers are already using them extensively, I saw great use of them in videos of saving people during the floods
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#24Carrying things on your head/shoulders is surprisingly efficient. Many people can unrack a barbell with double their body weight and just stand there for a bit without having done any strength training at all. The trouble is getting the load into that convenient orientation. Taking something from the ground and putting it over your own head is where all the bad stuff happens. Once it's up there it's not as big a deal.
You can make yourself bulletproof to most forms of hard physical labor by practicing the clean & jerk. This movement is entirely about "get heavy thing off ground and above head" as efficiently and safely as possible. There are advanced movements that can be even more efficient but you trade some injury risk for screwing up. That is to say, the actual amount of wear on your body is even lower if you really know what you're doing.
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#25One thing I always found a bit of a puzzle: 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 (who's not in great shape already),…
Substance abuse and rest.
If you lift weights Monday and Friday, you give your body time to recover and get stronger.
People whose job is to lift weight, they don't lift things heavy enough and they don't give their body time to recover. They work everyday, whatever if their quads are hurting or not. It has very little benefits and only destroy the joints.
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#26Carrying things on your head/shoulders is surprisingly efficient. Many people can unrack a barbell with double their body weight and just stand there for a bit without having done any strength training at all. The trouble is getting the load into that convenient orientation. Taking something from the ground and putting it over your own head is where all the bad stuff happens. Once it's up there it's not as big a deal…
I don't think you can unrack a 180kg barbell with your head and just stand there like that as a 90kg male, much less untrained. That is a humongous amount of weight.
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#27This is very common in Indian villages too. As small kids we used to carry 30-40 kgs of green grass bundles on our heads in the mornings. Girls definitely carried more than their body weight. People carried a stack of pots on their heads with full of water. Carrying two equal weights hung from the two ends of a bamboo bar (kaavidi) on your shoulder is extremely common. There was even a folk story of a boy who carried…
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Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#28I once carried a log that weighed about double my body weight and carried it 100ft. My back has never been the same, I really don't recommend it unless you know what you're doing.
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.
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#29Carrying things on your head/shoulders is surprisingly efficient. Many people can unrack a barbell with double their body weight and just stand there for a bit without having done any strength training at all. The trouble is getting the load into that convenient orientation. Taking something from the ground and putting it over your own head is where all the bad stuff happens. Once it's up there it's not as big a deal…
I don't think you can unrack a 180kg barbell with your head and just stand there like that as a 90kg male, much less untrained. That is a humongous amount of weight.
Not your head. Your shoulders. As if you were going to do a barbell squat.
Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)
#30One thing I always found a bit of a puzzle: 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 (who's not in great shape already),…
This is probably about extremes being bad. Having an extremely sedentary lifestyle is bad, but also having an extremely strenuous one is bad too.
I used to lift weights regularly. I'd go to the gym three times a week for an hour or two at a time. I'm pretty strong naturally and thought my training was going quite well being able to bench 1.5x my bodyweight, squat and deadlift more than 2x etc.
Then I paid some guys to move house for me. Actually, my job paid, I have still yet to pay for this service myself. They were lifting whole chests of drawers without even emptying them. It was crazy. I've since done plenty of this work myself (moved house three times by myself), but I do take the drawers out etc. Basically I work more intelligently and take more time.
What the moving guys were doing is harder, less safe, and they are doing this day in, day out. Add to that poor diets (both seemed to be fuelled on crisps, Coke and fags) and the differences become more clear.
So, like with anything, don't be too extreme. Too much heavy lifting will be just as bad for you as too little.