1/18/20
I’m talking with a new coworker, a tall middleweight, he’s also into the gym, and also used to wrestle. We’re talking about physical strength as we empty out a bedroom.
At work there’s a pair of brothers. 29yo and 25yo, their frames/bone structure are very similar, but there’s a 40lb difference, 150-155lbs vs about 195lbs at ~5’8″.
Both have freakish strength at work. The build difference is in that the older brother has been going to the gym alongside labor all along. The younger brother at 150/155 is the strongest dude you will ever find at picking up and carrying weird shit.
See both brothers have been movers since being wee lads. Moving labor is basically walking with the upper body, the back/biceps/forearms, being in some state of isometric contraction.
Long enough shifts, and long enough hours and you’re hitting 1000x more time under tension than any gym lifting.
It builds freakish strength. It’s isometrics. Isometrics build freakish strength.
Talking with the new coworker I was saying how certain shifts have me wishing that I’d done this work before I wrestled. Certain positions, sustained, will build killer mat strength.
You can just feel the right items carried translating over to the pudgy ref warning you not to injure your opponent with violent snapdowns.
Gym training for me hadn’t carried over to the mat so much, nor does it carry over to the job much aside from the big ass items (pianos, gunsafes, safes) which equate more closely to gym style max lifts, at least in the strongman sense since we still have that isometric hold, then carry component.
Big dudes won’t move as quickly with small items. Small dudes may not be able to pick the giant items.
The dude hadn’t known the term isometrics by name, but you saw the light bulb turn on over his head after I’d defined it some, and said “isometrics are where you build freakish strength, that doesn’t necessarily show” (on the build).
A plastic tote I carried to the truck, with my left t-rex arm barely grasping the far end pumped my back analogous to how it felt when attempting a snapdown on my resisting practice partner who saw it coming. Wrestling daily with someone, we both knew what the other would do. Other schools? Nah, they didn’t see what other coaches thought was primarily a judoka or greco guy coming.
Do a bunch of isometrics. The real world strength it builds gets you to a freakish level.
Simulating a deadlift with isometrics was the most effective training I ever did.
My total went up without any lifting.
And work as a mover has only done good things physically.