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Barbell Old time strength - scepticism?

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Is the argument that the old time strongmen were stronger or just as strong as elite athletes of today? If so the old time strongmen didn't have superior scientific understanding, training methods, equipment, facilities, nutrition, performance enhancing drugs or motivation to today's elite athletes meaning that any comparative advantage they enjoyed must have come from genetics alone. Assuming such a genetic advantage did exist, why would it have been lost to humankind? My own (perhaps ill-informed) view is that when we read back in history about people who were stronger or faster than today's athletes we are reading fiction
 
Is the argument that the old time strongmen were stronger or just as strong as elite athletes of today? If so the old time strongmen didn't have superior scientific understanding, training methods, equipment, facilities, nutrition, performance enhancing drugs or motivation to today's elite athletes meaning that any comparative advantage they enjoyed must have come from genetics alone. Assuming such a genetic advantage did exist, why would it have been lost to humankind? My own (perhaps ill-informed) view is that when we read back in history about people who were stronger or faster than today's athletes we are reading fiction

There were probably quite a few other advantages (towards developing physical strength) back in the day. First of all, many (like Sterke-Nils) did serious manual labour from a very early age, and were far more dependent on physical performance than we are today. Albeit insufficient nutrition was a lot more common back in the day, people also ate cleaner food and virtually no junk. People probably spent a lot less time and energy on abstract, mental stress and worries, and one does only have to go back to the seventies to see that the average person slept significantly more (and less disturbed) than today.

Even though I agree that heoric tales are probably excaggerated (or simply fictious), it is not unlikely that genetic freaks of the past had a lot of assets in terms of reaching their physical potential, compared to contemporary athletes.
 
Even though I agree that heoric tales are probably excaggerated (or simply fictious), it is not unlikely that genetic freaks of the past had a lot of assets in terms of reaching their physical potential, compared to contemporary athletes.

I'm not sure about this. I'm sure there were just as many, if not more, disadvantages compared to modern athletes.

The existence of vitamins wasn't discovered until the early 20th century and their importance for health was a topic of debate for decades. The diet of the average working classes at the turn of the 20th century was horribly deficient and, high volume manual labour or not, they were neither strong nor vigorous.
 
Is the argument that the old time strongmen were stronger or just as strong as elite athletes of today? If so the old time strongmen didn't have superior scientific understanding, training methods, equipment, facilities, nutrition, performance enhancing drugs or motivation to today's elite athletes meaning that any comparative advantage they enjoyed must have come from genetics alone. Assuming such a genetic advantage did exist, why would it have been lost to humankind? My own (perhaps ill-informed) view is that when we read back in history about people who were stronger or faster than today's athletes we are reading fiction

This is a very interesting YT about recent athletic improvements:



I don't believe for one second there was any sort of overall genetic advantage over the last few or even dozens of generations. But...imagine a world where nearly 100% of the population is challenging themselves physically in their day to day. Those with a predisposition to strength are much more likely to discover this, and within the population there would indeed be more people in that category.

The fact that many of the old time strongmen made their living demonstrating miraculous feats really creates the question mark as there is a strong incentive to do whatever to get the $ - you're a performer.

Then again, look at Valentin Dikul, nothing phony and positively amazing displays of power and strength. Color me an appreciative agnostic.
 
Is the argument that the old time strongmen were stronger or just as strong as elite athletes of today? If so the old time strongmen didn't have superior scientific understanding, training methods, equipment, facilities, nutrition, performance enhancing drugs or motivation to today's elite athletes meaning that any comparative advantage they enjoyed must have come from genetics alone. Assuming such a genetic advantage did exist, why would it have been lost to humankind? My own (perhaps ill-informed) view is that when we read back in history about people who were stronger or faster than today's athletes we are reading fiction
@LukeV, in my opinion, you are over-valuing all the things you listed that we have that the old-timers didn't.

-S-
 
With the phenomenal growth in human population over the last 150 years I would bet there are more people today performing life-long heavy physical labour than at any other point in history. Yet where are the amateurs smashing the world records set by our sedentary technology focussed elite athletes? Every world record that we can verify has been broken repeatedly in the modern era, particularly in the era of professionalism (with everything that entails, and that ought to be more than a hint). So we are only left looking (I would argue through the lens of sentimentalism) at world records that we can't verify (including through imperfect analysis of 20000 year old footprints given what we know for sure about variability of stride length). No-one walks off the farm let alone out of the jungle and wins Olympic or IPF gold any more.
 
With the phenomenal growth in human population over the last 150 years I would bet there are more people today performing life-long heavy physical labour than at any other point in history. Yet where are the amateurs smashing the world records set by our sedentary technology focussed elite athletes? Every world record that we can verify has been broken repeatedly in the modern era, particularly in the era of professionalism (with everything that entails, and that ought to be more than a hint). So we are only left looking (I would argue through the lens of sentimentalism) at world records that we can't verify (including through imperfect analysis of 20000 year old footprints given what we know for sure about variability of stride length). No-one walks off the farm let alone out of the jungle and wins Olympic or IPF gold any more.


You make some good points for sure.

The video I linked to actually addresses a lot of the sport improvements over the last couple decades. A surprising number are due to better equipment, surfaces, selection for optimum bodytype. When you look at how much science and selection go into it, for all that very little concrete progress has actually been made.

I agree w/ the footprints though, but it certainly is possible for a very short burst.
 
I had a neighbor growing up who was an 80 year old logger. I have a memory of him (he was in his 80s) using a hook to throw logs across the hood of my moms car into the back of his truck, while carrying on a normal conversation. I was a 8 but ive had my memories verified. he was a town legend for his strength. some people are just bull strong, they know how to move with strength that many people (including myself) spend a lot of there time trying to learn.
 
I'm not sure about this. I'm sure there were just as many, if not more, disadvantages compared to modern athletes.

The existence of vitamins wasn't discovered until the early 20th century and their importance for health was a topic of debate for decades. The diet of the average working classes at the turn of the 20th century was horribly deficient and, high volume manual labour or not, they were neither strong nor vigorous.

Sure, farmboys who grew up many centuries ago had no ideas that vitamins excisted. yet, a vegetable back then carried a bigger nutritious value than today -- overpopulation, industrial agriculture and non-sustainable overconsumption has taken it's toll. Scandinavian vikings ate a lot of seafood (withoutexplicit worries of getting enough omega 3), and they were not that much shorter than the average Europeans of today. But I guess it is very difficult to find high quality data about their actual strength levels.
 
I think this is all explainable via economics.

Our most physically genetically gifted individuals these days, at least in the West, are incentivized to play spectator sports and earn the big bucks, most of which isn't centered pure strength displays. So they don't train for pure strength.

Strongmen existed before we had NFL, WWE, professional rugby, etc -- so they went into the most lucrative thing they could find back in the day.

One of the arguments for 'why isn't the West good at Olympic weightlifting anymore' is economics -- our best physical candidates go do other things, that pay better.
 
Regarding the stone in Seljord:
Torkel Ravndal, a powerlifter/showman/strongman who passed away in 2004, and (unofficially) deadlifted 485 kilos, has actually lifted the stone a few inches, albeit with the use of chains and special gear.
He claimed that it actually weighed a lot more than 570 kilos. Furthermore, he claimed that it had never lifted by anyone but himself, and that the tale about Sterke-Nils was only a myth. The latter statement really provoked the locals, who are proud of their local legend. The sheriff, who was also the referee who acknowledged Torkel's lift, then had to evacuate him from Seljord to avoid a lynch mob from attacking him.

torkel-ravndal-890x395.jpg

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C5B5BD41-4388-47F2-BE76-2D2C0D2103AF.png This is my grandfather (Ray) & uncle (Terry). He worked on the railroad laying track when everything was done by hand. Stood little over 6ft & unbelievably strong. Never worked out a day in his life other than occupation. Nutrition/diet was poor, because he was poor with 6 kids that needed to be fed before him. The human body is amazing & will adapt to survive. You can see he’s not a big man or had access to a lot of food, but you can also see he was strong.
How many other people here have grandparents that were far stronger than them with much less food in their belly’s, & no regular designated exercise routine? Not to much of a stretch to think that if some of them did train for pure strength & managed to get their hands on a decent amount of food they might just become incredibly strong. Might be cliche but I think the generations that walked before us are much harder & resilient than we could imagine.
 
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Avoidance of starvation is a heck of a motivator.

Along the same lines as this thread, I read a book about early 20th century magicians. The book pointed out that several of the most prominent magicians of that era were actually magic. Their tricks cannot be replicated by the best magicians today because back then living conditions were such that superhuman feats of actual magic were much more common. This is of course well documented with still photos and reports from Vaudeville, carnivals, and circus acts. Today's magicians are soft by comparison with their store-bought capes and their scantily-clad assistants who also are not magic. So the magic has been allowed to die out due to ease of life, ready availability of food, and the lack of adequate dysentery.
 
Might be cliche but I think the generations that walked before us are much harder & resilient than we could imagine.
Knowing what my parents and grandparents lived through, I agree completely. And, in some important ways, I think they were healthier as well for having lived through what they lived through.

-S-
 
Here is that picture of my grandpa... Probably 60-65 there.. He died when he was 72, he still looked like that when he passed away.
The man was a stud! Usually men lose the muscle size with age, I'm 60 and have to work hard to build/maintain muscle size, strength and elasticity. Hopefully you inherited some of his genes. :) Good lineage goes a long way but we have to put in the work.
 
The man was a stud! Usually men lose the muscle size with age, I'm 60 and have to work hard to build/maintain muscle size, strength and elasticity. Hopefully you inherited some of his genes. :) Good lineage goes a long way but we have to put in the work.
haha thanks. He was really a legend. Quick story My grandpa had a bookie he called to make bets for him at the horse track. One time my grandpa called and canceled the bet, but the bookie for some reason messed up and the bet went through. Years later the bookie told my grandpa he was ordered to stab him, but he chickened out, because my grandpa was so big. Thats a true story.

Everyone says I look just like him, but i'm not nearly as muscular, getting there though..
 
Unless someone invents a time machine, we will probably never know how strong our ancestors were. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but here is a plausible mechanism of how people could have been stronger in the past:
1 - Desired characteristic (strength) depends on many genes. The more you have the "good versions" ("strong" allele for those who want the scientific term), the stronger you are.
2 - Selection pressures make weak people die more often in a certain region (think of Rippetoe here)
3 - Due to lower mobility than today, the strong people (or at least those with the "strong" alleles) mate with each other in that region.
4 - Once in a while, an individual is born with a lot more of the "good versions" of the genes, just by random combinations.
5 - Not required but possible, there was also a chance mutation in the population that gave a great advantage in strength.

Today, having as many "strong" alleles will be more difficult as there is less selection pressure and more mobility, so strong individuals are dispersed over a larger area.

Also, in genetics, there are recessive alleles that can increase this effect. We all have 2 versions of most of our genes: one version from our mother, one from our father. In a recessive alleles, the characteristic is expressed only if both versions are the same. Therefore, your father could have two different versions of gene A and your mother the same, and not show the characteristic and by chance you get the recessive version from both for gene A. There are genetic diseases that work like this. The parents are healthy, but the baby has the disease because he/she was unlucky enough to get the recessive version from both parents, and that version is defectuous). So, if strength is given by a recessive characteristic, it will be much rarer than if given by a dominant (the opposite of recessive) characteristic.

I'm not saying that this is what happened, mostly because as far as I understand, these mechanisms would only work over many generations, but it's at least plausible. In fact, isolate the people enough for long enough and you get eventually a new species. By the way, some genetic diseases are much more prevalent in some regions of the world because of the limited mobility of the population in the past (informally referred to as "inbreeding"), so this mechanism had been proven to work for some types of recessive alleles.

[EDIT]
For an example in endurance sports, see Eero Mäntyranta. Not eactly the same, but close.
 
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