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How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

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Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#41

Post by emptyfile »

c7b wrote: post #6

One 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),…

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.

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#42

Post by sjducb »

kingstnap wrote: post #20
c7b wrote: post #6

One 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),…

You can have confounding effects. Specifically note Cochrane’s Aphorism. "The correlation between any variable and smoking is likely to be higher than the correlation between that variable and the disease." If you aren't controlling for substance uses (which anyone who has walked by a construction site would know.) You are going to misread an effect. Smoking in particular is actually just that bad for you.

The confounding variable is probably wealth. Being rich is very important for longevity. The effect size for wealth is likely bigger than the effect size for strength training. So construction workers age badly because they are poor, despite all the strength training.

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#43

Post by thih9 »

luqtas wrote: post #40
olalonde wrote: post #18

This reminds me of a trip to Guilin when I was an athletic 22-year-old. We'd booked a hotel on top of a mountain that was only reachable by hiking up a trail. At the trailhead, a five-foot-tall grandma offered to carry my luggage to the top. I thought it was funny — and a bit insulting — so I refused. About a quarter of the way up, I gave up and let her take it. She carried it all the way up without breaking a sweat.…

[flagged]

You can be both athletic and unable to carry weight during long uphill walks.

E.g. upper body dominant sports, or activities not focused on endurance would not be as advantageous here.

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#44

Post by rmunn »

sjducb wrote: post #42
kingstnap wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have confounding effects. Specifically note Cochrane’s Aphorism. "The correlation between any variable and smoking is likely to be higher than the correlation between that variable and the disease." If you aren't controlling for substance uses (which anyone who has walked by a construction site would know.) You are going to misread an effect. Smoking in particular is actually just that bad for you.

The confounding variable is probably wealth. Being rich is very important for longevity. The effect size for wealth is likely bigger than the effect size for strength training. So construction workers age badly because they are poor, despite all the strength training.

Wealth per se has nothing to do with longevity, as a minute's thought will make plain. What wealth does do is enable certain things that help with longevity, such as better medical care. If you're using wealth as a measure, you need to realize that it's only a proxy, and you'll get better data by looking at the actual behaviors that it's a proxy for.

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#45

Post by ekianjo »

rmunn wrote: post #44
sjducb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The confounding variable is probably wealth. Being rich is very important for longevity. The effect size for wealth is likely bigger than the effect size for strength training. So construction workers age badly because they are poor, despite all the strength training.

Wealth per se has nothing to do with longevity, as a minute's thought will make plain. What wealth does do is enable certain things that help with longevity, such as better medical care. If you're using wealth as a measure, you need to realize that it's only a proxy, and you'll get better data by looking at the actual behaviors that it's a proxy for.

> such as better medical care

Better food, comes first

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#46

Post by etiam »

rmunn wrote: post #44
sjducb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The confounding variable is probably wealth. Being rich is very important for longevity. The effect size for wealth is likely bigger than the effect size for strength training. So construction workers age badly because they are poor, despite all the strength training.

Wealth per se has nothing to do with longevity, as a minute's thought will make plain. What wealth does do is enable certain things that help with longevity, such as better medical care. If you're using wealth as a measure, you need to realize that it's only a proxy, and you'll get better data by looking at the actual behaviors that it's a proxy for.

Basically a good point. Merely never ending up in situations where it's a struggle to make ends meet has a huge impact on stress though. You often don't even have to use the wealth in order to benefit with respect to stress.

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#47

Post by Johanx64 »

rmunn wrote: post #44
sjducb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The confounding variable is probably wealth. Being rich is very important for longevity. The effect size for wealth is likely bigger than the effect size for strength training. So construction workers age badly because they are poor, despite all the strength training.

Wealth per se has nothing to do with longevity, as a minute's thought will make plain. What wealth does do is enable certain things that help with longevity, such as better medical care. If you're using wealth as a measure, you need to realize that it's only a proxy, and you'll get better data by looking at the actual behaviors that it's a proxy for.

Such a strange comment. Wealth has nothing to do with longevity and yet here's all the ways how wealth CAUSES longevity.

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#48

Post by lawn »

c7b wrote: post #6

One 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),…

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.

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#49

Post by acchow »

c7b wrote: post #6

One 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),…

> 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

Re: How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025)

#50

Post by Cthulhu_ »

kakacik wrote: post #36
bwv848 wrote: post #21

Here's how to actually train for it. https://uphillathlete.com/aerobic-training/vertical-beast-mo...

Its not even something hard to come up with if you are active, understand you body and generally how workouts work on you. I've trained in similar fashion for my trip to Aconcagua or Nepal, and never researched for that nor discussed with anybody. You carry big backpacks up there a lot, or smaller backpacks for 10-12h each day, every day in places where lack of oxygen makes you lose breath in 5-10 steps easily when w…

Why the elevator down though? One needs to train going down as much as going up, possibly even more (given my limited experiences hiking up / down some touristy mountains in the UK). I'd even argue going down is harder because you have to stop your own momentum all the time, vs up where maintaining it is beneficial.
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