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Other/Mixed People are looking softer

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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rickyw

rickyw

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I once read Arthur Saxon say you can tell the strength of a man by the thickness of his wrists. I found it interesting because as the years go by it seems that my tissues continue to slowly harden up as the bells sizes I use slowly get bigger. My wrists are a bit thicker from anterior to posterior but more so I have noticed a slow hardening in the appearance of my joints generally-there seems to be more density and strength of ligament, tendon, and bone. Working with people all day I have begun to notice that stronger looking folks generally have ankles, wrists, elbows and knees that just look harder (even if they are overweight). My couch potato patients (even if they are thin) have ankles, wrists, knees and elbows that look soft and feel soft. Anybody else noticed this? It’s a fascinating study.

A very under appreciated aspect of strength is the gradually hardening of our connective tissues, tendons, ligaments, cartilage and bone-not just an increase in muscle size. It makes us more injury resilient.
 
I have a tendency to check hands, you don't see alot of 'man hands' even on gym rat types. There are many blue collar guys I know with crush hands, and many 'muscle' guys with soft hands. Kettlebells can take soft 'office' hands and turn them into powerful crush hands. I rarely shake hands with someone having a super strong grip
 
I can recall several different men posting on the KB forum at Pavel's previous organization asking how to avoid calluses because they thought people they might shake hands with at work would think badly of them for having callused hands. And I mean they really felt it would be professional suicide to have anyone feel a callus.

On the other hand (no pun intended), I hate it when people squeeze hard when they shake hands, like they want to show off their grip strength (I started to write, "I hate people who..." but caught myself). It's a friendly greeting; anything more than a quick, firm squeeze is completely unnecessary.

Having a pretty strong grip myself, I don't want shaking hands with me to be uncomfortable for anyone. So no one I shake hands with probably has any inkling how strong my grip actually is. And in terms of receiving handshakes, I often have busted up fingers from playing basketball and really don't need anyone using them as a CoC substitute.
 
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The people I know with big fingers and hands got them pretty much 100% from genetics and their trade. Plumbers tend to have thick fingers and hands that are big across. When I was working offset printing I actually scratched a water-based printing plate with a callus on the bridge of my hand - the rough equivalent of scratching a vinyl record with your hand only a good bit tougher.

I have noticed over the Summer that overweight folk tend to have enviable calf development if nothing else.

I don't normally squeeze when I shake hands and if I shake hands with a squeezer I assume its something they've been told is good to project. Firm but no bone squeezing is fine with me - eye contact is a plus.

The biggest thing I notice and have always noticed above all else is posture. Women esp are more attractive with good posture, men appear more able to express strength. Good posture in motion implies an ability to transmit force more efficiently. Solid posture as an adult is a product of attention - so many are just being dragged down by gravity. Joints have so little active tissue involved it is almost more skeletal than actual musculature.
 
I haven't noticed changes in size of the hands and fingers. The only reason I can see a wrist getting "bigger" would be from development in the forearm musculature. And let's be honest, this will be depend on how much of the distal forearm someone considers the wrist. If we are talking about the wrist joint only (who knows where exactly Saxon was referring), then there would really be no change at all. But if one considers the wrist area to be a few inches of the distal forearm, then I could say that yes, I have seen some thickening with prolonged strength training. More than anything I just notice a certain hardness (or density if you will) of tissue (ligament, tendon, connective tissue) around the joints (I don't know how else to explain it) in people who do manual jobs, are hard core soldiers, etc, that is not there in the sedentary population. I think part of the reason I notice it is because I palpate joints all day and I see a lot of soldiers and manual labors in addition to desk jockeys where I work. There is a difference. And, there is a difference between the 18 year old gym rat who is just getting started but thinks he is huge and the guy who has been doing it for years. Just thought it would be an interesting share.

Firm but gentle handshake all the way.

Yes, I notice a lot of overweight folks with big calves. They also have denser bone and are less likely to get osteoporosis. Tissue remodeling. The body adapts to the stress placed upon it slowly over time.
 
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Steve W. said:
Having a pretty strong grip myself, I don't want shaking hands with me to be uncomfortable for anyone. So no one I shake hands with probably has any inkling how strong my grip actually is. And in terms of receiving handshakes, I often have busted up fingers from playing basketball and really don't need anyone using them as a CoC substitute.
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This is my philosophy too, I never squeeze too hard shaking hands but in the case of shaking hands with a crusher I harden the hand without squeezing so I can't be 'crushed'. Then there are the guys who grab toward the fingers and squeeze, this I don't like, if you don't 'lock' the hands between thumb and index finger to some degree it's not a handshake
 
rickyw said:
The only reason I can see a wrist getting "bigger" would be from development in the forearm musculature. And let's be honest, this will be depend on how much of the distal forearm someone considers the wrist. If we are talking about the wrist joint only (who knows where exactly Saxon was referring), then there would really be no change at all.
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Punching a post over a period of years thickens bone, joints, ligaments down the line and through the forearm. I've done it myself and the results are real, I've also seen x-rays proving it. The two 'punching knuckles' on my hands are much bigger than the others. When my GF and I first met she thought I had something wrong like arthritis. It's seen commonly in fighters conditioning hands
 
@rickyw that is interesting where you talk about what one considers the wrist. As far as hands, I think lifting/kettlebells has given me broader hands. With wrists, I have actually developed some sort of musculature in the first 3 to 4 inches right above the joint, enough so that I actually have a divot in each forearm. Makes a nice resting spot in Turkish getups.
 
rickyw said:
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Yes, I notice a lot of overweight folks with big calves. They also have denser bone and are less likely to get osteoporosis. Tissue remodeling. The body adapts to the stress placed upon it slowly over time.
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Thrre is evidence to the contrary.....

"Obesity is associated with an increasing prevalence of musculoskeletal complaints and pain. Obesity is a major risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA), and pain can manifest in load-bearing and nonload-bearing joints. The lumbar spine and the knee are 2 primary sites...."
HK Vincent, K Heywood, J Connelly, RW Hurley - PM&R, 2012 -

Carl in Dover
 
Carl in Dover said:
Thrre is evidence to the contrary.....

"Obesity is associated with an increasing prevalence of musculoskeletal complaints and pain. Obesity is a major risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA), and pain can manifest in load-bearing and nonload-bearing joints. The lumbar spine and the knee are 2 primary sites...."
HK Vincent, K Heywood, J Connelly, RW Hurley - PM&R, 2012 -

Carl in Dover
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Just a note @Carl in Dover don't confuse osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. I would expect obese individuals to be prone to osteoarthritis, due to the stress on the joints from all the excess weight. Without knowing the data, however, I would expect an obese individual to be less prone to osteoporosis, due to the stress the bone is under forcing it to adapt and be stronger.
 
wespom9 said:
I would expect obese individuals to be prone to osteoarthritis, due to the stress on the joints from all the excess weight.
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You would think this, but...
Carl in Dover said:
and pain can manifest in load-bearing and nonload-bearing joints.
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Obese people have a similar increase in risk for OA in their hands and wrists as they do their knees and back (the knees and back are more common sites across all populations, though). This indicates that joint breakdown may have more influencing factors than just loading. It's currently thought that their higher rates of oxidative stress, and resulting inflammation, is the main reasons overweight/obese people get more OA, with the extra loading being much less substantial factor.

Any orthopedist will tell you, while an x-ray can tell you how degraded a joint is, it can't tell you how much pain the person is in. Someone with a decent looking joint can be miserable, and someone with no cartilage or nearly-fused discs can feel fine. Inflammation, local and systemic, tends to be a bigger player than people give it credit for.

More pertinent to this thread, if inappropriate inflammation disrupts local growth signals, which many people think it does, then it stands to reason that people in a consistently pro-inflammatory state have a difficult time growing high quality tissue.
 
@Snowman , are they teaching this in medical school now? I’ll be darned. Excellent.

I have to say a lot of the research I have read on arthritis in athletes shows that it is joint injury (not general sport use) that generally precipitates an increase in OA at the injured joint. This is a little different than the general trend of our discussion but it is interesting nonetheless.

I did not know about obesity and OA in non weight bearing joints. I have suspected and read also that OA can be influenced by systemic factors, smoking for instance. However my rheumotology text hints at it but is vague at the same time. It is my personal theory that processed sugars also lead to cartilage breakdown.

As far as pain and OA. Yes. I see this all the time in practice. OA and pain do not correlate well at all. Seems to me a lot of physicians in clinical practice are still telling people they hurt because of OA. Maybe they are not close enough to the current literature on pain science?

The caveat is if they are truly bone on bone or their function is compromised due to their arthrosis, they will probably hurt.
 
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Bret S. said:
Punching a post over a period of years thickens bone, joints, ligaments down the line and through the forearm. I've done it myself and the results are real, I've also seen x-rays proving it. The two 'punching knuckles' on my hands are much bigger than the others. When my GF and I first met she thought I had something wrong like arthritis. It's seen commonly in fighters conditioning hands
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I too have had thickening of the bones around my knuckles. Punching as more of a Western boxer than Eastern MA, I hit with the bottom three knuckles as often as not. My pinkie knuckle is nearly the size of my index finger knuckle. I also remember the deep ache in my forearms when I first started hitting the heavy bag - not in the wrists but just above and halfway to my elbow.

This being different from enlargement due to strength training though. Many fighters do not exhibit this, one has to do a fair amount of unprotected punching and many schools are moving away from that as a general practice.

I'd imagine if part of your job was to palpate the wrist bones, you'd grow to develop quite a bit of sensitivity. Anyone doing forceful detail work with their hands or a lot of general labor is going to have tighter tendons throughout.
 
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