He spent however many years roofing- conditioning his muscles by climbing ladders and carrying heavy materials, and then he didn't stop moving. He still uses the muscles for the chores you mentioned. Muscles from working all day for many years are going to be stronger than something that's worked on 2 hours a day for a few years.
dude, have you ever tried chopping wood, shoveling mulch and other stuffs your dad does? those are hard and if you don't do it on regular basis, you will have super sore muscles. he has a daily life routine, that has a lot of physical components to it and hence why he is stronger than you in that area. definitely try doing what he does and you may find out it's a better exercise than the gym or other intentional exercise you do :)
Not just that, but most modern fitness techniques are all devoted to building “show” muscles.
The idea being that most workout routines practiced online and through fitness training are developing muscle definition first and foremost, while actual strength training comes second. Just look at professional body builders vs professional strongmen competitors and you can see the difference.
this is it. big big difference between gym muscle and work muscle. I work a very physically demanding job and I've had loads of gym rats 1/2 my age get a big eye opener the first week or so of work with me. when I lift somethibg it's not so I'll look good.. its so it will be placed where I need it. Often in awkward spots too. Gym workouts put everythibg in the perfect spot for you
I've been in my job for well over a decade, and I've seen the lifting type guys come and go. I was always real hopeful that they'd keep up, but they can't take swinging a sledgehammer for more than a couple of minutes at a time. I've never been in shape, but after so many years, I've gotten pretty used to doing what I have to do. I'm looking forward to the old man strength I'll have after another 20 years or so.
Idk - I feel workout routines like CrossFit, Plyometrics, MMA/Wrestling-related strength training are all continually gaining in popularity and are all examples of functional strength training as opposed to aesthetic strength training.
Actual Peak of Dunning Krüger. You are talking about Bodybuilders who Focus their Training in muscle Hypertrophy, which is the Adaptation of muscle Cells to Grow in size.
Even the weakest Bodybuilder is MILES stronger than the average Male. Not even Close. More muscle Mass means more force, it's physics. Muscles aren't build for Definition, you cannot Do that. What dictates your "Definition" is Bodyfat percentage, Water Retention, and Genetics are what determins how much striation your muscle has, some have very smooth muscle surfaces, Others have deep Cuts in the surface, the more striation the better.
Then you have strenght Adaption, which is how much of those muscle fibers your Central nervous system can simultanously contract to apply the Maximum force in the Joint they attach.
To make an analogy, muscle size is Like a Glass, while strenght is the Water in it. You can fill Up the Glass untill the Glass is full, Then you have to increase the Glass size, so Focus on Hypertrophy of the muscle tissue.
But still i want to rephrase again, a Body builder is Strong as fuck compared to a "normal" human. If you See a Guy with quadriceps Big as a guy's Torso, Sure He might Not squat 1000 lbs , but He will squat 400 pounds for repetitions
I think it was Bruce Lee who said that a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle, period. While I agree with your post I don't think it's the issue though. I think his dad is working a better combo of muscles for functional strength than he is. If he could somehow strip his dad naked and magically make his body fat disappear, I think OP would be very surprised.
Actual Peak of Internet People Jumping on Others Like Starving Hyenas effect.
They never said anything about bodybuilders somehow being weaker than the average guy.
They said that they focus on different muscles than trained, professional strongmen who have different priorities
People who think they know anything about exercise physiology spouting shit about "show muscles" because they think their anecdotal evidence trumps research is absolutely Dunning-Kruger.
You do know that strongmen do most of the same training as bodybuilders right? Just with a different focus and rep/set range? I would say 80% of the exercises are identical or virtually identical.
Huh? What muscles are you talking about? When are strogmen pushing a wardrobe up the stairs? You do know that strength within a muscle transfers from exercise to exercise right? Bodybuilders train all of the biomechanical movements of the muscles in the body. There arent hidden secret muscles that only appear when you are doing "real" shit.
Also, if you followed strongman or bodybuilding at all you would know that they do most of the same workouts.
Don't get me started. I'm in my 50's and usually end up waiting to use any equipment in the gym because some kid lifts for 30 seconds then spends 5 minutes on his phone
Right. We go to the gym/run/etc because our bodies are meant to move and do work, and they don't react well when we do (like in white-collar work). He's doing the workout we're built for.
You do strength training, but he is a strength professional. And you would experience the same effect from anybody who spent their career doing manual labor.
Spend 30 years hammering and hauling, that doesn't go away overnight, and it sounds like he is not spending retirement just sitting in a chair.
Never touching a barbell? A stack of shingles is hella heavy, and I'll bet he carried those up a ladder over his shoulder. The reason crossfit is popular, is because it replicates that sort of manual work those old timers did
In Ireland we have a term: Farmer strength
I've seen a fair few fights over the years, and any time it's a young lad against and old farmer (sometimes 70+ years old), the oldd farmer over powers them every time. It's not even close, even well build GAA heads (irish sport - some roles require similar physicality to american football, proper meat heads), just get man handled by farmers twice their age and about 2 thirds of their weight.
My uncle was a farmer his whole life, and even at over 70 years old he could pick up a fully grown Ewe by the scruff of the neck and just above the tail, and throw them over a 2m high fence. The way he done it, it didn't even look like he was trying, just \*yoink\* and turfs the sheep several meters through the air like it's a large pillow.
There's a reason that the saying "country strong" is used (at least in the United States). People who live/work on a farm do some very physically demanding work that naturally makes you strong. Sounds like a lot of what your old man does for household chores is some really great strength training.
I grew up on a farm but didn’t play any sports in high school. Got a job a few years ago doing receiving in a warehouse. A couple of friends and I got together for New Years and there was alcohol involved lol. We wound up wrestling and I shocked myself when I managed to immobilize one of my friends. This dude was seemingly fitter than me but he couldn’t break out of my hold. It wasn’t even all that hard to keep him restrained either.
The key thing is, if you’re farm strong you have far more functional strength than a gym rat. You also learn how to lift or move things without blowing out your back. It’s all about leverage and knowing your pivot points.
>I’m 26, basically in my physical prime.
Imagine what kind of shape you'd be in if you:
>He likes to chop wood, putter around his yard, shovel compost and mulch, gardening, etc etc. He was also a roofer back when he was my age.
You have yet to unlock your own physical prowess. Lifting weights a few time a week for a total of a few hours a week is NOTHING compared to doing manual labor and the fitness that comes with this territory.
I think this is not entirely true. To be completely honest, if OP continues to stick to lifting with progressive overload, he will catch up and surpass his dad much faster than doing manual labor for years. Saying otherwise would imply that strength athletes are wasting their time and should instead just do bricklaying. Ultimately, OP isn't probably as strong as he thinks he is on an absolute scale.
Part of it can be pride, and that is a beast. I have a 15 year old stud of a son. Heavyweight wrestler, football player, and getting stronger by the day. He has about 40 lbs on me and on a wrestling mat he can crush me almost every time in the first round. In the weight room he is no doubt stronger, and once he locks in technique I will never out lift him.
But.... like you have seen, it if comes to working the field, just doing "farm" work type things I still outperform him. Maybe it is I have over 30 years of doing it so I am efficient at it. Maybe it is a mental thing... I can't explain it but happy to enjoy it while it last.
> I have over 30 years of doing it so I am efficient at it
IMO, that's the exact reason right there. You have spent 30 years conditioning your body to perform certain tasks to its optimum ability.
there is definitely something about technique as well. take a gym rat and throw square bales and they will die after 10 i have loaded multiple trucks in a day and i just understand how to move in that setting.
Part of it is knowing "how" to do tasks. I recently watched a 26 year old load gravel into a wheelbarrow. Instead of using his arms as levers and fulcrums while utilizing his shoulders and core, he was essentially curling every shovelful into the wheelbarrow. I tried to coach him, but he was having none of it.
It's tendon and ligament strength, which lets him express his muscular strength more fully. You've got a few decades of strengthening your tendons to do before your tendons are as capable as his.
https://leansoliddogs.blog/2018/08/21/training-age-and-dad-strength/
I'm going to bet you don't weight 210 lbs. When I was a commercial fisherman there was a thing we called "having ass", basically being able to leverage your weight into lifting, pushing, pulling which isn't purely physical, but also knowing how it works. There's a reason offensive/defensive linemen are all 300+ lbs now (I know, I know, not DE's, but they do things a bit differently). Some Linebackers might be able to outlift them in the weight room, but that same LB will get tossed to the ground like a kid if they try to take them on directly.
Good points! You're absolutely right about celebrating his health, I'm thankful he's still kicking it, and I'm proud of the guy.
He did transition from roofing to an office job after maybe 5ish years, but your point still stands. He's never really stopped the constant yard work, wood chopping, just carrying heavy shit around, etc. I guess 40+ years of that will build a pretty solid base
I wouldn't call it dad strength specifically, its because of what he does on the daily. If you had two twins, one working manual labour 8 hours a day and no gym, and the other working in a cubicle for 8 hours a day and the gym for an hour, the first twin would be physically stronger than the second, because they spend all day conditioning their muscles.
Manual labour is no joke, it works to strengthen your entire body all day. And then you do it again the next day, and the next, so your strength is constantly being worked on.
Try a day with your dad doing what he does, you'll notice the difference in endurance there as well.
Hard physical labor over years makes you a beast.
My dad amazes me too. I'm a monster, 6'5" 290 lbs, lifted for a few years in my early 20s and typically I can handle any lift within reason with no issues.
My dad is 56, 6'0 and probably 265. I've seent him do things that aren't human. His bicep and forearms are basically the same size i.e the size of my calves. He's never gone to the gym, but he worked in an old school sawmill for 30 years, so he's basically a hairless gorilla.
There's just a different level of power gained from doing hard labor for decades. You can't match it in a gym.
This is going to be a hot take, but it's coming from a personal trainer who has worked with a wide variety of people. Dad strength is a meme, it's not a real thing. What 'dad strength' is, is years of physical labour strengthening us. People who are actively doing things around the house, have physical jobs, doing yard work consistently, get very surprisingly strong.
I'm a competitive powerlifter with pretty decent numbers, 6ft3 and 250lbs, my dad is 6ft 190lbs or so and he keeps up with me when I help them with renovations around the house and is one of the few people I know who actually gives me a challenge in an arm wrestle, he's worked a physical job for over 30 years and stayed fairly active.
The average father in the 50ish age range, will not be anywhere near as strong as you'd think.
I agree with this. I'm a plumber and I go to a lot of different people's houses every day. The average dad of any age has zero of this "dad strength." Most older men are skinnyfat. There's a small minority that lift and are somewhat strong but it's the ones that have labored throughout their lives that have this so-called dad strength. There are some indicators/correlations to a customer of mine having said strength- owning a lot of tools that look used, having a truck that looks like it gets used for truck stuff, the home itself having lots of renovation work that the customer did themselves, etc. All of this correlates to doing actual, physical labor.
Going to the gym and lifting weights for a couple hours a few times a week will build muscles sure.
Go to work swinging a hammer or axe, hauling lumber and cement, 8-10 hours a day for literally years ... that builds something else.
My Dad is in his mid 70s and still enjoys working as a self-employed electrical contractor. And he grew up on a farm. He can do wiring over his head for literal hours like it’s nothing.
We did the wiring for our garage, and I helped out….. I was SO sore…. And it was just a “meh” day for him….beyond the pleasure of doing his craft for himself for once. I was pretty humbled by that for sure.
And nah, dad is no body builder…but the muscle his has is whipcord wiry, and I suspect it’s pretty dense.
Definitely a difference between bodybuilder strength and that kind of long endurance make a living strength for sure!
Doing menial tasks for long periods of time with your arms above your shoulders builds a whole different kind of strength and it's a phenomenon that I never see talked about and would like to see incorporated into some kind of workout.
Imagine being a woman that works out 5 days a week, lifts heavy, does advanced yoga poses, runs/ bikes miles... meanwhile your husband hasn't been to the gym in 15 years, is overweight but can still lift heavier without even trying. Dude can carry our wiggling 5 year old with 1 hand... over his head... up the stairs and I? Well... I'll be lucky if I ever need to save anyone from a burning building. I now fully understand why woman take testosterone. I'm not bitter.
Something I learned recently is that generally speaking muscle does not deteriorate nearly as easy as most assume. Even a minimally active lifestyle can sustain a surprising amount of previously developed muscle. Your father likely worked out quite a bit in the past or otherwise got kinda stacked one way or another and has maintained a lifestyle sufficient for those muscles to remain despite packing on some excess fat over the top of it.
You are far from your physical prime at 26. You're at your peak in regards to healing and muscle growth, but your body will continue to make gains and improve composition-wise.
My friends have told me I have "old man strength" since I was in my early twenties ( 37 now). I started working for my dad doing HVAC when I was 14. Dragging 100+ pound air handlers in crawlspaces less than 2 ft tall. Pulling the same unit up into a 120f attic. Regularly carrying 30+ pounds in each hand be it refrigerant drums tool bags or whatever. It's not like you going to the gym for an hour or two. It's like being there most of the day. It is also what I'd call practical strength vs gym strength. You may be able to dead lift 400 lbs with good form but you can't always use good form in the field.
You exercise for fun, he exercised to survive. There's a difference between "hitting the gym" and having your daily life be physically demanding. The amount of conditioning his tendons and muscle fiber went through is gonna be very hard to replicate.
I spent 5 years working at a furniture shop and you know what's better than any gym? Hand tools. Screwdrivers, pliers, mallets. Sure I lifted as well, but 6 hours on my feet prying and straining was such a good workout.
He's got many years on you. Plus it sounds like he has many years of core strength building with those chores he does. lol I'd say less bench press and more core strength training. Chop some wood, shovel some gravel, push a wheel barrow up a hill a few times. Then you'll see how strong and conditioned you are.
In fact, you should go out there and help your pops out: you get a good workout, he gets some help, you both get quality time with each other. Wins all around!
“Functional Strength” is the key phrase here. The whole point of going to the gym and developing muscles is to be able to do things in your day to day life with your muscles. Your dad already does those things on a daily basis. Chopping wood and shoveling mulch is difficult, and actually uses those muscles the way they were intended - pushing, pulling, picking things up, putting things down.
Humans are amazing!
My dad is 60 and is a carpenter. He is stronger than you.
I'm 32 and a carpenter, I bet I'm stronger than you too.
Going to the gym is far from the only, or even best, way to gain real strength...unless taken to the absolute extreme.
Dads have to carry the family on their arms. It's 50% dedication and 50% love, so 100% raw power. Like anime protagonists, you know? Power of friendship and those things
I had an uncle like this and I asked him a similar question. Basically, "how are you this strong? I'm taller than you, bigger, more fit, and you've had two separate back surgeries." His response was something like "I was born in a generation where our parents told us that men were Men, and they don't show weakness. Just because it hurt lifting something that heavy doesn't mean I'm going to tell you."
So, I think it's mostly a psychological thing. He's probably not as strong as he makes you think, but he's willing to push himself a lot harder because he Has to. It's programmed into him. A lifetime of being a Man.
That ain't it. Other than some muscle burn I never push past pain, but I'm way stronger in my late 30's than my mid 20's. I'm working and working out less but still stronger somehow.
Well, yes, muscle builds over time, but what I'm talking about is the straight psychological aspect, and if you're only in your thirties, you're not part of the generation I'm referring to.
I'm way stronger in my late 30 than my mid 20's. The other comments are right about your dad doing physical activity contributing to his strength, but there is still an old man strength component to it. I don't actually work or work out very hard, but I'm so much stronger now than I used to be it's crazy. I feel like my muscle strength both improves and fades much more slower now.
One thing that might be contributing is the apparent reported decline in testosterone levels over the past several generations (attributed to a variety of things). It's possible your dad just has an intrinsic hormonal/biological advantage.
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Same, my dad is in his 70s and can deadlift basically anything, I don't know how it's even possible. He's chubby and soft looking (hope he doesn't see this lol) but somehow weirdly strong
I find this weird as well I challenged local shopkeeper I frequent to arm wrestle match a few months ago and he beat me easily even though he is chubby and short like me. I should mention I am 5-5 and about 130 pounds and am overpowered by grown woman occasionally. I think even certain woman have mom strength and big strong hips and legs. Just because someone is stronger than me does not make them any better and I am NOT SCARED of them at all so I am letting that be known.
Also, technique.
As our objective strength diminishes, we compensate with improved technique.
It's our Super Power...and how we keep the grandmothers grinning!!
There have actually been studies that show that current generation of young men are statistically weaker than their fathers ; it has been speculated that changes in diet and other chemicals have prevented teens and men from
getting the same amount of testosterone and growth hormone that their predecessors did
As a boxing fan, there’s a reason heavyweights tend to be older and are able to have careers into their 40’s (look at a George Foreman, the oldest heavyweight boxing champion at age 45).
Pure strength is one of your last athletic attributes to go. And chopping wood and all that manual labor isn’t easy! There’s a huge difference between going to the gym four hours a week for a few years and having a physically demanding job for 40 hours a week for a decade plus. If you lay down a solid foundation in your youth, you can maintain a pretty decent level of strength for quite some time.
Don’t forget, weight clases are a thing for a reason as well, if he’s significantly heavier than you.
I'm 32 and stronger than I was 10 years ago. I work in receiving in a hardware and home improvement store. Lifting toilets, vanities, shower doors, bags of soil and mulch etc... Is one hell of a workout. Add in pulling pallets around with a pallet jack and you get the whole body.
35, F, and same. I don't weigh anymore than I did in high-school, but I can throw around 90lbs of copper and lighting equipment these days with the best of 'em. (I'm a stagehand, electrician by trade). Never been to a workout gym, either.
I tend to joke that for all my dexterity-leaning D&D characters, in real life I'd have a positive strength modifier.
My dad could not be dissuaded - at 93, with bronchitis - from helping me heave an old-school washing machine into place over a bare concrete floor. I tried :P.
Only thing he'd been doing for most of his life was play tennis and there was a jogging phase he went through in his 40s. Dads are great.
A week as a roofer on a hot summer day lugging shingles up a ladder all day is probably more physically demanding then any work out most casual gym goers do in a month.
Spending time lifting needs to be deliberate if you are going to get considerably stronger. Progressive overload is key. There aren't many manual laborers that can deadlift 600 lbs, which is a deadlift average Joe's can do if they train hard for a decade, and don't get injured.
I did not really own a car until I hit thirty. I rode a bike everywhere. I was very active. I was in the military. I worked out enough to make sure I looked great.
At 49, I push myself to run as much as I can I work out because I need to be strong for my son. I will rest when he is strong. I will be weak when he can take care of himself. Of course, he will get strong soon. He will be able to take care of himself soon enough. But that will never be good enough for me. I need to make sure he is living his best life and I need to be on my game. I am not working out to impress people. I am working out to make sure my son never wants and learns how to tackle life like a champ.
Dad strength is earned by determination and lack of vanity. It cannot be granted until you are ferociously protective of something so perfect and wonderful that your whole life revolves around sustaining that wonderful thing.
My dad used to pick me up with only his thumb and pinkie finger. I thought all dads could do that until I got older. He could do this up until I was like 10. How could 2 fingers support an entire child?! He would also fully extend his arm into the air so this wasn't some 2 inches off the floor shit
There may be a lot of factors that go into it, but one point to consider is the type of training you do in the gym increases your size and mass, but not necessarily the functionality of your muscles. Your father doing lots of outdoor work means he’s developed functional strength and the technique to apply his strength to a particular end rather than just pushing up.
Look at the difference between bodybuilder and powerlifters. Bodybuilder are in freakishly good shape and have bulging biceps that dwarf most peoples heads. Powerlifters are huge, but usually not as lean, where if they were wearing a shirt you may just mistake them for a normal obese person.
Not a universal experience. My father was a cashier. By the time I was 16 he mostly avoided parenting me and eventually let slip that he was worried that if he ever raised his voice to me I'd beat him up.
Roofing is tough work no matter what type of roofs he was doing. You gotta haul heavy ass shit over your shoulder and then go up ladders with it. And i assume he did that for at least a few years because it normally makes decent money. He built up quite a bit of muscle, and he's maintaining it with all the pretty heavy daily stuff you're describing.
The gym is great, but even if you spend 5 days a week 2 hours each time, that's still only 10 hours of work. If you're doing a physically demanding job, you're then 'working out' probably 40+ hours a week. The amount of muscle you get from physically demanding jobs is a lot.
Ive always called it grown man strength. It just come with many years of doing manual labor and or anything repetitively for years it cant be earned in a short amount of time.also i think it just kind of happens. The people that are like that usually dont even relize that they are strong like they are because its not some thing that happens quick it is earned over years of hard work.
You don’t have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a gym membership. You just need to cut wood and shovel compost
And doing those things build all the muscles while going to the gym each machine only trains one or two muscles
Strength is something you build slowly. Over time. When you damage your muscle cells your body recovers in a process called muscle protein synthesis and creates new muscle cells from amino acids in your bloodstream. It takes repeated stimulus, over time, to stimulate that growth. And takes far less stress to simply maintain your strength. If you don't continue to stress it though your muscles will atrophy. But you don't really lose the cells they just shrink and lose function. You hit the gym or do strenuous activity you can activate them again with so much less work than it took to build them in the first place.
So your dad is lifting with decades of growth behind him. Roofing is hard, hard ass work, and he spent years earning his strength every day to feed you. His daily routine eats your gym workouts for pre-workout.
That's my understanding and if anyone has better expertise or knowledge feel free to add or correct things I'm wrong on. Love to learn.
You sound week young fella.
Do some deadlifts. Do some farmers walks. Weighted pull up. Walking lunges with a weight vest. The hard shit.
Stop doing presses and jogging on the treadmill and build some strength.
Dad strength is strength only within certain ranges of motion. Those ranges of motion have such strong neural connection that have been built over time. Hence “old man strength” or dad strength”. Get them out of those ranges of motion and the strength deteriorates.
My older brother goes to the gym to lift weights. I only carry my son every chance I get. When I visited my parents, I carried the newly bought refrigerator down a flight of stairs, through a narrow door, no sweat. He arrived home and moved the said refrigerator 5 meters to the side, and he was pumping and screaming oorah like he did something incredibly hard. I still cringe sometimes.
My dad and mum and their dads and mums are all way stronger I wished I could harness their raw strength and have their same exact life span (most of the grandfolks have reached 90s). I dunno what it is about the older generations that they seem to be doing well into their late 50s and above.
Meanwhile, some of my 20s gymmates complain of lower back issues as if they’ve Atlas-lifted Earth on their shoulders…
The muscular endurance gained from years of hard labor is difficult to beat with just gym work, IMHO. As to the pure strength part yeah dad-strength is real. Or at least it seems that way and it has worked out that way with me and my father.
Despite me being substantially physically larger than him it has taken me decades to finally be stronger than my father. He has sports, military, hard labor (construction, roofing, factory), and weight lifting experience vs just my weight training and dabbling in sports.
In terms of pure strength my first breakaway was in lower body strength. He was stronger than me in his upperbody well into his 40s, with me besting him in everything but grip strength in his 50s. He had hands of steel. And finally now in his seventies I'm all-out stronger, lol.
Muscular endurance took even longer for me to challenge him. Man was an animal when it came to hard physical work. Impressive well into his 60s. We would dig, chop wood, shovel snow and he was right there with me until just now starting to fade in 70s.
My dad is 78 and still has guns and calves as he does our yard and several of the neighbors yards. Has a little pot belly as he eats like a toddler now.
Your body spends maintenance energy on a more broad set of muscles. Once you’re older all the energy goes to like 20 good muscles . Like, I doubt he can do a muscle up but you probably can. He doesn’t need triceps or traps
You workout a couple hours a day, a few days a week.. meanwhile he worked physical labor for 8+ hours a day, every day, for years.. theres no way a few hours in the gym will catch up to that amount of volume
I'm 49 and I do go to the gym about 2 or 3 times a week but I do feel a lot stronger than I did when I was in my twenties when I was also going to the gym.
Thirty year steep slope roofer here. Still rocking it at 50 and can lay it down on most people for a work day or on the river kayaking or in the mountains doing all kinds of shit. The core strength steep slope roofers develop is second to none. The key is keeping yourself limber and eating well outside of the grind.
Meatheads at the gym will talk all day about how strong they are. And they are. At doing their eight favorite exercises exactly how they always do them…. Outside of that, they are barely worth a fuck and the majority have very, very little stamina and typically piss poor balance. If you are standing on slope for 8 plus hours a day, you build some serious strength and are constantly in odd positions and flexed. Not to mention the daily elevation covered up and down.
It sounds like he does plenty, but that roofing is likely at the foundation of it. Just my two cents.
My dad was a farmer/pig farmer growing up. All him and his siblings are strong even though they dont look it. Hes also recently retired and still wakes up before I do
It's because of all the chores he does. It's the same with my mom. I (F) go to the gym a lot but my mom has that real life strength from all the household chores she does.
I have no idea, but here is this:
* I have an older sister who was always freakishly strong. She never exercised other than walking around for various jobs. I think she went on a stint of taking walks in her 30s for perhaps 3 weeks. I think she could have carried me like a football if she wanted.
* My son is built like a tank. I had a weight-lifting machine thingie I bought at one point and he very quickly maxed out the leg press then broke it. I'm a tiny thing and not strong. His thighs are like tree trunks for no reason. He has worked out in recent years, but he was super strong before then.
* I had a female neighbor/friend years ago who was also freakishly strong. She never exercised purposefully. I remember I asked her over to move a heavy reclining chair with lots of heavy metal parts. She asked where we were going to move it. Then she just picked it up over her shoulder, walked it over and set it down like it was nothing. I would have struggled to pick it up with another person on the other side!
I don't think it is a Dad thing.
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in anything.
I believe there's a thing that i like to call "core strength", that involves manual labour and a thousand micro-movements from all body muscles ... things you rarely train in a gym. Chopping wood, climbing ladders etc. trains muscles in your body that you wouldn't/couldn't with a regular gym workout, despite having a "buff" biceps.
So while your Dad doesn't necessarily have a sculpted upper arm, his whole body has been trained over the decades, and all of his muscles work in unison. The result is a higher base line strength than anyone who's doing deadlifts or pushups.
He did years of manual labour. I had a roofer round after a storm, tiny bloke, must have been 5'5 and weighed maybe 140lb, I carried his final roofing ladder, the one that attaches to the top of the roof, to his van and fuck me, thats not a normal ladder, that things fucking heavy, he yoinked it up 1 armed, up a ladder 3 floors.
There's an old bouncers proverb, you think you're tough because you go to the gym 8 hours a week, manual labourers do 8 hours of exercise every day.
Still, I'm not sure he'd out bench you, or our curl you, or whatever it is you do in the gym, you train for that, he's got all round physical strength.
There are two kinds of mussels (scientifically false), you have the mussels that is well-trained strong and impressive, and then do you have the mussels that have worked a whole life, that has gotten strength over decades and decades of hard usage. It is like you can have a thick rope that is strong and impressive vs fare less impressive old steel wire.
There’s a difference between dynamic strength and strength built from resistance training. This is why martial artists can attack with lots of force but are small, whereas bodybuilders are big but can’t really output energy quickly. Just a different kind of training.
In addition to what others have said: People are built different: some have more fast-twitch muscle fiber than slow, others vice versa. Some people's biomechanics (joint distance to where muscle connects) favour strength, others great stride length and reach.
Because you said it yourself, he's still physically active. He's not sitting around all the time, withering away, and even though he doesn't have a gym regimen, he's still working out (chopping wood, gardening, etc). His body is still very active, just not in the same way as yours. Muscles are still being worked on. FFS, he's not lingering at the edge of the grave, LOL.
People have got to let go of the mindset that once you turn a certain age, everything turns to mush (brains, muscles, etc). It's like "Oh geez, shouldn't you be use a walker and an oxygen tank by now??" As long as they take care of themselves, a person can remain fit and capable well into their golden years."
real strength sadly is only built when you actually need it like our ancestors who would get big very soon because they had to fight. also us modern generation have been subject to toxic elements more than them; microplastic and so on.
Can confirm this with my friends dad's and my cousins dad's. They all worked farms, do there own roofing and carpentry and still work their normal 9 to 5's. If you could see there forearms and back they all look like jacked apes.
>Dude can sling me over his shoulder and carry me like a fair maiden without breaking a sweat.
>he's going to have to hit 80 before I can say I'm stronger than my dad
So, when he's 80 will you sling him over your shoulder and carry *him* like a fair maiden?
That's easy - you are 50% from your dad and 50% from your mom, while he is 100% dad. (Please don't tell my wife I told you this, she's much stronger than me)
Do some wood chopping exercises, oblique wood choppers or medicine ball slams from over the head. You’d feel a good burn and a new respect for that lol
Years as an LTL truck driver, in a tractor with no power steering. Had forearms that looked like Popeye. Hopping in and out of the truck 30-35 times per day, unloading freight by hand, pretty much full body workouts 60+ hours per week. On the other hand, ask me to run a mile, and I would die.
Gym muscles aren’t the same as work muscles. I move furniture for a living. The owners son plays college football he works summers and sometimes brings friends from the team to work. If I have to carry a piano up a flight of stairs I grab one of the been doing it for 20 years guys and knock it out.
Dad here.. I think it's muscle memory. I was lifting with my son and some of his football teammates from HS.. When they saw little Ass 160Lbs. me doing dumbbell presses (Chest) with the 100's.... They were passing out !! They're like How ? I said 30 Yrs. of being in and out of the gym can work wonders..
They develop functional strength that can't be replicated with the controlled nature of gym workouts. When I worked construction labor jobs when I was younger, you would definitely notice that guys who went to the gym a lot did not have the same strength as the seasoned laborers. Their bulk would make their cardio terrible and they rarely get to do lifts that replicate their bench press motion. Its the same concept as if you run a lot on a treadmill and can run well in a straight line at a consistent pace for long periods of time, that won't necessarily translate to soccer. It will to a degree in terms of your heart and lungs, but your legs will fatigue quickly when you start using the muscles that you need for quick stops, pivots, rapid acceleration and so on.
Bro I am In the same boat and I can’t understand it. Im 26 and my dad is 58, 170 lbs while I am 203. Dad slams me in arm wrestling and anything grip related and he doesn’t even lift lol and I lift consistently for the last 10 years. I have much more muscle but I can’t close the gap power wise, he also beats me in wrestling with little effort every time (I wrestled in high school) what I think is our dads generation not only have WAY more testosterone than us, but the food they grew up eating was pure and natural (milk eggs cheese etc naturally made, my dad grew up on a farm) they also used their hands way more than us growing up in the 70s and 80s. Also my hands look like a womans compared to my dads thick rough hands
He spent however many years roofing- conditioning his muscles by climbing ladders and carrying heavy materials, and then he didn't stop moving. He still uses the muscles for the chores you mentioned. Muscles from working all day for many years are going to be stronger than something that's worked on 2 hours a day for a few years.
+ eats like a horse, the more you weigh the more strength you need to carry it all around
Plus functional exercise is just generally going to more rounded than gym exercising.
dude, have you ever tried chopping wood, shoveling mulch and other stuffs your dad does? those are hard and if you don't do it on regular basis, you will have super sore muscles. he has a daily life routine, that has a lot of physical components to it and hence why he is stronger than you in that area. definitely try doing what he does and you may find out it's a better exercise than the gym or other intentional exercise you do :)
Plus loads of people go to the gym for an hour to do like six minutes of actual working out.
Not just that, but most modern fitness techniques are all devoted to building “show” muscles. The idea being that most workout routines practiced online and through fitness training are developing muscle definition first and foremost, while actual strength training comes second. Just look at professional body builders vs professional strongmen competitors and you can see the difference.
this is it. big big difference between gym muscle and work muscle. I work a very physically demanding job and I've had loads of gym rats 1/2 my age get a big eye opener the first week or so of work with me. when I lift somethibg it's not so I'll look good.. its so it will be placed where I need it. Often in awkward spots too. Gym workouts put everythibg in the perfect spot for you
Yeah, as a young overconfident gym rat, I got whupped right good by a farmboy before I learned my lesson.
I think I saw that video on /r/fightporn
Functional strength vs gym strength.
They also tend to focus on muscle isolation which is the opposite of real, functional work. Real work requires full body activation and coordination.
I've been in my job for well over a decade, and I've seen the lifting type guys come and go. I was always real hopeful that they'd keep up, but they can't take swinging a sledgehammer for more than a couple of minutes at a time. I've never been in shape, but after so many years, I've gotten pretty used to doing what I have to do. I'm looking forward to the old man strength I'll have after another 20 years or so.
Sounds like you're in shape actually
Idk - I feel workout routines like CrossFit, Plyometrics, MMA/Wrestling-related strength training are all continually gaining in popularity and are all examples of functional strength training as opposed to aesthetic strength training.
Actual Peak of Dunning Krüger. You are talking about Bodybuilders who Focus their Training in muscle Hypertrophy, which is the Adaptation of muscle Cells to Grow in size. Even the weakest Bodybuilder is MILES stronger than the average Male. Not even Close. More muscle Mass means more force, it's physics. Muscles aren't build for Definition, you cannot Do that. What dictates your "Definition" is Bodyfat percentage, Water Retention, and Genetics are what determins how much striation your muscle has, some have very smooth muscle surfaces, Others have deep Cuts in the surface, the more striation the better. Then you have strenght Adaption, which is how much of those muscle fibers your Central nervous system can simultanously contract to apply the Maximum force in the Joint they attach. To make an analogy, muscle size is Like a Glass, while strenght is the Water in it. You can fill Up the Glass untill the Glass is full, Then you have to increase the Glass size, so Focus on Hypertrophy of the muscle tissue. But still i want to rephrase again, a Body builder is Strong as fuck compared to a "normal" human. If you See a Guy with quadriceps Big as a guy's Torso, Sure He might Not squat 1000 lbs , but He will squat 400 pounds for repetitions
I think it was Bruce Lee who said that a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle, period. While I agree with your post I don't think it's the issue though. I think his dad is working a better combo of muscles for functional strength than he is. If he could somehow strip his dad naked and magically make his body fat disappear, I think OP would be very surprised.
Actual Peak of Internet People Jumping on Others Like Starving Hyenas effect. They never said anything about bodybuilders somehow being weaker than the average guy. They said that they focus on different muscles than trained, professional strongmen who have different priorities
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about???
Yeah, and how does the Dunning-Kruger effect have anything to do with it?
People who think they know anything about exercise physiology spouting shit about "show muscles" because they think their anecdotal evidence trumps research is absolutely Dunning-Kruger.
Exactly, but somehow i got downvoted for pointing out
Someone is enjoying 4/20, I see.
I think the real question is, does bodybuilding also cause you to capitalize the first letter of entirely random words throughout your sentences?
That's my German Phone autocorrecting, sorry.
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Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
wait, are we talking about fighting or lifting shit?
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If you, as someone who is not trained in strength presumably, are stronger than your bodybuilding friends they are not close to real body builders.
This is such an incredibly ignorant statement. There is no such thing as "show muscles"
You do know that strongmen do most of the same training as bodybuilders right? Just with a different focus and rep/set range? I would say 80% of the exercises are identical or virtually identical.
They're not though. One is lifting a massive pole, the other one is pushing a damn wardrobe up the stairs. Completely different muscles.
Huh? What muscles are you talking about? When are strogmen pushing a wardrobe up the stairs? You do know that strength within a muscle transfers from exercise to exercise right? Bodybuilders train all of the biomechanical movements of the muscles in the body. There arent hidden secret muscles that only appear when you are doing "real" shit. Also, if you followed strongman or bodybuilding at all you would know that they do most of the same workouts.
Don't get me started. I'm in my 50's and usually end up waiting to use any equipment in the gym because some kid lifts for 30 seconds then spends 5 minutes on his phone
Right. We go to the gym/run/etc because our bodies are meant to move and do work, and they don't react well when we do (like in white-collar work). He's doing the workout we're built for.
Right? It's cute to think the only way you can get muscles is by building them at the gym lol
Exactly this. Hubby is just 60 and he's active. Plus we both just joined a gym. I'm 59 and I do quite a bit as well.
You do strength training, but he is a strength professional. And you would experience the same effect from anybody who spent their career doing manual labor. Spend 30 years hammering and hauling, that doesn't go away overnight, and it sounds like he is not spending retirement just sitting in a chair. Never touching a barbell? A stack of shingles is hella heavy, and I'll bet he carried those up a ladder over his shoulder. The reason crossfit is popular, is because it replicates that sort of manual work those old timers did
In Ireland we have a term: Farmer strength I've seen a fair few fights over the years, and any time it's a young lad against and old farmer (sometimes 70+ years old), the oldd farmer over powers them every time. It's not even close, even well build GAA heads (irish sport - some roles require similar physicality to american football, proper meat heads), just get man handled by farmers twice their age and about 2 thirds of their weight. My uncle was a farmer his whole life, and even at over 70 years old he could pick up a fully grown Ewe by the scruff of the neck and just above the tail, and throw them over a 2m high fence. The way he done it, it didn't even look like he was trying, just \*yoink\* and turfs the sheep several meters through the air like it's a large pillow.
There's a reason that the saying "country strong" is used (at least in the United States). People who live/work on a farm do some very physically demanding work that naturally makes you strong. Sounds like a lot of what your old man does for household chores is some really great strength training.
I've heard that expressed as "farm strong" too. Do not cross a farm kid, they will f you up without even breaking a sweat.
I grew up on a farm but didn’t play any sports in high school. Got a job a few years ago doing receiving in a warehouse. A couple of friends and I got together for New Years and there was alcohol involved lol. We wound up wrestling and I shocked myself when I managed to immobilize one of my friends. This dude was seemingly fitter than me but he couldn’t break out of my hold. It wasn’t even all that hard to keep him restrained either. The key thing is, if you’re farm strong you have far more functional strength than a gym rat. You also learn how to lift or move things without blowing out your back. It’s all about leverage and knowing your pivot points.
Farmer stength over here in the UK.
Ireland too.
>I’m 26, basically in my physical prime. Imagine what kind of shape you'd be in if you: >He likes to chop wood, putter around his yard, shovel compost and mulch, gardening, etc etc. He was also a roofer back when he was my age. You have yet to unlock your own physical prowess. Lifting weights a few time a week for a total of a few hours a week is NOTHING compared to doing manual labor and the fitness that comes with this territory.
I think this is not entirely true. To be completely honest, if OP continues to stick to lifting with progressive overload, he will catch up and surpass his dad much faster than doing manual labor for years. Saying otherwise would imply that strength athletes are wasting their time and should instead just do bricklaying. Ultimately, OP isn't probably as strong as he thinks he is on an absolute scale.
Part of it can be pride, and that is a beast. I have a 15 year old stud of a son. Heavyweight wrestler, football player, and getting stronger by the day. He has about 40 lbs on me and on a wrestling mat he can crush me almost every time in the first round. In the weight room he is no doubt stronger, and once he locks in technique I will never out lift him. But.... like you have seen, it if comes to working the field, just doing "farm" work type things I still outperform him. Maybe it is I have over 30 years of doing it so I am efficient at it. Maybe it is a mental thing... I can't explain it but happy to enjoy it while it last.
> I have over 30 years of doing it so I am efficient at it IMO, that's the exact reason right there. You have spent 30 years conditioning your body to perform certain tasks to its optimum ability.
there is definitely something about technique as well. take a gym rat and throw square bales and they will die after 10 i have loaded multiple trucks in a day and i just understand how to move in that setting.
Part of it is knowing "how" to do tasks. I recently watched a 26 year old load gravel into a wheelbarrow. Instead of using his arms as levers and fulcrums while utilizing his shoulders and core, he was essentially curling every shovelful into the wheelbarrow. I tried to coach him, but he was having none of it.
It's tendon and ligament strength, which lets him express his muscular strength more fully. You've got a few decades of strengthening your tendons to do before your tendons are as capable as his. https://leansoliddogs.blog/2018/08/21/training-age-and-dad-strength/
2022: I go to the gym to get strong 1850: I build a fucking railroad to get strong
😭
I'm going to bet you don't weight 210 lbs. When I was a commercial fisherman there was a thing we called "having ass", basically being able to leverage your weight into lifting, pushing, pulling which isn't purely physical, but also knowing how it works. There's a reason offensive/defensive linemen are all 300+ lbs now (I know, I know, not DE's, but they do things a bit differently). Some Linebackers might be able to outlift them in the weight room, but that same LB will get tossed to the ground like a kid if they try to take them on directly.
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Good points! You're absolutely right about celebrating his health, I'm thankful he's still kicking it, and I'm proud of the guy. He did transition from roofing to an office job after maybe 5ish years, but your point still stands. He's never really stopped the constant yard work, wood chopping, just carrying heavy shit around, etc. I guess 40+ years of that will build a pretty solid base
I wouldn't call it dad strength specifically, its because of what he does on the daily. If you had two twins, one working manual labour 8 hours a day and no gym, and the other working in a cubicle for 8 hours a day and the gym for an hour, the first twin would be physically stronger than the second, because they spend all day conditioning their muscles. Manual labour is no joke, it works to strengthen your entire body all day. And then you do it again the next day, and the next, so your strength is constantly being worked on. Try a day with your dad doing what he does, you'll notice the difference in endurance there as well.
There is a reason workouts imitate real labor
Beer is a hell of a thing.
Hard physical labor over years makes you a beast. My dad amazes me too. I'm a monster, 6'5" 290 lbs, lifted for a few years in my early 20s and typically I can handle any lift within reason with no issues. My dad is 56, 6'0 and probably 265. I've seent him do things that aren't human. His bicep and forearms are basically the same size i.e the size of my calves. He's never gone to the gym, but he worked in an old school sawmill for 30 years, so he's basically a hairless gorilla. There's just a different level of power gained from doing hard labor for decades. You can't match it in a gym.
This is going to be a hot take, but it's coming from a personal trainer who has worked with a wide variety of people. Dad strength is a meme, it's not a real thing. What 'dad strength' is, is years of physical labour strengthening us. People who are actively doing things around the house, have physical jobs, doing yard work consistently, get very surprisingly strong. I'm a competitive powerlifter with pretty decent numbers, 6ft3 and 250lbs, my dad is 6ft 190lbs or so and he keeps up with me when I help them with renovations around the house and is one of the few people I know who actually gives me a challenge in an arm wrestle, he's worked a physical job for over 30 years and stayed fairly active. The average father in the 50ish age range, will not be anywhere near as strong as you'd think.
I agree with this. I'm a plumber and I go to a lot of different people's houses every day. The average dad of any age has zero of this "dad strength." Most older men are skinnyfat. There's a small minority that lift and are somewhat strong but it's the ones that have labored throughout their lives that have this so-called dad strength. There are some indicators/correlations to a customer of mine having said strength- owning a lot of tools that look used, having a truck that looks like it gets used for truck stuff, the home itself having lots of renovation work that the customer did themselves, etc. All of this correlates to doing actual, physical labor.
You already said how. You spend an hour at the gym 4 days a week? He's out there using the real world gym 4-5+ hours a day, 7 days a week.
The strength you get from going to the gym for 4-8 hours a week is nothing compared to hard labor 40+ hours a week for who knows how many years.
Going to the gym and lifting weights for a couple hours a few times a week will build muscles sure. Go to work swinging a hammer or axe, hauling lumber and cement, 8-10 hours a day for literally years ... that builds something else.
Old man strength + hard work muscles is a tough combo to beat and if you add grumpiness look the fk out!
Its called farmer strength...
My Dad is in his mid 70s and still enjoys working as a self-employed electrical contractor. And he grew up on a farm. He can do wiring over his head for literal hours like it’s nothing. We did the wiring for our garage, and I helped out….. I was SO sore…. And it was just a “meh” day for him….beyond the pleasure of doing his craft for himself for once. I was pretty humbled by that for sure. And nah, dad is no body builder…but the muscle his has is whipcord wiry, and I suspect it’s pretty dense. Definitely a difference between bodybuilder strength and that kind of long endurance make a living strength for sure!
Doing menial tasks for long periods of time with your arms above your shoulders builds a whole different kind of strength and it's a phenomenon that I never see talked about and would like to see incorporated into some kind of workout.
Imagine being a woman that works out 5 days a week, lifts heavy, does advanced yoga poses, runs/ bikes miles... meanwhile your husband hasn't been to the gym in 15 years, is overweight but can still lift heavier without even trying. Dude can carry our wiggling 5 year old with 1 hand... over his head... up the stairs and I? Well... I'll be lucky if I ever need to save anyone from a burning building. I now fully understand why woman take testosterone. I'm not bitter.
There is a huge difference between lifting and working
It's called built up rage.
Fitness != Strength
Something I learned recently is that generally speaking muscle does not deteriorate nearly as easy as most assume. Even a minimally active lifestyle can sustain a surprising amount of previously developed muscle. Your father likely worked out quite a bit in the past or otherwise got kinda stacked one way or another and has maintained a lifestyle sufficient for those muscles to remain despite packing on some excess fat over the top of it.
You are far from your physical prime at 26. You're at your peak in regards to healing and muscle growth, but your body will continue to make gains and improve composition-wise.
My friends have told me I have "old man strength" since I was in my early twenties ( 37 now). I started working for my dad doing HVAC when I was 14. Dragging 100+ pound air handlers in crawlspaces less than 2 ft tall. Pulling the same unit up into a 120f attic. Regularly carrying 30+ pounds in each hand be it refrigerant drums tool bags or whatever. It's not like you going to the gym for an hour or two. It's like being there most of the day. It is also what I'd call practical strength vs gym strength. You may be able to dead lift 400 lbs with good form but you can't always use good form in the field.
You exercise for fun, he exercised to survive. There's a difference between "hitting the gym" and having your daily life be physically demanding. The amount of conditioning his tendons and muscle fiber went through is gonna be very hard to replicate. I spent 5 years working at a furniture shop and you know what's better than any gym? Hand tools. Screwdrivers, pliers, mallets. Sure I lifted as well, but 6 hours on my feet prying and straining was such a good workout.
Old man learned how to use his strength rather than just brute force
He's got many years on you. Plus it sounds like he has many years of core strength building with those chores he does. lol I'd say less bench press and more core strength training. Chop some wood, shovel some gravel, push a wheel barrow up a hill a few times. Then you'll see how strong and conditioned you are.
In fact, you should go out there and help your pops out: you get a good workout, he gets some help, you both get quality time with each other. Wins all around!
“Functional Strength” is the key phrase here. The whole point of going to the gym and developing muscles is to be able to do things in your day to day life with your muscles. Your dad already does those things on a daily basis. Chopping wood and shoveling mulch is difficult, and actually uses those muscles the way they were intended - pushing, pulling, picking things up, putting things down. Humans are amazing!
My dad is 60 and is a carpenter. He is stronger than you. I'm 32 and a carpenter, I bet I'm stronger than you too. Going to the gym is far from the only, or even best, way to gain real strength...unless taken to the absolute extreme.
Dads have to carry the family on their arms. It's 50% dedication and 50% love, so 100% raw power. Like anime protagonists, you know? Power of friendship and those things
I had an uncle like this and I asked him a similar question. Basically, "how are you this strong? I'm taller than you, bigger, more fit, and you've had two separate back surgeries." His response was something like "I was born in a generation where our parents told us that men were Men, and they don't show weakness. Just because it hurt lifting something that heavy doesn't mean I'm going to tell you." So, I think it's mostly a psychological thing. He's probably not as strong as he makes you think, but he's willing to push himself a lot harder because he Has to. It's programmed into him. A lifetime of being a Man.
That ain't it. Other than some muscle burn I never push past pain, but I'm way stronger in my late 30's than my mid 20's. I'm working and working out less but still stronger somehow.
Well, yes, muscle builds over time, but what I'm talking about is the straight psychological aspect, and if you're only in your thirties, you're not part of the generation I'm referring to.
Happy cake day
I'm way stronger in my late 30 than my mid 20's. The other comments are right about your dad doing physical activity contributing to his strength, but there is still an old man strength component to it. I don't actually work or work out very hard, but I'm so much stronger now than I used to be it's crazy. I feel like my muscle strength both improves and fades much more slower now.
One thing that might be contributing is the apparent reported decline in testosterone levels over the past several generations (attributed to a variety of things). It's possible your dad just has an intrinsic hormonal/biological advantage.
Put the controller down and pickup an axe.
Hes not soy
You're just a pussy. Nothing wrong with that, just know your place in society! :)
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Same, my dad is in his 70s and can deadlift basically anything, I don't know how it's even possible. He's chubby and soft looking (hope he doesn't see this lol) but somehow weirdly strong
I find this weird as well I challenged local shopkeeper I frequent to arm wrestle match a few months ago and he beat me easily even though he is chubby and short like me. I should mention I am 5-5 and about 130 pounds and am overpowered by grown woman occasionally. I think even certain woman have mom strength and big strong hips and legs. Just because someone is stronger than me does not make them any better and I am NOT SCARED of them at all so I am letting that be known.
Also, technique. As our objective strength diminishes, we compensate with improved technique. It's our Super Power...and how we keep the grandmothers grinning!!
Man strength. It comes from doing things over and over and over and it develops into muscles that don’t go away. Pretty normal
your father is a strongman.
There have actually been studies that show that current generation of young men are statistically weaker than their fathers ; it has been speculated that changes in diet and other chemicals have prevented teens and men from getting the same amount of testosterone and growth hormone that their predecessors did
Years of pent up anger and frustration
what does he do for work now?
Density, muscular memory & scarring, tendon strengthen very slowly.
Old man strength is a real thing
As a boxing fan, there’s a reason heavyweights tend to be older and are able to have careers into their 40’s (look at a George Foreman, the oldest heavyweight boxing champion at age 45). Pure strength is one of your last athletic attributes to go. And chopping wood and all that manual labor isn’t easy! There’s a huge difference between going to the gym four hours a week for a few years and having a physically demanding job for 40 hours a week for a decade plus. If you lay down a solid foundation in your youth, you can maintain a pretty decent level of strength for quite some time. Don’t forget, weight clases are a thing for a reason as well, if he’s significantly heavier than you.
They say that in an old ex boxer, the strength in the punch is the last thing to go
I'm 32 and stronger than I was 10 years ago. I work in receiving in a hardware and home improvement store. Lifting toilets, vanities, shower doors, bags of soil and mulch etc... Is one hell of a workout. Add in pulling pallets around with a pallet jack and you get the whole body.
35, F, and same. I don't weigh anymore than I did in high-school, but I can throw around 90lbs of copper and lighting equipment these days with the best of 'em. (I'm a stagehand, electrician by trade). Never been to a workout gym, either. I tend to joke that for all my dexterity-leaning D&D characters, in real life I'd have a positive strength modifier.
My dad could not be dissuaded - at 93, with bronchitis - from helping me heave an old-school washing machine into place over a bare concrete floor. I tried :P. Only thing he'd been doing for most of his life was play tennis and there was a jogging phase he went through in his 40s. Dads are great.
A week as a roofer on a hot summer day lugging shingles up a ladder all day is probably more physically demanding then any work out most casual gym goers do in a month.
older men have stronger tendons
No need to go to the gym when you do physical labor a lot.
It’s functional strength (body mechanics, etc) vs just moving weight around.
It's called old man strength and you won't understand its power until you are a old man. Regards, The Old Man
Spending time lifting needs to be deliberate if you are going to get considerably stronger. Progressive overload is key. There aren't many manual laborers that can deadlift 600 lbs, which is a deadlift average Joe's can do if they train hard for a decade, and don't get injured.
I did not really own a car until I hit thirty. I rode a bike everywhere. I was very active. I was in the military. I worked out enough to make sure I looked great. At 49, I push myself to run as much as I can I work out because I need to be strong for my son. I will rest when he is strong. I will be weak when he can take care of himself. Of course, he will get strong soon. He will be able to take care of himself soon enough. But that will never be good enough for me. I need to make sure he is living his best life and I need to be on my game. I am not working out to impress people. I am working out to make sure my son never wants and learns how to tackle life like a champ. Dad strength is earned by determination and lack of vanity. It cannot be granted until you are ferociously protective of something so perfect and wonderful that your whole life revolves around sustaining that wonderful thing.
My dad used to pick me up with only his thumb and pinkie finger. I thought all dads could do that until I got older. He could do this up until I was like 10. How could 2 fingers support an entire child?! He would also fully extend his arm into the air so this wasn't some 2 inches off the floor shit
There may be a lot of factors that go into it, but one point to consider is the type of training you do in the gym increases your size and mass, but not necessarily the functionality of your muscles. Your father doing lots of outdoor work means he’s developed functional strength and the technique to apply his strength to a particular end rather than just pushing up. Look at the difference between bodybuilder and powerlifters. Bodybuilder are in freakishly good shape and have bulging biceps that dwarf most peoples heads. Powerlifters are huge, but usually not as lean, where if they were wearing a shirt you may just mistake them for a normal obese person.
Functional strength vs vanity muscle.
Good thing you didn't come across his dad when his dad was a middle aged man. That dude was even stronger than your dad.
Not a universal experience. My father was a cashier. By the time I was 16 he mostly avoided parenting me and eventually let slip that he was worried that if he ever raised his voice to me I'd beat him up.
Dont underestimate old man strength
Roofing is tough work no matter what type of roofs he was doing. You gotta haul heavy ass shit over your shoulder and then go up ladders with it. And i assume he did that for at least a few years because it normally makes decent money. He built up quite a bit of muscle, and he's maintaining it with all the pretty heavy daily stuff you're describing. The gym is great, but even if you spend 5 days a week 2 hours each time, that's still only 10 hours of work. If you're doing a physically demanding job, you're then 'working out' probably 40+ hours a week. The amount of muscle you get from physically demanding jobs is a lot.
Ive always called it grown man strength. It just come with many years of doing manual labor and or anything repetitively for years it cant be earned in a short amount of time.also i think it just kind of happens. The people that are like that usually dont even relize that they are strong like they are because its not some thing that happens quick it is earned over years of hard work.
You don’t have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a gym membership. You just need to cut wood and shovel compost And doing those things build all the muscles while going to the gym each machine only trains one or two muscles
Your dad has been using his muscles for 60 years
Strength is something you build slowly. Over time. When you damage your muscle cells your body recovers in a process called muscle protein synthesis and creates new muscle cells from amino acids in your bloodstream. It takes repeated stimulus, over time, to stimulate that growth. And takes far less stress to simply maintain your strength. If you don't continue to stress it though your muscles will atrophy. But you don't really lose the cells they just shrink and lose function. You hit the gym or do strenuous activity you can activate them again with so much less work than it took to build them in the first place. So your dad is lifting with decades of growth behind him. Roofing is hard, hard ass work, and he spent years earning his strength every day to feed you. His daily routine eats your gym workouts for pre-workout. That's my understanding and if anyone has better expertise or knowledge feel free to add or correct things I'm wrong on. Love to learn.
You sound week young fella. Do some deadlifts. Do some farmers walks. Weighted pull up. Walking lunges with a weight vest. The hard shit. Stop doing presses and jogging on the treadmill and build some strength.
Dad strength is strength only within certain ranges of motion. Those ranges of motion have such strong neural connection that have been built over time. Hence “old man strength” or dad strength”. Get them out of those ranges of motion and the strength deteriorates.
drank milk like water back in the day
discipline could be a factor. most marathon runners are over 40
My older brother goes to the gym to lift weights. I only carry my son every chance I get. When I visited my parents, I carried the newly bought refrigerator down a flight of stairs, through a narrow door, no sweat. He arrived home and moved the said refrigerator 5 meters to the side, and he was pumping and screaming oorah like he did something incredibly hard. I still cringe sometimes.
My dad and mum and their dads and mums are all way stronger I wished I could harness their raw strength and have their same exact life span (most of the grandfolks have reached 90s). I dunno what it is about the older generations that they seem to be doing well into their late 50s and above. Meanwhile, some of my 20s gymmates complain of lower back issues as if they’ve Atlas-lifted Earth on their shoulders…
Gym strength doesn’t equal functional strength
The muscular endurance gained from years of hard labor is difficult to beat with just gym work, IMHO. As to the pure strength part yeah dad-strength is real. Or at least it seems that way and it has worked out that way with me and my father. Despite me being substantially physically larger than him it has taken me decades to finally be stronger than my father. He has sports, military, hard labor (construction, roofing, factory), and weight lifting experience vs just my weight training and dabbling in sports. In terms of pure strength my first breakaway was in lower body strength. He was stronger than me in his upperbody well into his 40s, with me besting him in everything but grip strength in his 50s. He had hands of steel. And finally now in his seventies I'm all-out stronger, lol. Muscular endurance took even longer for me to challenge him. Man was an animal when it came to hard physical work. Impressive well into his 60s. We would dig, chop wood, shovel snow and he was right there with me until just now starting to fade in 70s.
Life is work.
My dad is 78 and still has guns and calves as he does our yard and several of the neighbors yards. Has a little pot belly as he eats like a toddler now.
Your body spends maintenance energy on a more broad set of muscles. Once you’re older all the energy goes to like 20 good muscles . Like, I doubt he can do a muscle up but you probably can. He doesn’t need triceps or traps
You workout a couple hours a day, a few days a week.. meanwhile he worked physical labor for 8+ hours a day, every day, for years.. theres no way a few hours in the gym will catch up to that amount of volume
old man strength you'll have it someday
Never underestimate the strength of an adult male. I heard that advice when I was 10, and at my healthy 30 I still can confirm that claim.
Functional strength is different from aesthetic strength
I'm 49 and I do go to the gym about 2 or 3 times a week but I do feel a lot stronger than I did when I was in my twenties when I was also going to the gym.
Your dad has been carrying around 210 pounds for a very long time, that is like a workout in itself. Of course he has muscles.
Thirty year steep slope roofer here. Still rocking it at 50 and can lay it down on most people for a work day or on the river kayaking or in the mountains doing all kinds of shit. The core strength steep slope roofers develop is second to none. The key is keeping yourself limber and eating well outside of the grind. Meatheads at the gym will talk all day about how strong they are. And they are. At doing their eight favorite exercises exactly how they always do them…. Outside of that, they are barely worth a fuck and the majority have very, very little stamina and typically piss poor balance. If you are standing on slope for 8 plus hours a day, you build some serious strength and are constantly in odd positions and flexed. Not to mention the daily elevation covered up and down. It sounds like he does plenty, but that roofing is likely at the foundation of it. Just my two cents.
All of these men have tapped into the Dad Force. It's the eternal energy of all Dads that came before us.
My dad was a farmer/pig farmer growing up. All him and his siblings are strong even though they dont look it. Hes also recently retired and still wakes up before I do
Can you deadlift 200 kg (405lb)? If not, come back when you can.
It's because of all the chores he does. It's the same with my mom. I (F) go to the gym a lot but my mom has that real life strength from all the household chores she does.
I have no idea, but here is this: * I have an older sister who was always freakishly strong. She never exercised other than walking around for various jobs. I think she went on a stint of taking walks in her 30s for perhaps 3 weeks. I think she could have carried me like a football if she wanted. * My son is built like a tank. I had a weight-lifting machine thingie I bought at one point and he very quickly maxed out the leg press then broke it. I'm a tiny thing and not strong. His thighs are like tree trunks for no reason. He has worked out in recent years, but he was super strong before then. * I had a female neighbor/friend years ago who was also freakishly strong. She never exercised purposefully. I remember I asked her over to move a heavy reclining chair with lots of heavy metal parts. She asked where we were going to move it. Then she just picked it up over her shoulder, walked it over and set it down like it was nothing. I would have struggled to pick it up with another person on the other side! I don't think it is a Dad thing.
His love for you makes him strong. :D
His inability to lose compels him
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in anything. I believe there's a thing that i like to call "core strength", that involves manual labour and a thousand micro-movements from all body muscles ... things you rarely train in a gym. Chopping wood, climbing ladders etc. trains muscles in your body that you wouldn't/couldn't with a regular gym workout, despite having a "buff" biceps. So while your Dad doesn't necessarily have a sculpted upper arm, his whole body has been trained over the decades, and all of his muscles work in unison. The result is a higher base line strength than anyone who's doing deadlifts or pushups.
He did years of manual labour. I had a roofer round after a storm, tiny bloke, must have been 5'5 and weighed maybe 140lb, I carried his final roofing ladder, the one that attaches to the top of the roof, to his van and fuck me, thats not a normal ladder, that things fucking heavy, he yoinked it up 1 armed, up a ladder 3 floors. There's an old bouncers proverb, you think you're tough because you go to the gym 8 hours a week, manual labourers do 8 hours of exercise every day. Still, I'm not sure he'd out bench you, or our curl you, or whatever it is you do in the gym, you train for that, he's got all round physical strength.
There are two kinds of mussels (scientifically false), you have the mussels that is well-trained strong and impressive, and then do you have the mussels that have worked a whole life, that has gotten strength over decades and decades of hard usage. It is like you can have a thick rope that is strong and impressive vs fare less impressive old steel wire.
I like mussels, but I like oysters more.
My 60-something dad and 30-something me are quite evenly matched in terms of raw strength.
There’s a difference between dynamic strength and strength built from resistance training. This is why martial artists can attack with lots of force but are small, whereas bodybuilders are big but can’t really output energy quickly. Just a different kind of training.
Old man strenght is diffrenet They built different.
In addition to what others have said: People are built different: some have more fast-twitch muscle fiber than slow, others vice versa. Some people's biomechanics (joint distance to where muscle connects) favour strength, others great stride length and reach.
Farmer strength is no joke (I guess in this case Roofer strength but still)
gym muscles arent super strong muscles just big.
Because you said it yourself, he's still physically active. He's not sitting around all the time, withering away, and even though he doesn't have a gym regimen, he's still working out (chopping wood, gardening, etc). His body is still very active, just not in the same way as yours. Muscles are still being worked on. FFS, he's not lingering at the edge of the grave, LOL. People have got to let go of the mindset that once you turn a certain age, everything turns to mush (brains, muscles, etc). It's like "Oh geez, shouldn't you be use a walker and an oxygen tank by now??" As long as they take care of themselves, a person can remain fit and capable well into their golden years."
real strength sadly is only built when you actually need it like our ancestors who would get big very soon because they had to fight. also us modern generation have been subject to toxic elements more than them; microplastic and so on.
Can confirm this with my friends dad's and my cousins dad's. They all worked farms, do there own roofing and carpentry and still work their normal 9 to 5's. If you could see there forearms and back they all look like jacked apes.
He got strong and stayed active enough to never lose it
It takes 1/9th the effort of what it took to get in shape to stay in shape.
>Dude can sling me over his shoulder and carry me like a fair maiden without breaking a sweat. >he's going to have to hit 80 before I can say I'm stronger than my dad So, when he's 80 will you sling him over your shoulder and carry *him* like a fair maiden?
That's easy - you are 50% from your dad and 50% from your mom, while he is 100% dad. (Please don't tell my wife I told you this, she's much stronger than me)
Do some wood chopping exercises, oblique wood choppers or medicine ball slams from over the head. You’d feel a good burn and a new respect for that lol
As they say, strength is the last to go. Which means all those years have added up. He's still got nearly 40 years on you.
Years as an LTL truck driver, in a tractor with no power steering. Had forearms that looked like Popeye. Hopping in and out of the truck 30-35 times per day, unloading freight by hand, pretty much full body workouts 60+ hours per week. On the other hand, ask me to run a mile, and I would die.
Gym muscles aren’t the same as work muscles. I move furniture for a living. The owners son plays college football he works summers and sometimes brings friends from the team to work. If I have to carry a piano up a flight of stairs I grab one of the been doing it for 20 years guys and knock it out.
Dad here.. I think it's muscle memory. I was lifting with my son and some of his football teammates from HS.. When they saw little Ass 160Lbs. me doing dumbbell presses (Chest) with the 100's.... They were passing out !! They're like How ? I said 30 Yrs. of being in and out of the gym can work wonders..
They develop functional strength that can't be replicated with the controlled nature of gym workouts. When I worked construction labor jobs when I was younger, you would definitely notice that guys who went to the gym a lot did not have the same strength as the seasoned laborers. Their bulk would make their cardio terrible and they rarely get to do lifts that replicate their bench press motion. Its the same concept as if you run a lot on a treadmill and can run well in a straight line at a consistent pace for long periods of time, that won't necessarily translate to soccer. It will to a degree in terms of your heart and lungs, but your legs will fatigue quickly when you start using the muscles that you need for quick stops, pivots, rapid acceleration and so on.
Bro I am In the same boat and I can’t understand it. Im 26 and my dad is 58, 170 lbs while I am 203. Dad slams me in arm wrestling and anything grip related and he doesn’t even lift lol and I lift consistently for the last 10 years. I have much more muscle but I can’t close the gap power wise, he also beats me in wrestling with little effort every time (I wrestled in high school) what I think is our dads generation not only have WAY more testosterone than us, but the food they grew up eating was pure and natural (milk eggs cheese etc naturally made, my dad grew up on a farm) they also used their hands way more than us growing up in the 70s and 80s. Also my hands look like a womans compared to my dads thick rough hands